Landing Page Basics

A landing page should do one important thing, it should sell your product, service or give the reader the information that they are expecting when they hit the web page. That is a simple explanation of what a landing page is, however, sometimes people get sidetracked in assuming that it is something else. So, let's first look at what a landing page is not and then proceed with the land page design.

What a Landing Page Is Not

A landing page is not a doorway page. Huh? Knowing the difference can save you a lot of grieve. With that being said, definitions are in order before learning how to construct a landing page.

What is a Doorway Page?

Doorway Page - Doorway pages are pages that are loaded with keywords, that is visible only to the spiders. Often these doorway pages have hidden links that can lead you to a different website or page that may be illegal or unsavory in nature..

A doorway page is illegal to use and thus, considered a blackhat SEO practice. In addition, these pages offer little or no content.

If you are using an outside SEO person to do your search engine optimization be aware of the consequences this SEO practice will have on your website. Consequences could be as follows: 1) The SEO individual is putting hidden links to some of their other clients on your site which could lead to site that could be illegal; and 2) those hidden links on the doorway page can drain away the link popularity of the site.

Now that we have the definitions, and a little clearer idea of what a landing page is and is not, let look into the uses of a landing page.

What is a Landing Page

Landing Page - A landing page is a direct sales page that appears when an online customer clicks on an online ad or a search-engine result link.

The landing page can be linked to a social media campaign, email campaign, or a PPC campaign, or even used in the SEM process.

Purpose of A Landing Page

The basic purpose of a landing page in online marketing is to motivate, to inform, to persuade and to sell the product or service to the visitor that landed on your well-designed page. That sounds, well, pretty straight forward.

To begin constructing your landing page, you need to consider landing page structure, your words, and your keywords in the total mix. If you do it right you will get sales, or convince someone to fill out a form or survey, etc. I’m sure you get my meaning.

Different Types of Landing Pages

1. A landing page that informs, typical known as a reference landing page. The reference landing page will give individuals valuable information that is being sought out by the visitor. These are content based pages sole purpose is to inform the reader. In addition, the page can display images, Google Adsense, banner ads, and other relevant links.

2. A landing page that request some type of transaction- The transaction can be: 1) filling out a form (Insurance companies vying for customers through quotes on their products) or; 2) buying a product or service. If the visitor takes that desired action, it is called a conversion.

Landing Page Design

What is landing page design? It's basically how you put your landing page together for readers to view. It should be transparent to the reader, but not to you. So let's begin with some elements in your landing page design.

Pre-Headline - This is a simple two line introduction to the landing page, just above the headline.

Headline

The headline should do three important things:

Grabs the attention of the visitor
States the purpose of the page
Compliments and coincide with your banner or ad

You have only one moment to grab the attention of the visitor, thus, the heading should entice the reader to continue on to the next paragraph or subheading. So choose your words, font style (Arial, Verdana are good choices), font size to your advantage.

And remember, if the headline does not compliment or coincide with your banner, ad or ecover, then your target market is gone.

Body Structure of your Landing Page

The body structure of your landing page should consist of the following:

1) Paragraphs -- Paragraphs should be short with white space. Why? Most people will hit a site, but not read it word for word. Then what do they do? They scan the page. Which brings me to the next important part of a land page—sentences.

2) Sentences – First, sentences should be short, snappy, too the point, and without twenty dollar words. You have to assume scanners are in a hurry; they want the information as fast as you can give it to them without putting them to sleep, and without having to pull out a dictionary.

Second, the first sentence of every paragraph should contain the summary of the paragraph. “A Call To Action” (Buy Now! Try Now!) should appear throughout the body of your copy, as well as, at the top and bottom of your page.

3) Bold subheadings – Bold subheadings should identify the topic of the paragraph or paragraphs that rest under the subheading. This will allow the skimmer to read or skip the paragraph – in search of the information they are most interested in.

4) Bulleted Information – Bulleted information is a lifesaver. Bullets help to condense copy into short, thorough, easy to read, sentences without being boring. Utilize them.

Landing Page Design-Information Positioning

Words are not just words on a landing page. Where you place your information is just as important as the keywords that you want to utilize for the search engines. Here are some quick tips on keeping your information, informative and clean.
1. Place the most important information above the fold.
2. Avoid distracting material in the sidebars. If the information in the sidebars distracts the visitor – focus is lost and that could mean a lost sale.
3. Add pictures or a form only if it is relevant to do so, but be careful about size.
4. Put your “Call To Action” above the fold, at the end, and balanced throughout the length of your text.

Landing Page Optimization-Your Keywords and Content

Your landing page content must include the keywords that you want to target for the search engines and/or your PPC ads. Which means, landing page optimization (aka: SEO) is important.

However, remember there is a difference between being "keyword rich" and keyword stuffing. Don't overdue it. If the search engines detects to many of the same keywords throughout your copy, it will quickly shy away from your web page. (In most cases, staying within a 2% to 500 word ratio will keep you free from worry.

If you have any "unnatural" tone in your writing, the readers will know that you are talking to the search engines and not them. Which means, they just clicked away.

Images should have an alt tag description. Try to describe your images with specific descriptions.

Example: If you have a picture of a Schnauzer, put ‘alt=Schnauzer’, not ‘alt=”dog”

Go for the specific description not the generic. Why? If you were looking for a Schnauzer, would you look for dog or Schnauzer. In most cases, I would bet on the Schnauzer, or maybe even Schauzer+dog.

Keyword stuffing Defined: The overuse of keywords that make the content read unnaturally. In manyt cases, the content becomes meaningless. Many think more is better, but it is not true. In fact, the search engines will penalize you, or take your page from their index. This translates very simply: No index=no traffic, means no business.

PPC Ads

If you are writing your landing page for a Google Ad (PPC advertising), again, make sure that your landing page is relevant to your keywords and to the text of your ads. There are two reasons to heed this advice:

1) Your traffic will click away and go elsewhere to find the information they are seeking;
2) Google will penalize you.

Testing Your Landing Page or Pages

Sometimes, in the testing phase people may develop several landing pages
for the same product, only varying their copy slightly. If you do this, it would be wise to index only the general landing page and have your robots meta tag include a “NOFOLLOW” so it won’t be indexed – this will prevent the search engines from penalizing you with a duplicate copy penalty on your site.

Though testing both landing pages can give you more accurate stats, you can also test one landing page at a time. If you choose to test each landing page separately, the results can help you to get an idea of how your targeted market is thinking or not thinking-whatever the case may be.

Google Adwords Algorithm for Landing Pages

Google now assigns quality scores to landing pages to determine the positioning, pricing, and other factors. When this Google algorithm change first hit the Internet, it hit some established websites hard - decrease in income for some, closing of door for others.

Thus, if you do not want to be penalized with higher bid prices for your keywords, or a shift in page positioning of your ad, you should keep the following information in the back of your mind when developing a landing page.

1) Relevant content
2) Link to page that provide relevant and accurate information related to your ad
3) Your landing page should have at least 500 words (which isn’t much).
4) Remove all Adsense ads on your landing page.
5) Your content should be original (if you have a catalog page, have descriptive content with an anchor to differentiate it from links that Google may consider spam.)

If you heed the above advice when developing a landing page, you may be nicely rewarded with a high page quality score along with some other benefits:

1) keyword minimum will decrease (PPA)
2) Improve position on the content network
3) improved opportunities to get your ads on targeted sites.

Visitor Interaction

You want your visitor to have a positive experience on your site. If they have a positive experience, you may get a return visit and maybe another sell in the future. With that being said, it is advised not to enlist these nasty annoyances.

1. Do not alter browsers behavior or settings, such as eliminating the back button functionality. I've had to close my Internet connection in some cases to get rid of this nuance.
2. Do not automatically install software to visitors site without first telling the visitor or without allowing for the easy removal of the software.
3. Don't send them to a landing page that requires them to register. More times than not, you have lost your visitor. I've encountered this type of landing page several times. My response was simple. I said a few choice words under my breathe, and clicked away. Why? I was looking for information, not wanting to register.

To conclude, landing pages can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Design it correctly, follow the rules, and it will be your key to success.

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