Introduction
Over the past decade, Airbnb has grown from a small startup to a globally recognized brand worth over $100 billion. They have over 6 million listings worldwide and have facilitated over 1 billion guest stays since their founding. Much of their meteoric growth can be attributed to their stunning, conversion-optimized landing pages.
By focusing on gorgeous imagery, clear messaging, and seamless booking flows, Airbnb's landing pages make travel inspiration come alive while capturing leads with ease. In this guide, we'll explore Airbnb's landing page strategy and design tactics. We'll cover key elements like emotional headlines, frictionless booking, and compelling visuals. With these tips, you can create landing pages that convert visitors into leads and customers.
Whether you're a startup trying to get more signups, or a SaaS company looking to convert free users, implementing some of Airbnb's tactics can boost conversions. The Unicorn Platform makes it easy to design beautiful, functional landing pages tailored to your business with its intuitive drag-and-drop editor and library of templates. Let's dive in!
Airbnb's Landing Page Strategy
Airbnb focuses on selling the unique travel experiences you can book on their platform. Their landing pages highlight gorgeous accommodations and activities to spark inspiration. Some key aspects of their strategy include:
- Stunning high-res imagery of destinations and properties
- Messaging about having memorable, meaningful experiences
- Prominent search bars to facilitate exploring destinations
- Reviews and testimonials for social proof
- Large, contrasting buttons that enable easy booking
- Concise, scannable copy to facilitate quick engagement
By fusing emotional and practical elements, Airbnb's landing pages speak to travelers' aspirations while explaining how booking is simple.
Optimizing Landing Page Design
When designing landing pages, Airbnb's approach serves as an excellent model. Here are some tips for optimization based on their design tactics:
- Feature relevant, high-quality images or videos to capture attention
- Craft benefit-focused headlines and supporting subheads
- Only include essential info - remove anything extraneous
- Use generous whitespace to draw the eye to key items
- Make call-to-action buttons obvious through size, color, and placement
- Build trust with ratings, reviews, testimonials, or quotes
Thoughtful use of visuals, copy, and conversion elements is vital. For example, Unicorn Platform makes refinement easy with A/B testing to determine what resonates best.
Crafting Compelling Messaging
In addition to great design, Airbnb uses messaging that motivates emotion and action. Here are some tips for writing effective copy:
- Focus on the desires, emotions, and positive outcomes your product provides
- Use conversational language to connect with visitors, like "You can easily build your startup's landing page in just a few clicks."
- Emphasize what makes your offering special or different from alternatives
- Highlight convenience, cost savings, and other practical benefits
- Feature ratings, reviews, testimonials, and customer stories
- Avoid excessive text and overused phrases that don't connect emotionally
Great copy balances inspiration with clear value communication. Test different headlines, phrases, and descriptions with Unicorn Platform to determine what works.
Integrating Forms and CTAs
Calls-to-action (CTAs) and lead capture forms are critical for conversions. Here are some tips to integrate them effectively:
- Place forms high on the page near headlines for maximum conversions
- Only request essential information needed at this stage
- Make submit buttons obvious through size, color contrast, and labels
- Include secondary CTAs like requesting a demo
- Offer discounts or free gifts to incentivize form completion
- Reassure visitors about privacy and data use to build trust
- Use tools like Unicorn Platform's form builder to add functional, optimized forms
Reducing friction while reassuring visitors helps boost conversions. Experiment with form layouts, incentives, and wording using A/B testing to identify what resonates.
Best Practices for Optimization
Here are additional tips for optimizing landing pages inspired by Airbnb's approach:
- A/B test elements like headlines, images, testimonials, and CTAs
- Analyze metrics like time on page and bounce rate to identify drop-off points
- Ensure fast page load speeds by optimizing images, code, and enabling CDNs
- Make pages mobile-responsive to accommodate all visitors
- Include alt text for images and headings for screen readers to improve accessibility
- Allow easy social sharing to expand reach
- Take advantage of Unicorn Platform's speed and performance optimizations
By continually testing and analyzing data, you can refine landing pages over time. Unicorn Platform's AI assistance also provides data-driven recommendations to boost conversions.
Key Elements to Include
Crafting high-converting landing pages requires nailing certain essential elements. Here are some of the most important sections to focus on:
Hero Section
The hero section is critical for immediately capturing interest. Best practices include:
- An emotional, benefit-focused headline
- Striking visuals like high-quality images or video
- A subheadline summarizing the key offering or benefit
- Messaging about what makes your product or service special
- A prominent, high-contrast call-to-action button
- A strong customer review, quote, or testimonial for social proof
This section sets the tone and should motivate visitors to convert.
Key Benefits
The key benefits section explains the most important advantages of your offering. Follow these tips:
- Distill benefits down to 3-5 main points
- Focus on emotional outcomes like confidence or convenience
- Use conversational, actionable language
- Include relevant visuals to reinforce each benefit
- Emphasize cost savings, productivity, or other tangible upside
- Add a secondary CTA like "Learn more" to nurture leads
Communicating benefits clearly and emotionally is vital for engagement and conversions.
Social Proof
Build trust and credibility by spotlighting social proof elements like:
- Reviews, ratings, testimonials from real customers
- Impressive metrics like number of customers or revenue
- Logos of recognizable brands that use your product
- Quotes from customers describing tangible outcomes
- Authentic user-generated photos and videos
- Features in major publications or certifications
This shows potential customers your product delivers results.
Lead Capture Form
To convert visitors, strategically integrate forms:
- Only include essential fields to reduce abandonment
- Offer an incentive like a Unicorn Platform coupon for completing it
- Make the submit button obvious through color, size and labeling
- Reassure visitors about privacy and data usage
- Place form prominently near top of page
- Use tools like Unicorn Platform's form builder to add forms easily
Minimizing friction and offering incentives helps capture more leads.
Additional Sections
Other helpful sections include:
- Product overview video for more engagement
- Logos of customers for social proof
- More focused testimonials about emotions and outcomes
- Secondary CTA for free trial sign-up or consultation request
- FAQ section addressing common questions, like "How do I create a landing page?"
- Contact info and lead generation options like live chat
These sections build credibility, trust, and lead capture opportunities. Prioritize what best fits your goals and audience.
Conclusion
Implementing landing page best practices can greatly increase leads and conversions. By following Airbnb's customer-focused approach blending inspirational messaging with easy booking flows, you can craft high-converting pages.
Conduct A/B tests, analyze metrics, and continually refine elements like headlines, visuals, and CTAs. Take advantage of Unicorn Platform's designer, templates, and tools to quickly build landing pages tailored to your startup or SaaS. With these tips, you can create landing pages as compelling as Airbnb's to capture more leads.
