Build effective landing pages to Increase conversion rates

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Conversion Rates and Landing Pages

From the internet user’s side, a landing page is the one displayed as a result of a search or just a click on a link, either from a SERP as an organic result or a paid one (banner, text ad, video ad) or even a link in a direct mail.

From the website owner’s side, a landing page is the vehicle to drive the visitors through a conversion path to the reach the desirable goal. Optimizing your landing page is as important as your online presence, creating conversion paths with a nice eye tracking design and a clear call for action message; you will turn your website traffic into conversions.

landing pages

First things first! Define your Objectives

A simple thing you must consider before creating a landing page or even better, before creating your website, is to clearly define your objectives; your goal is the conversion variable. You decide whether it will be a sale, a newsletter submission, a comment for your blog etc. Being absolutely specific is a matter of high importance for your online strategy plan.

Turning traffic into sales

So, now that you have defined your primary goal, you have the channel and the proper media (images, videos etc), the next step is to use them in order to achieve your goal in the most effective way. Think that you have one shot to get the conversion you need in one single page. Take advantage of this shot in your landing page. Simply by placing your message in the middle of the page, highlighting your value proposition and communicating a call for action. Use attractive images, an effective copy hook and drive your traffic into conversions. Note to repeat the call for action message for better results. All your pages must be designed as landing pages; it is important to follow the strategy plan using every single page. Remember to stay in your primary objectives and give the chance to the users to do the right thing in the right way.

Experiments will enhance your effectiveness. Try to test different variations in your messages, change details in headlines try different buttons, colors, and shapes but keep in mind that the page must have a logical flow from the top to the end.

More about PPC campaigns coming next.

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  • Bonnie the Web Designer

    This is such a great concept, but always a tough one to get across to clients. I have many clients who don’t want to narrow the focus on pages, but instead want to have all kinds of information “just in case” they can draw the user somewhere else. Have there been any studies done to determine what is most effective in drawing a person in? Would it be a slide show, simple text, non-moving images? I wish I had some research to back up my hunches so then I would have a way to explain it to clients. Thanks!

  • Spot Of Colour

    nice article, am really trying to get a few SERP’s up, so this has helped me to inculde the right things in the page’s.

    Spot of colour

  • Sonna - Criação de sites

    Thank you for content!

    I have a question:
    The landing pages should be separated from the rest of the web site?
    Or can I have a landing page within my site as a page of a particular service?

    Thank you!

    Daniel Sonna
    Sonna Creative Studio

  • dimitriszotos

    Hi Daniel,

    There is no rule for this, it’s optional. My advice is to be focused on the subject that each page is targeting to, no matter if it’s a part of the website. Separated landing pages are more useful for adwords where you have to be even more straight to the point.

  • Landscaping Wilmington

    Good read … headline catchy … good points, some of which I have learned along the way as well (humility, grace, layoff the controversial stuff). Will share with my colleagues at work as we begin blogging from a corporate perspective. Thanks!

  • Jon Patrick

    I think it’s important to remind people that, in addition to optimizing your landing page for conversions, you should continually be fine-tuning your offer. After all, it’s the offer (the white paper, demo, subscription, etc) that visitors are signing up for when they complete your landing page form. This aspect seems to get overlooked a lot in landing page optimization discussions. Visitors have to perceive high enough value in the offer in order to be comfortable handing over their contact information.

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  • Aleksandros Nikas

    Nice article!

    I would suggest, though, building a landing page separated from the website, only in case of intentional adwords optimization or, even better, in cases of special campaigns (e.g. a bookstore website could run a school equipment marketing campaign, in September). In this case, the landing page could differ a lot from the main website, with a completely different structure or even Cascade StyleSheet.

    Do not forget that, although you might want to increase your traffic, no matter what the actual goal is, you do not want to alienate the visitor from your website, as a whole. You want the visitor / reader / client to follow your call-for-action, but also to keep exploring your website and, even better, keep visiting your website.

    Otherwise, there is no apparent reason to separate your landing page from your website. (Think of it as having a department store and buying some extra space, far from your original store to sell some products in discount; people would benefit from the discount products and then leave your store, without visiting the rest of the products.)

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  • eluxury

    Do not forget that, although you might want to increase your traffic, no matter what the actual goal is, you do not want to alienate the visitor from your website, as a whole.

  • Judy

    I think putting a video on the landing page is a good idea. Many people prefer to watch and listen rather than reading. But anyway, target traffic is the main point.

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  • Custom Web Application Development

    Hi There,
    If your ad campaign is a temporary offer, you won’t want this landing page indexed by search engines, and you can use the robots.txt file to tell search engine spiders not to index it
    Thanks,
    Mick

  • Alicia Vaz

    Short, sweet and spot on. The article is very easy to understand and your points are clear enough for immediate implementation. I would add that A/B Testing should be included as part of the process, good method to measure your landing page effectiveness, otherwise what’s the point. We don’t want to be operating on guesswork. Thanks

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  • Tom

    This is a great article – concise and packed with info so thank you!

    1 question – I know google PPC do not like landing pages – is this the same as Google? Should we be hiding these pages from the search engines?

    Cheers,

    Tom

  • Domaining365

    As relevant and accurate an article today as when you wrote it a year and a half ago. Google practices what it preaches by effectively using landing pages for their individual offerings such as Google Adsense, Gmail, and Google Analytics.

  • Landing Page Templates

    I’m really in love with landing pages. They’re so effective in generating continuous flow of leads. The secret is simple, offer them a nice freebie that they can’t regret in exchange of their email address. You’ll see an immediate flow of leads for sure.

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  • smo package

    Too Good Article.. Landing page is most important factor in SEO work.. if Landing page was not optimize well then it will be very tough to get unique and theme based visitors on website.. and it will be affect on Bounce rate also

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  • seo blog

    Building effective landing pages is not only helping in the process of increasing conversion rates, but also helps in identifying the landing page structure that works well, which can be further implemented through out the site so that even the free traffic through seo and social media will convert much better.

    Nice initiative.

  • Rachelle King

    Great article no matter how many visitors you bring to your site via SEO, PPC or any other means if they land on pages that do not compel them to take an action then you have wasted effort. Great article thank you ;o)

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