Landing pages are a critical part of any online marketing strategy. But before we talk about landing pages, it's important to remember that the two critical success factors to any online marketing campaign is traffic (the number of people that visit your site) and conversions (the number of people that take action when they get to your site).

WEBSITES...

When most businesses start building a website, they automatically go with the standard design, that is, the home page, about us page, product pages and contact us pages. Where this type of website is important factor in any online strategy, it should only make up one part of an overall web design strategy.

TRAFFIC...

One of the best methods of driving traffic to a website is with Pay Per Click Advertising, where you bid on individual keywords and direct where those visitors go on your site. Herein lies the problem...

Let's say you're an online hardware store that sells a range of different products, including hammers, saws, power tools and axes... and you have a website where people can buy them from. You pay for targeted keywords, such as 'buy hammer' and 'buy power tools' and send all the traffic to the home page of your website.

If the person that typed in 'buy hammer' doesn't see a hammer on the first page they are redirected to after they click on the ad, there is a much lower chance that they will convert to a sale. If, on the other hand, they click on the ad and are then taken to a page where they buy a hammer, there will be a much higher chance of them buying the hammer... leading to higher conversions and lower cost per customer acquisition.

LANDING PAGES...

This is where landing pages can be very effective. Different to a website, a landing page is a single page dedicated to a single product or service, providing the visitor everything they need to know to make a decision to buy the product immediately.

An example of a landing page can be found at Online Marketing Report. Here is a page where the only action the business wants the visitor to take is to order the report.

When targeted keywords direct traffic to targeted landing pages higher conversions will occur because the visitor is seeing exactly what they are searching for in Google

For example, if the hardware store had a landing page for a hammer and they bid on the keyword 'buy hammer' in Google and Yahoo, the person who clicked on the Pay Per Click ad would see exactly what they were looking for and more people would buy as a result.

For many businesses, having landing pages for each of the main products is essential for maximising advertising budgets and sales.

And when landing pages are coupled with testing and tracking, maximum profits are achieved.


Web Profits is a full service online marketing agency - specialising in search engine optimisation, online marketing & web design - helping businesses generate profits from the Internet. For a free e-course on The Secrets of Online Success for Offline Businesses visit Website Design