Using Landing Pages To Get More Customers

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a term used to describe a page on your website that is highly targeted towards a certain visitor. Most pages on your website will be quite general in comparison, focussed on saying who you are and what you do, but landing pages are more precise tools, aimed at converting visitors into more sales, more email subscriptions, more phone calls etc.

So all landing pages are webpages, 

but not all webpages are landing pages.

When Does My Website Need a Landing Page?

Landing pages become essential when you are running an email marketing campaign, Google AdWords or something similar. With each of these advertising methods, you’re trying to promote something specific on your website, for example, a new range of products. To maximise the effect of your promotion efforts, you need to make it super simple for customers… So instead of directing them to your homepage, in the hopes that they’ll go searching for your new products, you need to send them to a targeted landing page.

It’s the equivalent of standing outside the Overgate Shopping Centre in Dundee, pointing at the main door and saying,

                “We’re now selling Nike sportswear! Get your introductory 20% off today!”

Which shop within the shopping centre is selling this Nike sportswear? You haven’t told us! So you’re forcing people to head inside and search every shop; a lot of people will just give up.

Don’t make it hard for people to buy your products.

When you know a stream of targeted traffic will be visiting your website for a specific purpose (i.e. Nike sportswear in the above example), you need to send them to a targeted page to convert them into leads, rather than just pointing them to the homepage and crossing your fingers.

As a further example, imagine you are currently running a Google AdWords campaign aimed at people who search for one of your well-performing keywords; “sportswear Dundee”. When someone clicks on that ad, what do you want them to do on your website? Once you figure that out, make it easy for them to follow through, by sending them to a landing page that prompts them to complete that action!

If you want them to purchase sportswear from your online shop, 

direct them to the sportswear landing page.

If you want them to purchase sportswear from your physical shop, 

give them the address, opening hours, and any current promotions!

 

Example of a landing page for Gable End Shutters at the Scottish Shutter Company.
At the bottom of this page, a form invites you to get in touch to book an appointment - Simple!

Key Features of a Typical Landing Page

Making a landing page takes more preparation and thought than just any old webpage. Once you have established the goal of the page, whether it’s promoting new stock, or getting more in-store shoppers, you can target the whole page towards achieving that goal. But how do you ‘target’ a page at specific visitors?

1. Limit navigation.

Don't overload your landing page with links to all the other fantastic pages of your website. There is no need and it’s an unnecessary distraction. If you want page visitors to carry out a specific action, then make it easy for them. Let the majority of the page be aimed at guiding customers step by step to your goal, and let the goal take centre stage. 

2. Make it worth their while.

Is your offer compelling enough for people to spend their money, visit your shop, or hand over their contact information? If you don’t think it is, then you need to add a little more to it. When you feel the offer is valuable to customers, make sure the landing page emphasises that value to visitors!

3. Link to Social Media.

Don’t underestimate the power of social media. Even if you’re already in the middle of a Google AdWords campaign, it’s worth promoting your page on social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. It’s free promotion. Add share buttons to your landing page, and encourage people to share it so that the reaches increases. At this point, think about what you can add to the landing page to make it more shareable.

4. Keep it Short.

Once you know what you want people to do, tell them how to do it on your landing page! If you think more explanatory information is necessary, you could write it up on another page and link to it, but it shouldn’t be on your landing page. In this way, landing pages are like billboards; short, sweet & instructing you to fulfil an end goal,

e.g. Visit us in-store today,

Test drive a new Audi now,

Phone us to discuss your finances.

5. Testing

And as always, once your landing page is up and running, you need to test it; keep track of user activity on the page, actions users take, how people are finding your page and more. All of this information is available to you through Google Analytics. You can employ as many landing page best practices as you want, but there is always room for improvement.

Do I Need a Landing Page?

If your business has a new service or product to promote, then you need a landing page.

If your website is getting a lot of traffic for something and you don’t have a page for that information already, then you need a landing page.

If you’re looking to target a certain customer, for example, people searching for “sportswear Dundee”, then you need a landing page explaining the benefits of buying sportswear from your shop.

For a professional online marketing service, get in touch with the team here at Vital Hike, and we can talk you through getting the most out of your website, through landing pages, Google AdWords and more.

Convert website visitors into customers

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