 You may be wondering why you need a landing page if you already have a Web site. A Web site can offer you a lot of exposure, but if you want to know exactly where your visitors are coming from, whether your offer is generating interest, and if your visitors are converting into customers then you need a landing page.
Think that you haven’t “landed” on a landing page? If you’re a regular Web surfer, landing pages are everywhere. Remember the last time you browsed for a magazine subscription - there was likely a call to action (i.e. Get 25% Off!) and a form to fill out; or if you have ever clicked on any supported or paid ad in Google or Yahoo, you have probably been linked to a landing page.
When you’re working with landing pages there are different ways to test various components to make them more effective. However, first you need to be aware of the type of landing page that best suits the needs of your campaign or strategy so that you can attract your intended audience.
Transactional Landing Pages
The transactional landing page is probably the most common landing page. Although the transaction may not always be monetary, it can be deemed successful by obtaining information about new visitors and turning them into customers. Using a form is a great way to learn more about your potential clients and remarketing to them as well.
A conversion takes place when the visitor completes the intended action, such as filling out a form that can include their email address and contact information, and adding the data to your email marketing mailing list. When you are using a transactional landing page, a conversion can take on many forms. These include:
The conversion rate is measured by the percentage of visitors who complete the action. The effectiveness of online marketing programs is often determined by the conversion rate, making it necessary for marketers to constantly test alternatives and make ongoing improvements to their landing pages. Some of the testing methods that are commonly used are A/B testing and multivariate testing.
Reference Landing Pages
A reference page may be less common since the goal of most landing pages is to have an action which the visitor must complete. However, many educational institutions, publishers or public service organizations may benefit from this type of landing page for sharing information. But if you’re not capturing leads, or if no one is purchasing a product or service, how can you measure the success of these types of landing pages? One way is to incorporate banner ads on the page for which you can track click throughs and conversions. If the banner ads are successful, you know your landing page is too.
Organic Landing Pages
Organic landing pages tend to have higher bounce rates, which in turn results in lower conversion rates. This may be due to difficulties in understanding visitor expectations. On the search engine results pages people see the title tag, URL, and meta description. But if the meta description is a blanket statement about what your company does, or is simply a string of keywords that are important to the organic ranking for your Web site, such information may not be relevant to the needs of your potential customers. In other words, if the title and description of your organic listing does not entice people to click through, they'll simply move on. This reinforces the importance of ensuring your organic landing pages are optimized for the people who are reading them, not just for the search engine robots.
Landing Pages for Offline Advertising
These types of landing pages usually have higher conversion rates, which can be as high as 30- 50%. Since visitors have taken the time to do the legwork to find the vendor, this results in higher conversions. An effective offline advertising campaign will repeat the marketing message on the landing page to provide reassurance. As long as "friction" does not impede the conversion process (i.e. people do not lose their way before reaching the intended goal), this can be a very effective form of advertising. Not only can landing pages be used to capture people's response to traditional forms of media such as print and television, creating a custom landing page can also be an effective method of capturing leads at trade shows.
PPC Landing Pages
Pay-per-click landing pages typically perform better than organic landing pages since the heading, keywords and message in the ad can easily be carried over to the landing page. This will assure people that they’re in the right place, resulting in lower bounce rates. You can pre-qualify visitors by adding a relevant message on your landing page which will also lead to higher conversion rates.
PPC landing pages are easier to modify because it will not have a negative effect on the user experience. In contrast, if you’re continually tweaking an organic page it can cause a disconnect between what the user is searching for and what they find in the final result.
When you’re building your next landing page, keep your audience in mind and where they're coming from. If they’re coming from an organic search, you’ll want to make sure that your message remains consistent and little tweaking is involved. If your users are coming from a PPC campaign then you have more flexibility to make changes so that it is consistent with the ad. A landing page is imperative if you need to drive all of your traffic to a specific page for lead or revenue generation. If everyone is coming to the home page of your main Web site without leading them to a page that is relevant to their search or your email campaigns, you can potentially lose a lot of dollars. By adding these changes to your landing pages, you can capture qualified leads and help people to find exactly what they need.
###
About the Author
Susan Bell is a training specialist at Lyris. She is responsible for creating and delivering training and materials for Lyris HQ Landing Pages. She also regularly delivers training classes on Web Analytics and Search Marketing Fundamentals.
Related Resources:
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
