How to Create Killer Landing Pages
By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008
In the field of online marketing, a landing page is the page that
appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a
search engine result link. It is sometimes known as a lead
capture page and usually displays content that reinforces the
message contained in the ad or search snippet.
Types of Landing Pages
There are two main types of landing page:
1) Reference Landing Page
Reference landing pages deliver information relevant to the
visitor. This could include text, images, links or other elements
not requiring interaction.
2) Transactional Landing Page
Transactional landing pages ask visitors to complete a
transaction such as clicking on an advertisement, filling out a
form or downloading a file with the aim being immediate or
eventual conversion of that prospect to a sale. To aid the
capturing of new leads, transactional pages generally seek
visitor contact details such as a name, email address and/or a
telephone number.
A visitor taking the desired action on a transactional landing
page is known as a conversion. Landing page quality can be
measured by the percentage of visitors who complete the desired
action (the conversion rate). Since the Return on Investment
(ROI) of pay per click campaigns is often determined by the
conversion rate, advertisers should be constantly testing,
tweaking and improving their landing pages. We will discuss
testing methods available, such as A/B testing and multivariate
testing, in a later lesson.
Why Are Landing Pages Important?
In pay per click (PPC) and search marketing campaigns, the
landing page is usually customized very closely to the
advertisement which triggered it. In PPC campaigns, landing pages
are vital in order to "close the sale" and encourage visitors to
take the action you want them to take. By adding a parameter to
the landing page URL (and therefore forming a tracking URL),
advertisers can measure the ROI on their PPC ads based on
relative click-through rates.
While enticing ad copy is very important in order to attract
clicks, effective landing pages are vital in order to "close the
sale" and encourage your visitors to take the action you want
them to take.
Landing pages often determine whether you make a conversion or
not. Using landing pages on your site also means that some
visitors will never see your home page. First impressions have
never been so important, so you need your landing pages to
represent your business, product or service in the best possible
light.
What are the Goals of a Landing Page?
Many marketers make the mistake of assuming that a conversion is
the main goal of an effective landing page. But attracting and
capturing qualified leads is an easier and more important goal.
Why? Because you can always "sell" to visitors later. Grabbing
their contact details ensures you have captured them at the
height of their interest.
So the main goals of a landing page are:
1) To Attract Prospects (primary goal)
- grab email address and/or phone number
2) To Produce Conversions (secondary goal)
Features of an Effective Landing Page:
The ingredients for an effective landing page include:
� Reinforced Ad Message
� Punchy Headings
� Short Paragraphs
� Enticing Copy
� Few Distractions
� Value Proposition
� Compelling Images
� Little or No Navigation
� Calls to Action
� Few choices
� Simple Language and Concepts
� Important Content "Above the Fold"
� Testimonials
� Establish Visitor Trust
� Foolproof Conversion Process
� Test, Tweak and Test Again
Landing Page Case Study
E-Consultancy (http://www.e-consultancy.com/) recently published
a case study (http://www.e-consultancy.com/newsfeatures/155276/
landing-page-redesign-helps-search-marketing-campaign-convert-139
-more-consumers-into-sales-leads.html?keywords=landing+page+redesign)
from Marketing Sherpa (http://www.marketingsherpa.com/) about the
effects of a landing page redesign on a marketing campaign.
The study followed the experiences of a company called Multimedia
Tutorial Services who hired a landing page consulting firm to
improve the conversion rates of their paid search marketing
campaign selling video tutorials for mathematics.
The company had originally been directing persons who clicked on
their ads to a lead generation form offering a free sample math
video tutorial. They had some success with this, but sensed that
more tailored landing pages would result in more leads being
generated. So the company hired landing page design experts to
custom-build pages designed to encourage more consumers to
request a free sample and increase the number of leads for the
company's call center to approach.
The result? The revised landing pages converted 139% more
consumers into sales leads than the original landing page. You
can see why if you view the pages below:
Original Landing Page
(http://www.marketingsherpa.com/mme/1.html)
New Landing Page
(http://www.marketingsherpa.com/mme/2.html)
New Landing Page Targeting Algebra
(http://www.marketingsherpa.com/mme/3.html)
New Landing Page Targeting Geometry
(http://www.marketingsherpa.com/mme/4.html)
You can see that the new pages include many of the features of an
effective landing page that we described above.
More About Calls to Action
When it comes to encouraging your visitors to take the action you
want them to take, focus on one primary action per screen. Don't
stuff too many products onto one screen. Make your call-to-action
button clearly visible without having to scroll, don't bury it
under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box
to consolidate information.
Taking Prospects by the Hand
When visitors are on your landing page, you need to make it easy
and painless for them to take the next steps. In a virtual sense,
you need to take them by the hand and lead them through the
process. How do you do that? Tell visitors why they should buy
from you. According to the Marketing Experiments Journal
(http://www.marketingexperiments.com/) the "Clarity of your value
proposition is the most important factor in determining whether
a customer buys from you or not."
To evaluate your value proposition, ask yourself the question:
Why should I buy from this site?
Tracking and Tweaking is key
With Pay Per Click campaigns, you have so much more control than
you do with SEO campaigns. Why? Because you have nearly full
control over how your listing appears, what keywords trigger it,
where on the page it appears, how much you pay per lead and what
page your ad links to.
Don't waste this knowledge! You need to consistently track
results from your campaign, track click-throughs, ad quality,
conversions and ROI. If you want your campaign to succeed, you
can't have a "set and forget" mentality that (unfortunately) many
advertisers have. PPC campaigns require constant tracking and
tweaking. Later in this course we discuss ways of testing your
landing pages and ads to consistently improve your conversions.
=========================================
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine
optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and
respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as
running a daily Search Engine Advice Column
(http://www.ask-kalena.com/), Kalena manages Search Engine
College (http://www.searchenginecollege.com/) - an online
training institution offering instructor-led short courses and
downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization
and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.
=========================================
Marketers that implement the ideas here will benefit greatly from this
FREE marketing info.
Jason
http://my-easy-promoter.com
http://my-easy-host.com
|