We attended a nice webinar this morning from Ion Interactive about website Landing pages.
What is a LANDING PAGE? Landing pages are a campaign, ad, or ‘message specific’ page on your website.
Landing pages are typically created to live outside of the structure of the main site, because they are designed to bring specific traffic into the website.
Here’s an example: Google “limo driver jobs in orange county“, notice in the organic listing for ExcelFleetLimo.com it takes you directly to the JOBS page. THIS is a landing page designed to drive interest for this particular keyword phrase 🙂
There are no hard and fast rules for landing page best practices. Common best practices are:
1. Maintaining continuity from click to conversion (match ad to landing page, etc)
2. Constant testing (use analytics and A-B testing for maximum results)
3. Audience segmentation (know your target markets and separate them accordingly)
4. Speed and agility (landing pages need to load fast, AND you need to respond instantly)
A lot more goes into a landing page than just throwing up a new page on your website. Landing pages need to consider design, strategy, coding, writing, analytics, and testing. Its easy to spend a month creating one landing page!
How can we simplify the process? How can we as online marketers get rid of the friction in the process? Well, its mostly about creating a consistent strategy and not spinning our wheels doing a bunch of ad hoc afterthoughts. Yes, throwing a page up may get the job done, but lack of planning is going to get you underperforming pages. Every landing page needs a purpose and a goal.
How can you automate and better manage this landing page process? Try this flow:
1. Create
2. Review
3. Launch
4. Test
5. Analyze. for best results try to do this AS the traffic comes in, not after.
6. Iterate
7. Organize
Think about what your needs are today, and what they will be tomorrow and in the future. A word to the wise: Don’t fight hundreds or thousands of landing pages! The more specific your page is, the better it will convert!! Landing pages get MORE and BETTER conversions than most normal website pages.
How can you keep the above uncluttered? Well, there are a few ways. Most are simple solutions, but so many companies are all over the place. If you’re one of them, try these suggestions:
1. Use a central repository for your landing pages and components
2. Minimize your IT dependancy
3. Use templates – this helps keep your brand consistent too
4. Get your content pre-approved
5. Standardize your data collection and forms – if your leads dont import to your database from these landing pages you could be in big trouble; or be up all night doing data entry.
Are there tools to help? There are!!! Look into the LiveBall landing page management platform 🙂 Don’t know HTML? That’s ok, its a WYSIWYG!
Ion did case studies with their clients using the above tool, and ALL the websites have an increased conversion rate. A significant increase! Isn’t that want you wanted?
What landing pages have you created recently? How are they working out for you? If you need help you can always call us @ 949-229-5932 or comment your questions on this post – obviously this web optimization isn’t simple potatoes is it?!
