Thursday, August 20, 2009

The 7 Components of Successful Landing Pages

Are your conversion rates nothing to write home about? Do you feel like the copy and design of your landing page needs a big makeover? Give your post-click marketing a boost by evaluating your approach and ensuring that your landing pages implement these 7 important components.

1. Match Your Advertising with Your Landing Pages

Does the pre-click content match the post-click content? Make sure that there is continuity between your advertising and landing page. If you have several different types of ads targeting a variety of keywords but you are leading people to the same few landing pages, the continuity is most likely not as tight as it could be. In order to match messages well, you must connect all of the dots for your site visitors and make sure that your advertising meets its promises. Make your landing pages as specific as possible.

2. Measure the Value of Your Landing Page Content

Does your landing page content provide visitors with value or is it full of superficial fluff? Landing pages full of keyword stuffed content and marketing-speak won’t get you anywhere. Provide users with useful, entertaining, and relevant information that is tailored to whatever they were searching for.

3. Visuals

Landing pages are a beauty contest and your chance to make a great first impression when building your brand. Make sure your landing pages are up to par by hiring a qualified graphic designer to spruce them up for you. If your landing pages are attractive, it says a lot about your brand.

4. Make it Interactive

Landing pages today should contain a lot more than just flat text and images. Flash, widgets, video, and social networking applications that reinforce your message rather than distract from it can go a long way in helping you connect better with users. The key to success with creating interactive landing pages is to ensure that these extras are well incorporated into the overall design and message of your landing page. Don’t slap things on as an afterthought.

5. Derive Value from Non-Converting Visitors

If approximately 20% of visitors to your landing pages convert, that doesn’t mean the other 80% should be forgotten. You can provide non-converting visitors with value because they may potentially convert in the future. For example, you can point them to another page on your website that they perhaps might be interested in and convert them there.
You should always deliver useful content on your landing pages to ensure that people derive value from it and leave feeling like they had a positive experience/interaction with your website. You can also analyze what non-converting visitors do by providing them with different options on multi-step landing pages. Measure what people click and when to determine what kind of targeted improvements you can make.

6. Keep it Fresh

Revisit your landing pages frequently to update them and keep them from becoming stale. Check your content regularly to be sure that it is current, along with any offers you are making. Nothing will turn site visitors off more than an expired offer. You also have to keep the design of your page up to date. The look and feel of your landing pages tells visitors whether or not you are on top of things.

7. Push the Envelope

Are your landing pages bold and unique or painfully commonplace? Don’t be afraid to be creative when you are creating content for your landing pages. Try standing out from the crowd rather than sticking with the well-worn messages you have used time and time again. Landing pages offer an unmatched opportunity for you to experiment with your message because they only receive a relatively small portion of your overall traffic. You can use metrics to measure your results and alter your methods if they are not panning out as hoped.

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