In one sense, every page on your site is a landing page. Every page on your site should one, be optimized for the search engines, and two, should move the visitor along in whatever path you’ve set them on (…whether that’s a sale, downloading a newsletter, subscribing, etc.)
But you’ll be amazed at the number of sites that direct someone to the homepage that’s coming to the site from a PPC or some other ad.
Many leads like this are very valuable. However, dumping them off at the front door of your site with little direction leads to them leaving your site. That costly click got you nowhere.
To fully capitalize leads coming into your site, you need to develop good landing pages that clearly identify where the prospect is at and where they should go from there.
Continue reading for 9 tips you can use to ensure you write the ultimate landing page. By landing pages, we mean specific pages arrived at through either an ad or a particular online search.
1. Keep your visitor oriented and engaged by making sure your headline refers directly to the place from which they came or the ad copy that drove the click.
2. Provide a clear call-to-action – Whether you use graphics or hyper-text links, be sure you tell your visitor what they need to do. For a short landing page, use at least 2 separate call-to-actions. For longer pages, use 3-5.
3. Write in second person – Say ‘you’ and ‘your’ rather than saying ‘we.’ Prospective customers could care less about you. They want to know how you can solve their problem.
4. Write pages with a clear, persuasive message and not to showcase your creative abilities or how well you can come up with a catchy phrase.
5. It’s okay to write a long landing page as long as you keep it tight – Your reader will continue reading as long as it’s motivating them to act. Good rule of thumb – use longer copy for sales pages and use shorter ones for subscription pages that don’t require a cash commitment.
6. Be crystal clear in your goals – Keep to the point and make sure your copy maintains a logical progression from start to finish. Don’t add fluff or other ancillary elements…these digressions cause you to lose readers and conversions.
7. Keep most important points at the beginning of paragraphs and bullet points – Since most visitors are skimming through your copy, be sure they can easily get the main points without having to look very hard.
8. Keep paragraphs short but vary their length – Variable paragraph lengths help create visual dissonance and make it easier to read your copy.
9. Write to the screen – Or rather, take some time to figure out where your copy will appear on the page. Think about what will appear above the fold and make sure you place the most critical elements above the fold.
Following these steps and others outlined in this informative article from Copyblogger can help you generate landing pages that generate a high amount of conversions. These are great elements to get you started but you also need to think about critical design elements too (i.e. color, images, layout).
Video, audio and other elements need to be considered when it’s warranted to more deeply engage visitors and boost response. Each of these things merits a closer look and testing when it makes sense.