How to create a landing page for your brand with Lightspeed eCom
A landing page is a standalone web page where a visitor "lands" after clicking on a link in an email, ad, or post in social media.
You can use a landing page to:
- Collect customer emails to enroll people in your email newsletter
- Convert visitors into customers by prompting them to take a specific action, such as filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, visiting your store, or making a purchase.
- Introduce your brand to a wider audience.
- Invite people to an event.
- Promote a new collection or product launch.
- Communicate with the audience by using a landing page as a hub where all your social media profiles are accessible, and then share the link to your personalized landing page across all your social media profiles.
With Lightspeed eCom, an in-house E-commerce solution for Lightspeed Retail POS (X-Series), you can create a landing page with a code-free site builder. The site builder provides you with crucial features for creating a landing page with or without the ability of an online purchase. In addition, you can use custom solutions to enhance your online presence.
Access the Lightspeed eCom site builder
To begin building a landing page, you need to enable Lightspeed eCom in your Lightspeed Retail POS (X-Series). After that, you will get a website builder called Instant Site that you can use to create a goal-specific site.
To access the Lightspeed eCom site editor:
- Enable Lightspeed eCom.
- From your Retail POS, click Online in the menu on the left, scroll down and click Go to eCom.
- In the eCom admin, go to Website → Overview.
- Click Edit Site to open the editor.
Choose a template for your landing page
You start building a landing page by choosing a site template in the Lightspeed eCom website editor. Focus on the layout and content arrangement, rather than the imagery since you will replace the default content with your own.
Once you select a template, you can edit it to create a landing page: add images, videos, text, buttons, carousels, promo bars, change colors, typography, and so on.
Learn more about choosing a site template →
Structure your landing page
Typically, landing pages are standalone websites that are created for specific campaigns such as holiday sales or opening a new store, focused solely on capturing leads or driving sales. Still, sometimes a landing page can be a part of a multi-page site. For example, when you launch a new collection or product and want to highlight it on your e-commerce site.
With Lightspeed eCom site builder, you can go both ways and create a standalone landing page, or add a page on your existing website. In this guide, we will create a standalone landing page, but you can use the same tips to build a specific page on an existing multi-page website.
The main goal of a landing page is to grab people’s attention and make them perform a target action. For this, you will need several key elements, called site sections, that are added on the page:
Headline. Make it clear, short and catchy so that it conveys the main benefit or message. For example, “Award-Winning Skincare Limited Edition.”
Subheadline. Provide additional context or detail to support the headline. For example, “Say hello to the most radiant skin of your life. We introduce a new limited edition of morning skincare products. Be the first one to try it.”
Hero image or video. Visually engage visitors and illustrate the product or service. In case of a new product, it can be a video showcasing how to use it.
Call to Action (CTA). Encourage visitors to take a specific action. For example, “Get Your Skincare Magic Box”. Usually, the CTA is placed on a button. Upon clicking the button, customers can proceed to your online store, a page with store locations, or a form where they can leave their contacts to get a product.
Features and benefits. A section that highlights the key features and benefits of the product or service. Lightspeed eCom site builder has specific sections for that such as a carousel where you can showcase products in detail, the Our Benefits section, and more.
Social proof. A section that communicates positive experiences of other people using your products. It builds trust and credibility with new customers. Lightspeed eCom site builder has the specific Customer Reviews section for this.
Lead capture form. A form or a popup to collect visitor information, such as email addresses, in exchange for something valuable. You can add it to your website through one of Lightspeed eCom apps.
Additional content. Provide more detailed information for visitors who want to learn more. It can be a section on pricing, FAQs, secondary CTA, or list of your stores with their addresses.
Here’s an example of how a landing page may look:
Enable or disable online store on your landing page
When you create a website with Lightspeed eCom, you can opt in for an online store with just a single or several items. With an online store enabled on your landing page, you can make online purchases the primary target action for your customers.
To allow customers to purchase your products online:
- Select what products from your POS catalog to show in your online store.
- Add a payment method to your online store. The easiest payment method for online is enabling Lightspeed Payments or offering cash only payments that are enabled in your online store by default.
- Add a shipping method to your online store. The easiest option is to offer in-store pickup. This allows shoppers to choose their preferred pickup time and may encourage them to buy additional items when they visit your store to collect their order.
To disable an online store on your landing page, you will have to hide the Shop section and links to it in the top menu before launching a site.
To hide the Shop section from a landing page:
- Remove the Shop menu item from the top menu.
- If you enable at least one product from your Retail POS to appear in your online store, then you have to delete the Shop section. If you haven’t enabled products for Lightspeed eCom, then skip this step.
Add a lead capture form on your landing page
A lead capture form is the main element of your landing page that allows you to collect people's emails or phone numbers. You can use that data to add more customers to your CRM system and engage directly with potential customers.
Depending on your goals, you can have different types of forms to your landing page:
Contact form. Collect basic contact information such as name, email, or phone number for general inquiries. For example, encourage potential customers to take the next step, such as making a purchase, offer on-account sale, or scheduling a visit.
Newsletter signup forms. Gather email addresses for sending newsletters and promotional materials. This will help to start building a relationship with potential customers by keeping them informed about special deals and offers.
Registration forms. Sign up people for different sorts of events. You can also offer to become a member of your store’s Loyalty program, encouraging people to purchase from you to earn bonus points.
Quote request forms. Collect contacts of people who are highly interested in your upcoming or out-of-stock products and want to request a quote. You can contact them later to discuss the details.
In your Lightspeed eCom, there are several ways to add contact forms on your landing page:
- Currently, the section library of Instant Site does not contain a Contact Form section. Still, you can create a custom section developed specifically for your landing page. You can ask your in-house developer to customize a site section, hire a freelancer, or submit a request to the Ecwid Customization team.
Learn more about developing a custom section for your site →
- Create a contact form with a third-party service like Jotform, Typeform, or Google Forms and redirect customers to it. When people click a button on your website, the contact form will open in a new window.
- Add a contact form as a HTML code to your site. The form won’t appear right away, but when customers click on a button, they will be redirected to a page with the contact form.
- Use one of eCom-specific apps to generate and add a contact form to your website. Please note that the apps are paid and you have to pay for them separately from your Lightspeed subscription.
Optimize landing page for SEO
While you will share the landing page in your social media accounts, emails, or with a QR code, it’s still worth it to optimize the site positioning in search results. That way, you can get organic traffic when people search for the related products on Google.
Here’s what you can do to make your landing page appear high in search results:
Include target keywords naturally within your content. There are tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs that can show you what wording people use when searching for items related to your business. If you include those words to your landing page, there are more chances that Google will show your site to potential customers. Try to focus on specific, long-key phrases. For example, instead of “skincare product” use “grease-free morning cleanser for oily skin”.
Add relevant meta titles and descriptions. When you google something, you see a short description under each site title in search results. This is meta descriptions and it's like a sneak peek on the site content. The more engaging it is, the more likely people will choose your site among others. In Lightspeed eCom site editor, you can add unique and relevant meta descriptions for a landing page. It’s always best to be specific instead of generic and use long-tail keywords. For example, “Achieve Grease-free Skin with Dermatouch's Face Wash for Oily Face Without Any Damaging Chemicals.”
Add ALT text to images. When you upload an image from your device to your site, use descriptive, keyword-rich file names. For example, “oily-skin-face-cleanser.jpg”. If you use products from your online catalog to showcase on a landing page, you can add ALT text for each product image, also known as alt description, or simply “alt tag”. The ALT text helps search engine robots to understand your site content, and it also ensures accessibility for visually impaired people. Be descriptive when creating an ALT text: “Oil based morning face cleanser for women.”
Connect a domain to your landing page
By default, the site you create in Lightspeed eCom is hosted on a free domain in a format of yourstore123.company.site. You can change the “yourstore123” part to any custom name, but the “company.site” part will remain unchanged.
To better communicate the goal of your landing page and also improve the site SEO, you can connect a memorable and relevant domain to it. For example, YourBrandNewArrivals.com or YourBrandLimitedEditionBoxPromo.com.
If your landing page is located on a page on your existing website, you can create a unique and relevant URL for that page. Let’s say, your site domain is smoothskin.com. Then a landing page can be located on the smoothskin.com/morning-cleanser-limited-edition URL.
In Lightspeed eCom, you can purchase a domain name right from your eCom admin. The best part is that you don’t have to set up the domain manually—after purchasing it is connected automatically to your website, with a free TLS certificate to protect your site.
Learn how to purchase a domain for your website →
Launch your landing page
All the changes you make in the site editor are saved automatically. You can preview the site look by clicking the Preview button at the top of the site editor. Changes won’t go live until you click the Publish button at the top right corner of the site editor.
Before launching your landing page, ensure everything is in perfect order. Here's a checklist to make sure your landing page is ready for visitors: