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Landing Pages Explained
You may have heard the term Landing Page thrown around a lot by digital marketers and in your research about targeted ads and SEO.
If you've worked with NiceJob to create a Convert website, you will definitely have heard this term thrown about.
Sometimes marketing jargon gets tossed around like it's self-explanatory, when in fact it isn't intuitive at all. Don't worry, we're here to clear it up.
In this article we’ll take a look at the following:
- What a landing page is
- When you need a landing page
- How to create an effective landing page
What is a Landing Page?
To put it very simply, a landing page is the first page you “land on” after clicking a link.
Technically, a landing page could be your home page, a blog post, a product page, a lead capture page, etc.
I appreciate that's an accurate, but very broad definition.
Perhaps a more useful definition is a dedicated, self contained page designed to get a visitor to take a specific action such as booking a call, scheduling a visit, giving an email or taking part in a promotion or special offer.
Landing pages are essential for creating a high-converting lead generation website.
That's because landing pages allow you to target your audience, offer them something of value, and convert your visitors into leads, while also capturing information about who they are and what they've converted on.
Do I need a landing page?
Landing pages can be used in the following ways:
- For specific services or products you offer that you want to rank higher in search (e.g. Soft Wash Services in Atlanta)
- For additional locations where you offer your services that you also want to rank high in searches for (e.g. if you provide Softwashing in Atlanta but also in Savannah)
- To direct specific advertising to. You may want to specifically direct your audience to an event you’re running, a promotion you're offering or special service you don’t normally offer through your advertising.
Still unsure? Here's some questions to think about when considering a landing page:
- Do I have different services that are not directly related to each other? For example "Landscaping" and "Cleaning"?
- Do I have a service only offered for some parts of the year? (e.g. Christmas lights installation in the run up to Christmas).
- Do I provide a service in multiple major cities that people will likely use when searching on Google? For example "Cleaning in Manhattan" and "Cleaning in Brooklyn".
- Would it be beneficial for people to click through to specific landing page(s) for my Adwords campaigns?
- I'm running specific promotions and offers right now, should people go to a specific web page for this? (E.g. 10% off if you refer a friend or 15% off for Spring Cleaning)
If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, you may want to consider creating targeted landing pages for your website.
Why are landing pages important?
Each landing page targets one specific service, product, location or promotion.
This has two advantages:
- Landing pages can increase your website traffic as they often rank better on search engines than generalized pages on search results. They are very keyword specific and can help you get search traffic for specific terms that your more general home page won't get. They’re also often promoted using Google Adwords and other paid boosting methods. Both of these move the landing page up in ranking and get your service, product, promotion, or event in front of people searching for similar topics.
- Specific landing pages have a higher conversion rate than pages containing information about multiple services, promotions and advertising. It moves one specific sales or marketing goal to the foreground for higher conversion and it gives you the opportunity to isolate and track the success of a particular product, goal or set of keywords.
What makes an effective landing page?
1. Attention Ratio
Your landing page should focus on the conversion goal it is trying to achieve. Any link, image, banner or video that isn’t relevant to this goal will dilute your message and reduce your conversion rate. While your homepage may necessitate a higher ratio of assets vying for the visitor's attention, a successful landing page should aim to get as close to a 1:1 attention ratio as possible.
The simpler the better. The best landing pages will only contain content that directly focuses on the needs of their visitors and lead forms that only ask for relevant information.
2. Message Consistency
This is all about matching your customers' expectations and making sure it is solving the problem they came to your landing page to solve.
Message consistency is the ability of your landing page to accurately reflect the reasons that got your visitor to the page in the first place.
If you think about it, message consistency is a fundamental reason why landing pages exist. A homepage often has to meet a variety of different needs, whereas a landing page is designed to meet a single need.
For example, a potential customer is looking for weed killing services and clicks on a Google Ad that is offering these services.
In one scenario, the ad takes them to a landscaping company's homepage where they have to scroll down the page past information on tree trimming and lawn mowing services just to reach the section about weed killing.
In another scenario, the potential customer is taken to a specific landing for weed killing services in their neighbourhood where they are able to find the information right away, alongside customer reviews for that service, relevant before -and-after photos and a clear call to action to book an appointment.
You can guess pretty easily which page converts higher.
3. Social Proof
Let your customers do the talking for you. We hate to say it, but your customers put more stock in what other people say about your business than what you say.
Social proof marketing then is the use of recommendations, referrals and reviews from existing customers to attract new customers, validate buying decisions and develop your company’s reputation.
Here’s how you can use social proof to make make your landing page messaging more meaningful:
- Use your reviews to support what your website copy is saying by using them throughout the landing page as well as in a dedicated reviews page.
Including the details of the reviews such as the review source and customer name will make the testimonial more realistic to the website visitor.
- Use a social proof widget such as Engage to provide real-time information to website visitors when a customer leaves you a review or makes a booking.
Want to add a landing page to your Convert site?
You can add landing pages at anytime, and you can add unlimited pages to your account.
To do this, simply click this link to take you to your Convert settings page to get started and then complete the short "getting started steps". Then we'll build your landing page for you!
Still have questions? Don't hesitate to ask us at <hello@nicejob.co>.
