For the last few years, I have been hearing that WordPress is not suitable for building landing pages, and conversion rate is abysmal with landing pages made with WordPress.
So many online coaches are promoting the use of expensive tools for building landing pages while vilifying WordPress.
Do you think WordPress is inadequate for landing pages and conversions?
Let me answer this question in two parts because building a landing page is one part and making it conversion-friendly is an altogether different matter.
And we have to look at these two things separately.
Is WordPress difficult for building a landing page?
WordPress was never bad for building a landing page. Bad is the wrong word to use here. However, we can say that it was difficult for an average person to create a landing page using it.
But this was the case some years back; today we have page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, Thrive Architect, Divi, Visual Composer and what not.
All these are fantastic page builders boasting excellent landing page building capabilities. In fact, with a page builder like Elementor, we get built-in integration with services like ConvertKit, Drip and Mailchimp etc.
So, if we ask the question today; is WordPress good for building landing pages?
Again I will say, the word ‘good’ is wrong here. We can say with the combination of WordPress + Page Builder; it is now easy for an average non-techy person to build a landing page.
So, do I need to purchase any landing page builder like Instapage, Leadpages if WordPress + Page Builder accomplishes the same thing?
Let’s, first of all, see, what benefits tools such as Leadpages, or Instapage provide?
Done for you, ready to use templates
Easy integration with email service providers
A/B testing to find out the effectiveness of different versions of landing pages
So does the combination of WordPress + Page builders provide this?
Page builder like Elementor provides you with quite a few done for you, ready to use templates. But not all of them are landing pages.
Elementor does provide some integrations like ConvertKit, Mailchimp and few prominent ones, but these are nowhere as comprehensive as Leadpages or Instapage.
A/B testing is also not a feature of all page builders. Divi does provide one out of the box while Elementor does not.
But it boils down to what your requirements are
Do you need A/B split testing at this moment?
Do you need 50+ different landing page templates?
Do you need every integration at this moment? Or a simple Mailchimp or ConvertKit integration is sufficient at this juncture.
If answers to the above questions are negative, then no, you don’t have to purchase any other tool. WordPress + a Page builder will be sufficient for you.
Now that we have seen the first part let’s move on the next section, that is conversion.
Do landing pages built using WordPress have bad conversion rates?
As far as I am concerned, a tool is rarely an issue when it comes to conversion unless the pages built using a particular tool are slow-loading and do not render correctly on all devices.
Let’s see the factors on which the landing page conversion depends
Page loading speed: If you are using a slow hosting, poorly coded theme and plugins for your WordPress website, then your landing page will load slowly, which in turn will affect conversion rates. This is where the landing page tools excel because you don’t have to worry about loading speed, hosting, or technical thing as such.
An engaging copy will lead to higher conversion. So, here any tool won’t be able to help you if the copy is not engaging enough.
Page structure also impacts the conversion. The flow of the landing page is critical in making a page visitor take action.
So, WordPress is rarely an issue when we talk about conversions.
A landing page is a specialized marketing tool. It is not that easy to build a landing page that converts well. The copy of the landing page, the placements of various blocks, the social proof, a right hook are some of the critical aspects of a well-converting landing page.
Many landing pages are built using WordPress by big-name course creators, consultants, businesses.
That’s why when someone says landing pages built using WordPress are poor for conversion then that’s not true.
A poorly designed landing page will perform poorly irrespective of the tool.
Buying Leadpages or Instapage will not magically solve the conversion issue. Yes, these tools will make your life simpler in the first part of building the landing page.
But it cannot guarantee you the conversions.
We can say that while WordPress might be complicated for a non-techy person to build a landing page without using a page builder. We can make it easier by using a page builder like Elementor or Divi.
But saying that landing pages built using WordPress are poor performers is something that is not right.
If your landing pages are not converting then, make sure you work on the copy, work on the placement of the blocks, work on the hook.
Best of luck building high-converting landing pages using WordPress!
