What’s the
purpose of a landing page?
Landing pages are
designed to get users to take a specific action. For most of our
clients, that means generating leads or sales, but it could also be
signing up for a newsletter, downloading an app, etc. Landing pages are
used for both SEO purposes and for paid advertising.
The copy on a landing
page is carefully crafted to persuade a visitor to act and it’s always
congruent with the messaging in your ad. This is important! If your ad
promises one thing, but your landing page is about something else, it’s
a sure way to lose a potential sale or lead.
When we develop landing
pages for our clients, we start by asking them their goal, then we
determine the actions needed to reach that goal. From there, we write
the copy and design the landing page. For example, if you want to
generate leads, your goal and actions might be the following:
Landing Page Goal: Lead
Generation
Landing Page Actions: Schedule
an appointment, Via Form and/or Phone
Why do we need
landing pages if we are driving to the website?
There’s a difference
between driving people to landing pages on your website and driving
people to your website more broadly. Here’s why:
Action-Intent: For
Landing Pages
Paid traffic is best
directed to a landing page, a page that is focused on getting users to
take the desired action that matches their search query/ad targeting
only. Your goal is not for them to click and browse around, it’s to
make a sale, schedule an appointment for a consultation, etc. In
addition, after users submit their information, they can then be
redirected to the full site, so they’ll still have the opportunity to
browse your website to see what else you have to offer and learn more
about your business.
Research-Intent: For
the Website
When users are going to
your website, it could be for many reasons—research, comparison,
reading blog posts, etc. This is great for SEO, functionality, and
business! This is where your organic traffic will go. Think of your
website’s homepage as the top of the marketing funnel, while landing
pages are at the very bottom; your homepage is there to offer visitors
options, while the landing page exists to carry out a single objective.
What’s wrong
with links on a landing page?
Links give users the
opportunity to take other actions that are not aligned with the desired
goal. Other best practices for landing pages include keeping the call
to action (CTA) on the top half of the page so when users open the page
on desktop or mobile they don’t have to scroll down to take an action,
and limiting the number of barriers to taking the desired action. The
fewer number of actions (clicks, scrolls, or pages) a user has to go
through to get the information they need, the better your conversion
rate will be.
How does
Instapage (Main Street ROI’s landing page tool) work?
Instapage is simply an
online landing page builder. It doesn’t build websites, but instead has
a streamlined setup designed specifically for landing pages. You can
read more about Instapage here, then check
out their Landing Page Design Best
Practices.
Will these
landing pages be on our website?
Not exactly! They will
be hosted on a subdomain (ex. sub.yourdomain.com vs. www.yourdomain.com), so we can
track and tag them just like if they went to your website, but users
organically searching on your site can’t find them on their own while browsing.
Why can’t I just
make a page on my website be a landing page?
You can! However, if
you are going to make a landing page on your site, please consider the
following:
- Use an unlisted path (www.website.com/unlisted_path)
so the landing page can only be accessed when someone receives a
direct link to it, and it is not included in any menus or linked
in any content elsewhere on your website.
- Add the “noindex” tag (
) to your landing pages so they do not impact your SEO efforts
- Keep the CTA streamlined
and focused on the page, as well as at the top, bottom, and middle
of the page, if you can.
- Minimize scrolling by
placing a CTA before the user has to scroll. This could be a
simple link on the top right of the page that is a Click-to-Call
button, or a button that redirects to a signup form.
- Hide or remove all
navigation and blocks that have links or promotions that are not
aligned with the CTA. For example, menus with blogs, FAQs, about
us—all can be hidden, depending on your hosting platform and
theme.
- In
addition to the CTA, you may also want to include a unique value
proposition, benefits of your offer, and social proof showing that
other people are taking advantage of (and pleased with) what
you’re offering.
It’s also important to
make sure your landing page provides a good user experience. It should
load quickly, without errors; users should be able to access it from
mobile devices and computers. The overall design should be clean,
modern, and professional. If you have typos, grammatical errors, or an
outdated design, potential customers may treat your offer with
skepticism.
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