Creating High Producing Landing Pages
All too often there is a significant "disconnect" between an advertising message and the web page to which that message sends its visitors. Think about the last time you clicked on a banner or an email espousing some great discount or savings on a specific product, only to be taken to the main home page of the web site where that product is nowhere to be found. Betcha this has happened to you, right?
If you're the shopper in the mood to buy, you have a certain expectation. And when that expectation is not met, or worse, the site impedes your ability to buy, quicker than you can blink, you're outta there. On the Web, you may only have 30 seconds to make a lasting impression so you'd better make it good.
What are Landing Pages?
Simply stated, a landing page is the page to which a link takes a visitor. Its essential role is to help expedite the sale as best as possible. Good landing pages should be built specifically to dovetail with an ad campaign which is expected to attract a particular target market. A landing page is intended to guide a site visitor into the desired action. Better still, good landing pages can help determine how many visitors come from your unique ads and use this information to subsequently help test and calculate conversion rates.
Effective Landing Pages
A good landing page should be simple, direct, and extremely targeted. Visitors don't want to navigate to find anything; they don't want to do any work. An ad directed them to the landing page and they expect to see related content that tells them what to do next -- make a purchase, place a phone call, complete a form, etc.
Reebok is currently running an ad on iVillage.com. The ad copy reads "Get ready to challenge yourself -- click here" and is accompanied by images of Reebok apparel. Clicking on this ad takes a visitor to a simple "iVillage Walk It Off Challenge Collection" landing page featuring the same apparel pieces displayed in the ad. The landing page is simple, direct, and extremely targeted.
The landing page should not only be consistent with the ad imagery but the ad copy as well. Say your company is trying to promote a redesigned SUV. You decide to use two different ads: one geared toward women that will be shown on web sites like Good Housekeeping; the other for men on sites like SI.com and MaximOnline.com. Because of the demographics, you'll want to use different ad messages for the campaign. Female consumers will most likely use the vehicle for family and errands. Men, on the other hand, envision that the SUV will be used for hauling and off-roading. Different requirements call for different ad copy which means different landing pages.
Finally, the landing page must repeat the offer and make clear to the visitor what his/her next step should be. The point is to move the visitor closer to completing the sale.
Performance Tracking - Rules to Follow To optimally measure the performance of your landing pages, follow these rules:
1. The landing page must not be connected to your homepage and sitemap. No links can be placed from any other source except from the intended campaign to your pages. NO sitemap inclusion or intertwined links with the rest of your site can be permitted.
2. Ensure that your landing page is not accessible to search engine spiders and robots. Contrary to regular Internet marketing practices, having good search engine placement for your landing pages is not a good thing. You want to know that So that the traffic to your page is solely from the specific ad campaign and nothing else.
This tag will prevent search robots from indexing your landing page: [meta name="robots" content="noindex"]
Only add this tag to pages which you do NOT want search engines to pick up.
3. Do not give other site visitors access to the landing page's unique URL. Again, this is to limit the source of the page traffic to the ad only.
Pros & Cons to Using Tools on Landing Pages
Web audio recorders, video, and discussion forums are just a few of the vast array of tools that can be used within your landing page to help increase interest and conversions. Not all sites should use them or even at all times. Here are some considerations:
* Selling Complicated Products: Some products/ideas are difficult to explain simply by words. In this case you may benefit from producing an online video or audio, and it may not even be difficult to do if you use online tools. Video and audio are also valuable in helping to build trust.
PBS (public television) has taken a creative approach to promote its new hands-on history series, Colonial House, on Salon.com. To pique a reader's interest, the ad shows a chicken running under the headline: Fast Food, 1628. This clever ad leads one to a unique landing page that shows a video clip about the series.
* Customer Service: Just like in the off-line world, a helpful customer service representative can make all the difference in a buyer's purchasing decision. Live online customer service chat systems can be used to help expedite the online buying experience.
* Know Your Audience: If your music label is promoting a young, new recording artist to the music- buying teen segment, having audio samples of his/her songs can definitely persuade the buyer to make a purchasing decision.
And if you implement a tool on your ad creative, you should probably consider using it on the relevant landing page, as well. Keep the theme flowing.
Landing pages can essentially make or break a sale. Why invest all your time and energy solely on the creation of your advertisement without putting as much thought, if not more, into where that ad is taking its respondent?
fr.: http://www.webadvantage.net/
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