The Six Best Tips For Optimizing Your Landing Pages

By Author: Eric Hansen
Total Articles: 3764
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The objective of today's web site is more important and more difficult than ever, especially when it comes to a multichannel sales strategy. Consumers arrive at your web site through a number of online channels: pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search, e-mail offers and print print ads. Once there, they need to complete the objective of acting upon a promotion, or buying a specific product.

If their entry leaves them unsatisfied because they don't see anything relevant to what drove them there, they're most likely to exit, having wasted their time and your marketing spend. Landing pages serve as a connection between the marketing message that brought visitors to the site and the site functionality that enables them to take action, such as making a purchase or submitting a lead.

== Reducing Bounces ==

A web site landing page is simply a page that continues the momentum from the referring channel. A common attribute might be the PPC search terms that brought them to the web site, or a specific e-mail promotion that was clicked on.

In fact, customized landing pages with keyword search terms appear more ...
... relevant to users who have landed via a specific search engine query. As a result, fewer "bounces" occur. A bounce is a user who hits the landing page, stays for a very short time, then clicks the back button to return to the search engine page -- effectively a totally wasted paid click. Targeted landing pages minimize this risk.

For example, an e-mail promotion for a discounted travel package would bring the user directly to a landing page that reassuringly describes the offer in more detail and gives links to check availability and book the trip. It sounds simple enough, but put yourself in the visitor's shoes and do a few online searches of your own. You'll be amazed at how many merchants still aren't using landing pages.

== Tipsand Tricks ==

Creating a successful landing page isn't difficult, and you can easily experiment and learn as you go. First, decide which page you'll need as the landing page for a specific promotion. You may very well have an existing web page that you can use (one that's more specific than your homepage), but if you don't, consider publishing a new landing page. If that's the case, keep in mind these six top tips:

(1) Include a graphic along with the offer for visual interest.

(2) Reduce navigation to keep users focused on the goal and reduce distraction.

(3) Keep the visual brand of your primary web site so users will immediately recognize your brand.

(4) Remember a compelling call-to-action that should relate to the offer. For example, the copy for the travel promotion above could have a call-to-action such as Book Now.

(5) Reduce data collection as much as possible to decrease bounces. If you must collect additional information, try putting those fields onto a form on a second page; the effect is that by the time users click through to this new page, they've already built some momentum in the conversion process and are less likely to leave.

(6) Whenever asking for personal information, include privacy and security statements to help establish trust.

Landing pages for lead-generation sites typically should speak to a single, specific task -- getting the visitor to register or submit a lead. These types of landing pages should have very little unrelated navigation or content, and should present only relevant, reassuring content that encourages users to immediately take the next step in the registration process. There are many similarities to direct mail. Every piece of marketing material, every page, every visual and every word in a direct mail piece serves a very specific goal -- there's no waste. Everything is focused on getting the recipient to respond. The same goes with lead-generation landing pages.

Also, remember that you'll need to include the landing page's URL in the hyperlink of the message on the referring source. For example, PPC search, e-mail, and print hyperlinks should all point to your specific landing page.

== Taking it Up a Notch ==

Once you've made landing pages as part of your marketing toolkit, you should look at optimizing them for the greatest success. Direct marketers have benefited from A/B split testing for decades to learn which competing ad or sales letter works best, and you can do the same with landing pages.

For example, does putting your product's price on the landing page make more sales than if you required the visitor to click onto the next page before showing price? Using A/B testing, or more sophisticated multivariate testing, you can learn exactly which combination of alternate offers, headlines, copy, images and calls-to-action are most persuasive to visitors.

Beyond A/B and multivariate testing, you can also use behavioral targeting tactics to present users with landing pages that are personalized based on whether the visitor is new versus returning, time of day or day of week, and so on. Utilizing behavioral targeting alongside testing, you can easily optimize promotions and other factors that will drive higher conversions and increased loyalty. For example:

* Employ and test multiple landing page strategies to learn which is most efficient on a segment-by-segment basis.

* Dramatically maximize leads and conversions generated by PPC traffic, without increasing your SEM budget.

* Find search terms and keywords that will result in the best quality traffic, then target those segments with specific, highly optimized promotions and relevant landing pages.

Landing pages are an important component that should be in every online marketer's toolkit. Try out the techniques outlined in this document to produce better landing pages for your users. By optimizing landing pages through the methods of testing and targeting, you'll not only maximize the effectiveness of your online marketing spend, but you'll gain unique and valuable ideas into what makes your users to take action.