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Unbounce

Unbounce is one of the best-known landing page creators. It’s very easy to use, though maybe not the smoothest tool or the one with the most bells and whistles. With Unbounce, you get 85 free templates, all mobile-friendly. These templates include aesthetic themes and purpose formats like lead generation, mobile app, and webinar, and they’re updated for popular trends like parallax scrolling and full-page background images.

Unbounce is rock solid with all your basic tools like drag and drop menu, A/B split testing and page customization. It also offers more advanced ones like automatic SSL encryption, dynamic text replacement, and a script manager. Another great feature is that your landing pages here are responsive. That means they will show up as intended whether the viewer is on a laptop or mobile device. Unbounce starts at $49/month (for up to 5000 visitors), or higher traffic versions with more features for $99-499. All plans offer support via email, phone or live chat. You can try out a 30-day free trial to get started.

LeadPages

Many top bloggers I know,  use LeadPages. It’s only for landing pages, but there’s a lot to recommend it. LeadPages offers over 350 different templates, which are sorted by industry and function – ebook marketing, signing up for a webinar or email list, etc. One of LeadPages’s unique features is that their templates are sorted by conversion rate, so you can choose the one which has performed the best in your field. It’s no guarantee of success, but it definitely gives your campaign a head start. This tool is known for its ease of use. You can publish to a Facebook page in just four clicks! You can also grab code off it and add it to your site, WordPress or Facebook page yourself.

Leadpages has an analytics section like the other landing page creators and A/B testing with the higher tier plans. What really sets Leadpages apart, in my opinion, is their “Leadbox” feature, available with all plans above the basic. You can set these pop-up’s to display whenever the user clicks on a link. The box will ask for the user’s email before sending them to more content or a free bonus like an e-book. You can make the Leadbox work with any major email marketing service. All pages are mobile responsive, and you can set up unlimited pages. It comes with a bunch of other neat features like video players, digital asset delivery, SMS opt-in codes, and 1-click signup links. Plans start at $25/month. Advanced features, better support, and access to an affiliate program are available for the higher plans. Just note that most templates cost $10-15 to use.

Wishpond

Wishpond is a great multifunctional tool. It’s like four for the price of one: killer landing pages, popups and forms, contests and promos, and marketing automation. It can connect with over 30 marketing platforms. Wishpond is good for all of the standard features and lead management. However, where it really excels is in all its additional tools: email marketing, forms, popups, etc. It has an area where you can set automatic emails to go out to people who are interested in your product. You can create lists of users who complete different actions while on your site, and integrate with other tools for email marketing and forms. You can use it without any programming expertise, but for next-level customization, Wishpond allows you to enter your own CSS or Javascript

All plans include A/B testing and real-time analytics for unlimited visitors, plus integration with MailChimp and Salesforce. Plans start at $45/month. Basic and Pro plans offer email and live chat support, and with Growth level, you get phone too. All of them are available for a 14-day free trial.

Instapage

Instapage boasts of 1 million landing pages with conversion rates of over 25%. It’s a smooth and intuitive tool designed solely for creating killer landing pages. Simplicity is the name of the game with Instapage, and this tool proves that you don’t need a million complex features to make your site perform well. The Instapage designers go to great lengths to ensure that all their templates will generate the maximum conversions. They all include elements that research has determined are essential for landing page optimization – social elements, enough white space around every element, following natural eye path order, unified page goal, etc. – and they’ve all been subjected to a five-second test. This tool offers 89 free templates and 71 more available for purchase of Themeforest. They’re all fully customizable and mobile responsive.

It also has a great analytics dashboard. You can split traffic, track conversion rates, compare conversion rates vs. unique visitors, and more. Third-party software integration is available for MailChimp, WordPress and other tools for CRM, email marketing and social media. Instapage starts at $29/month, but for CSS customization and A/b split testing you’ll have to go in at $55 or $127. All plans are for unlimited pages, visitors and domains. The basic plan has email support, the chat is added for the next level up and phone support for Premium.

Choosing your landing page creator

Before you settle on one landing page creator, I highly recommend kicking a few tires. Take full advantage of the free trial period that these tools offer. Play around, see if you can make what you’re dreaming of if it has all the features you need and the interface is easy and intuitive for you. All of these tools have something valuable to offer and makes all the difference for you might be one small feature. For example, I really like Leadpages but some people are turned off by having to pay extra for templates and A/B testing. Still, it performs well enough for me that I don’t mind the extra cost.

Generally, to get the really interesting features from these tools you’ll have to go in beyond the basic plan. In some cases, it’s definitely worth it. In others, if you have some coding skills and make good use of the more specialized tools below, it might not be.

Other tools

Besides landing page creators, there are plenty of tools that can help make your page really awesome. These are just a few of the most interesting.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is super useful. Possibly the best heatmap tool out there, it measures clicks on your page to create a visual representation of how people are using your site. If you see an area is attracting a lot of attention, put your important elements there. If there are dead zones where no-one goes, you can probably cut whatever’s there. It will also give you a scroll map, showing how much time users spend on each part of your page, or a confetti overlay map, which categorizes clicks by browser, country, device or other categories. It’s easy to install and provides an invaluable look at your site’s actual function.

Optimizely

Most landing page creators come with split testing, but if you make yours from scratch then a tool like Optimizely is a must. It offers A/B, multivariate and multi-page testing, including mobile-focused, so you can get real data on what works and what doesn’t on your page. It will also allow you to create personalized experiences for your viewers based on their past behavior. It’s simple, intuitive and cost-effective. The one big drawback is that you have to design your own A/B tests, which can be intimidating for someone without a lot of experience.

Launchrock

Launchrock is a tool specifically for making “coming soon” landing pages. If you about to launch a start-up, release a new product or host a one-time event, it’s perfect for getting the word out or gauging interest. You just pick a theme, put in your message and you’re good to go.

5 Second Test

Opinions are formed at lightning speed online. Within seconds of viewing your page, most users will already have decided what they think about your product. It’s not so easy to change this first impression, especially when a million other options are just a click away. 5 Second Test will show you whether or not you’re putting your best foot forward. It gives you real feedback from random users on your site. After five seconds on the page, some users will be asked a question which you specify – something like what stood out the most or what they think is the main value of your product. This is your core message which should be clear right away. 5 Second Test doesn’t allow you to screen for your target audience, but it’s a good way to take the temperature of your landing page.

UserTesting

This one gives you a more in-depth review. Users record themselves thinking out loud while they navigate your site. Listening to this can provide incredibly useful feedback. You’ll find out what parts of your site people get excited by, and where they’re confused. If there’s a problem, the users will point it out for you. You can learn exactly how people navigate your page – something you just can’t do without a fresh set of eyes. You can also choose your users by demographics, device and web expertise. UserTesting is a bit pricey at $49 for the first 10 videos, but that’s plenty of data to work with, and this information can be a game changer.

Know of any great tools that I left out? Share in the comments below.