How to create your first landing page in ConvertKit. (1)

How to create your first landing page in ConvertKit.

ConvertKit is an email marketing platform, designed to help content creators start and grow a list of email subscribers who will serve as a valuable resource in helping you build and scale success as a solopreneur business owner.

It allows you to collect contact details for people who would like to receive information from you, allowing you to send emails to them on a regular basis with a view to converting them into paying clients.

What is a landing page?

A landing page, for all intents and purposes, is just a web page. Nothing more.

But the main difference between a landing page and a regular web page is the landing page’s focused attention on a single call-to-action (CTA), and no other distractions for the visitor. 

Most often, the CTA will be something like ‘Download PDF Now‘, which results in the visitor receiving the requested PDF and the landing page host receiving the visitor’s email address in return.

So, the best way to think about a landing page is as ‘meeting place’ for interested leads and business owners who want to perform a value exchange.

How do you create a landing page in ConvertKit?

The process for creating a landing page in ConvertKit is pretty straight-forward and can be done relatively quickly. Just follow along with the actions below and you’ll be up and running in a matter of minutes!

The 'Grow' menu option in ConvertKit

From ConvertKit’s top menu bar, navigate to “Grow > Landing Pages & Forms“;

Landing pages and forms menu in ConvertKit

Once you click on this menu option, you’ll be presented with the following screen; click on the button on the red bottom-right corner to create a new landing page. 👇

Landing pages and forms screen ConvertKit

Clicking on the “Create new” button will open up the following screen, giving you the option to create either a new form or landing page. 👇

Create a new form or landing page screen in ConvertKit

What’s the difference between a form and a landing page?

A form, sometimes referred to as a ‘Lead Capture Form’ is a sub-component of a landing page that can be used in isolation if you wish to embed it on your website.

The image below show a form (left hand side) and a landing page which includes a form (right hand side);

A form plus a landing page diagram.

In essence, the end result will be the same, both a form and a landing page that includes a form will collect email address details from people who wish to become one of your email subscribers and add them to your email list.

Why would you use a form instead of a landing page?

Good question… most often you would choose this option if you wish to collect email address details (plus any other details like first name, last name etc.) via a page on your website.

ConvertKit can produce a small code snippet that you include on your website and the form will display on your page, and for any visitors landing on your page, they’d be unaware that it was actually a ConvertKit webform.

Below, you can see an example of the code snippet that ConvertKit produces; once you have the code snippet, it simply needs copied and pasted into your website page; 👇G

Code snippet example for a lead capture form.

Below, you can see a real example of me doing this on my website; I offer a free beginner’s guide to email marketing, and I have embedded a ConvertKit form on my webpage (the form is on the left hand side, with a pink button);

free guide download from provenflows.com

Okay, back to the landing page. When you click on the “Landing Page” button when given the choice of a new for or landing page, you’ll be presented with a list of landing page templates from which to choose. 👇

Landing page templates provided by ConvertKit

My advice is to pick a template that most resonates with what you want to do, e.g. promote a webinar, offer a downloadable PDF, publish a newsletter etc., as you can edit it later to make it more on-brand with your fonts and colours etc. (there is a filter on the left-hand side that lets you choose relevant categories).

Once you select the template you want to use, the editor will open up, letting you amend and configure the page to accommodate your needs.

Landing page template editor in ConvertKit

Most of the landing page templates come with just the ‘Email Address‘ as the only data collection field, however you can add others in if you wish. In the example above, I’ve clicked on the plus (+) sign and added ‘First Name‘ too.

Just remember (as a general rule of thumb) that when you’re asking a visitor to enter their details, the more information you request, the less likely they are to complete it – so I recommend just these two fields. I like to collect first name so that I can personalise the emails I send out once on my list.

How to configure your form on your landing page

When you click on the “Settings” link (shown in image above), you’ll be presented with a modal pop-up window that allows you to configure the behaviour of the landing page’s form, making sure it does what you intend it to do once published.

Let’s look at the main settings of the page’s form;

General

Setting options General

You can either choose the default option, which is to present ConvertKit’s standard message when someone completes your form, or you can type your own message in the text box provided.

The second option you have is to redirect your subscribers to an external URL that you have specially created for this purpose. It could be a page that has a video message from you, or an offer only available to subscribers.

Personally, I would urge caution about trying to sell at this point – it comes across (IMHO) as a bit salesy, so I don’t do it, but I do know of other email marketers who do this successfully.

Domain Name

Domain name settings landing page form

This is where you get to decide on which URL you want to direct your visitors to, in order to arrive at your landing page. There are basically two options, either use the URL as created by ConvertKit (you can modify it to be more on-brand with your business or service name) or you can connect your own domain to your ConvertKit so that it aligns better with your website address.

For example, I have my domain connected (provenflows.com) and I chose the sub-domain name of “pages“. So, whenever I create a landing page in ConvertKit, my page URL would look something like this;

pages.provenflows.com/beginners-guide-to-email-marketing 

The text before the “/” is constant for all pages, and is unique to my business. The text after the “/” is the unique part of the URL, specific to, and different for, each landing page.

And if I didn’t have my domain connected then I’d use ConvertKit’s domain which is (for me);

provenflows.ck.page/beginners-guide-to-email-marketing (where the “ck.page” part of the URL is ConvertKit’s domain).

*Note: If you decide to put your landing page right on “yourdomain.com” or what I did, on one if its sub-domains (e.g. pages.yourdomain.com).

*This option requires DNS changes on your hosting provider.

 

Either method works absolutely perfectly well, so just go with your preference.

 

Incentive

Incentive settings landing page form

This is arguably one of the most critical settings to get right, especially if you want to start and grow a nice clean email list. 

Let me explain why – it’s regarding subscribers’ opt-in preferences.

You can either configure your landing page to operate a “single opt-in” model or a “double opt-in” model.

Single Opt-In: In simple terms, this opt-in policy allows anyone to add any email address (either valid or invalid) to your email list. They need not actually own the email address, even if it’s a legitimate address (in other words, it could well be someone else’s email address).

Below is a flow diagram showing the sequence of events for a single opt-in subscriber; 👇

Single Opt-in policy flow diagram

Double Opt-In: In simple terms, this opt-in policy only allows people to add their email address to your email list if they can confirm that it’s both a valid address and that they have access to the mail inbox.

When a double opt-in policy is in place on a landing page, the subscriber must click on a link inside a confirmation email that ConvertKit will send to the address supplied. A double opt-in policy will ensure you have fewer problems with invalid or spam-type email addresses.

Below is a flow diagram showing the sequence of events for a double opt-in subscriber; 👇

Double Opt-in policy flow diagram

IMPORTANT:

In order to select a double opt-in policy for your forms and landing pages, you need to make sure the option box to “Send incentive email” is ticked AND make sure the option box “Auto-confirm new subscribers” is NOT selected (see setting modal pop-up box, in “Incentive” options tab). 👇

Opt-in setting in ConvertKit

Sharing the URL of your landing page

Whichever URL type you decide to implement in your system, i.e. use the ConvertKit one (….ck.page) or integrate your own with a sub-domain (mine is pages.provenflows.com) you’ll need to publish your page and copy the published URL.

Below you can see an example of this, showing the “Publish” button and the URL that you can copy;

Publish landing page option in ConvertKit

So, there you are, you now know how to implement your first landing page in ConvertKit. Just follow this process step by step and you can have your first landing page ‘live’ and published in less than an hour.

I hope you found value in this article. If you did, please share it with your community so that more people may benefit from learning about email marketing.