Successful Landing Pages
By Belinda Stinson

When you're spending money on an advertising campaign you need to bring potential customers to your website where are you going to direct them?

Sending people to the homepage is one option but the challenge with that is you can't then control where they go and to keep them focus on the message of the advertisement you've spent money on.

You need them to arrive on a landing page that is a bridge between the advertisement and the sale.

The landing page provides focus and carries over the images and words from the initial advertisement that brought them to you. This is to keep continuity and to minimise customer confusion.

The landing page can have additional images and information but it is vital to keep a visual and information link between what initially attracted people to go to your site so they know where they are and to keep clear lines of communication open.

A home page has dozens of paths visitors can take and it is difficult to promote a single message. The purpose of the home page is to immediately let visitors know where they are, what's the purpose and value of the site, keep them interested and go exploring.

A landing page is to communicate only one or two messages and be a bridge from the advertisement to sales.

It is designed to focus the customer and generate more interest that results in an action - whether that be buying something or subscribing or whatever your aim of the advertising program.

Sometimes there's confusion between a landing page and a Splash page. A landing page has a clear purpose to impress and clearly communicate with a potential customer.

A splash page is usually designed to show flashy high tech pictures and has a dreadfully high rate of really annoying visitors, so much so that they leave immediately and don't return. Splash pages are also really bad for search engines to read and index. Personally I haven't found one decent, good reason for Splash pages to be used as front doors to websites but there are plenty of reasons not to use them at all (just because others are foolish enough to use them doesn't make it a wise business decision).

Splash pages cost every website they are used on income, customers, visibility and search directory listings.

Landing pages are the opposite. They are the front door for potential customers that greets them with a clear and concise message that answers questions and helps achieve the core purpose of the advertisement.

For me the Sale page is a Landing page. I've answered questions up the top quickly and down the right column. The purpose of the Sale area is to sell jewellery and jewellery accessories at discounted prices for a limited time.

To keep the address simple I've created a separate area for it so people need only remember a really easy URL: www.creativelybelle.com/sale

This is really important because people won't always have the direct link or have it written down in front of them. By keeping it simple I'm increasing the rate of it being remembered and increasing visitors.

Compare this with the URL for the earrings shown above: www.creativelybelle.com/earrings/joy/joy.htm I don't expect any of my customers to remember that address. But creativelybelle.com/sale is easy to remember.

So when you're planning on spending money on an advertising program how are you going to back it up online? Do you want people going directly to your home page and then choosing where they will go and probably loosing focus and forgetting why they came in the first place?

Or do you want them to go to a specified page that's easy to get to with a targeted message to keep them focused on what you are saying? This makes getting results from your advertising dollar easier.

Think of your free public relations exposure in the same way - don't let it be wasted with a messy home page or annoying splash page. Make the most of it with a really effective landing page.

Also, think carefully about the naming of files and directories. Having a directory and filename for newly arrived Italian shoes like: www.mysite/jyt/leadgen.htm won't impress your potential customers, is hard to remember and is no good for search engines.

Having instead www.mysite.com/shoes/index.htm means when customers type in mysite.com/shoes they go directly to the landing page.

It is easier to remember, can be easily recognised by search engines and lets your potential customers know exactly what it will be about - Shoes!

I've started tidying up some of the page names in my site but have to be careful so that places already linking to the existing names aren't lost with updates. So bit by bit I go.

One of my friends who is building her own business and having a website developer build and maintain her site shows me how difficult it can be building an effective online resource. But when you are empowered with the information and know what you want it can be much easier finding the right site developer and maintainer.

Approach the web site as a key part of your advertising program, including where potential customers will land, what you'll communicate with them and what are the core purposes of the campaign. Don't confuse the issue with unnecessary links to other areas that will distract the customer. Keep it focused and enjoy the results!

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