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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Promotion Tip:
Create Effective Landing Pages
by
Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
When you advertise your online business using Web ads or
email messages, naturally your goal is to increase site traffic. But you also
want to convert the new visitors into loyal customers. It's not easy, but a good
landing page that builds on the ad copy can be an effective way to accomplish
that goal.
Targeted Landing Pages Work Best
The best landing pages are targeted to specific advertising
campaigns. Suppose we here at NetMechanic were to launch advertising campaigns
for Search Engine Power Pack and Browser Photo. We'd need two separate landing
pages: one targeted to the Power Pack ads and one to Browser Photo. Each landing
page would discuss the individual product and emphasize its
features and
benefits.
That's the essence of a landing page: it's where visitors
"land" when they jump to your site from an email or online ad. Visitors expect
the content of the landing page to reflect the ad content. If not, you've wasted
their time and your ad budget.
For instance, suppose that we advertised our "browser
compatibility tutorial" as part of an online marketing campaign for Browser
Photo. Visitors would naturally expect that link to take them directly to the
tutorial. But what if it linked to the NetMechanic home page instead? There's no
direct link from the home page to the browser compatibility tutorial; it's two
levels down inside the site.
Some visitors may have enough patience and interest to search for it, but
many would just click away in frustration. What an easy - and unnecessary - way
to irritate visitors who've shown interest in NetMechanic products!
Components Of A Good Landing Page
A good landing page builds upon the brief ad copy to give
visitors more information. Don't be afraid to create a separate landing page for
each promotion campaign. You spend a huge amount of time, effort, and money
creating online ads. Doesn't it make sense to also consider what visitors find
once the ads bring them to the site?
- Get to the point. Make your points quickly and directly. The
landing page content should be easy to scan and contain the information
promised in the ad. If the ad text offers "3 simple tips to increase
site traffic," then the landing page should keep the promise. This helps
build trust with visitors.
- Include a call to action. Use a prominent text link or button
to encourage the visitor to go deeper into the site and find out how
purchasing your product or service can help them even more.
The promised 3 tips to increase site traffic should whet the appetite of
visitors and make them want even more great information. This is where
you include what marketing professionals term the "call to action."
Something like: "Learn even more search engine
secrets with Search Engine Power Pack!" That link would take
visitors to the full Power Pack information and subscription page -
hopefully resulting in a number of new customers.
- Keep a consistent look and feel. Visitors should never click
on a page in your site and wonder: "Where am I?" Use the same look and
feel (colors, layout, fonts, images, navigation, etc.) in your ads and
landing pages as on the main site pages.
This is particularly important when you're sending out HTML email.
Because you can format that anyway you want, it's a great opportunity to
emphasize your site's brand and create a visual connection between the
ad and the Web site.
- Don't try to collect too much personal information. Be
careful what you ask for, or you may get nothing. If you have a free,
downloadable white paper or research report, it's ok to collect a name
and contact information. Most online visitors don't expect you to share
really valuable data completely for free.
Naturally, you want to know who's responding to your ad and it would be
nice to be able to follow up with them with more information or
additional non-invasive ads (adware and spyware certainly don't count!).
A visitor may be willing to fill out a survey in order to receive other
benefits, but keep that optional unless the ad specifically listed it as
a condition. Always include a link to your privacy policy so visitors
will know how and when you plan to use their personal data.
- Feed the spiders. Get a double benefit from your landing
pages by submitting them to search engines. Search engine spiders love
landing pages that contain lots of good, keyword-rich test.
In fact, landing pages are obvious targets for search engine promotion
because they are so targeted. Search engine visitors love them because
they get taken directly to the relevant information they were searching
for.
When you
deep submit landing pages, you bring in traffic from visitors who
may not have seen your ad, but are good, targeted traffic just the same
because they've been searching on your targeted keywords. You get the
benefit of advertising without the expense! Use
Search Engine Starter
to deep submit individual Web pages.
Most of these suggestions deal with the content of your
landing pages. Good content is critical to your success, but you also need an
attractive design to keep and hold human visitors.
Establish Trust With Page Design
Your landing page should be just as attractive and carefully
designed as your home page. It's the first page a visitor sees when he clicks on
your ad, so it has as much impact as your home page.
As we discussed in our February 2003 Webmaster Tip, a good
design helps
establish credibility. Without it, visitors just won't take your online
business seriously. Remember that you aren't just selling a generic product or
service. You also have to convince online customers that it's safe to buy from
your site.
Right or wrong, visitors equate a good-looking site with a trustworthy site.
Use NetMechanic's Browser
Photo tool to verify that your page design displays reliably across
browsers.
Test And Evaluate Before Launch
Study your
server logs to
determine how many visitors arrived via the email or online ad. That's where too
many analyses stop: "Hey, we got 5,000 new visitors after that last PPC ad went
up!" That's seems like a success until you look deeper and find out that only 15
out of 5,000 visitors actually bought your product.
Increase your chance of success by conducting
usability testing
on the landing pages before you begin the marketing campaign. You can catch
errors that break page display and experiment with different text and layouts
before you spend a lot of money on a marketing campaign.
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For More Information Contact:
V84u.com Web Adventure Works Inc.
McAllen, TEXAS
Tel: ask for it in a email, Thanks
FAX: 201-661-2851
Internet:
web@v84u.com
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