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View Full Version : 5 Steps to a Better Landing Page



vangogh
05-15-2009, 07:54 PM
Found a post on creating landing pages that seemed to cover the basics and thought I'd share. The post, 5 Crucial Steps to a Powerful Landing Page (http://columbusama.org/2009/05/14/5-crucial-steps-to-a-powerful-landing-page/), lists, you guessed it, 5 steps.

1. Start with a strategic goal
2. Custom URL
3. Linear design
4. Strong call to action
5. Minimal obligation

The post is talking about the single landing page not connected to the rest of your site (though I suppose the page could be connected) as opposed to the any page of your site can be a landing page.

All 5 steps are good, but I think the idea of having a strategic goal is the most important, since all the other decisions you make will come from your overall goals for the page.

The post talks about not only having a strategic goal, but also a measurable goal to determine your success

Goal: Capture leads
Measurable Goal: Capture 20 leads

Have a favorite step among the 5 or maybe something missing from the post you think is just as or more important?

Dan Furman
05-16-2009, 02:38 AM
I'll answer from the "copy" side... gee, there's a surprise :)

I guess this depends on the type of landing page it is. If it's a quick signup thing, and the visitors are already expecting that, this is good info (I'm guessing this is what they are talking about.)

But the more you need to tell visitors, the more important copy becomes. In general terms, if the page needs to explain anything much beyond "fill in your info and we'll send you the wonderful PDF you came here for", the copy totally trumps everything else in a big, big way.

vangogh
05-16-2009, 02:42 AM
You talking about the copy side of things? Nah, that couldn't be.

I agree. The post does skip over the content part of the landing page, but I think it was trying to give some tips beyond the copy itself. Still, even the fill in your info for this free PDF needs good copy.

Dan Furman
05-16-2009, 11:45 AM
You talking about the copy side of things? Nah, that couldn't be.

I agree. The post does skip over the content part of the landing page, but I think it was trying to give some tips beyond the copy itself. Still, even the fill in your info for this free PDF needs good copy.

well, less so - even I can admit that :)

Yea, I kinda giured it was a "other than the copy" part. I do like starting with a goal - I always ask people that "what is the goal of your site / this page / etc?"... most say "I dunno".

vangogh
05-16-2009, 12:24 PM
The goal thing is important to me to, because I think people forget to think about it. I see people often too concerned with how their going to drive traffic to the site and overlook the whole point of the page. Your goal for the page is going to help shape how the page looks, what the copy is going to be like, and where you're going to try to get traffic from.

I get the "I dunno" answer too a lot when I ask. If the page has no goal then it doesn't really need to exist.

KristineS
05-16-2009, 12:35 PM
I'm not so sure I agree with all the advice in the linear design section.

I do agree that you want to keep everything oriented toward the goal of the page and that you don't want distractions, but I'm not so sure I agree that you shouldn't use your standard navigation.

I know this is a stand alone landing page and not part of a bigger site, but couldn't a secondary goal be getting people to look at other pages. Wouldn't you want your navigation to be the same?

Keep in mind I'm a writer, and leave the design mostly to other people, but I'm not sure that bit of advice makes total sense. Maybe one of you designers can explain the theory behind it to me.

Dan Furman
05-16-2009, 09:58 PM
I'm not so sure I agree with all the advice in the linear design section.

I do agree that you want to keep everything oriented toward the goal of the page and that you don't want distractions, but I'm not so sure I agree that you shouldn't use your standard navigation.

I know this is a stand alone landing page and not part of a bigger site, but couldn't a secondary goal be getting people to look at other pages. Wouldn't you want your navigation to be the same?

Keep in mind I'm a writer, and leave the design mostly to other people, but I'm not sure that bit of advice makes total sense. Maybe one of you designers can explain the theory behind it to me.

No distractions.

If it's a landing page with a purpose (for example, sign up for a newsletter... and the leads came from e-mails sent to a list), there should be no distractions. There is no secondary goal, or other pages to look at.

vangogh
05-17-2009, 12:44 AM
The navigation just gives people options you don't want them to take. Again we're talking about a landing page with a clear goal and not "any page of your site is a landing page."

If you have one link on the page, which is to sign up then people have 2 choices. Sign up or leave. It's 50/50. Add a home page link and it's now 1 in 3. Add the other 5 links in your navigation and it's 1 in 8. The more choices you give someone the less likely they'll choose the one you want them to.

KristineS
05-17-2009, 01:35 PM
O.k., that does make sense. If we're talking a standalone page with a specific goal it makes perfect sense.

Thanks guys.

GBlack
06-29-2009, 08:04 AM
No distractions.

If it's a landing page with a purpose (for example, sign up for a newsletter... and the leads came from e-mails sent to a list), there should be no distractions. There is no secondary goal, or other pages to look at.

Agree. Think one of the biggest mistakes many marketers make is creating an ad and sending readers to a home page instead of a specifically developed landing page. There's no sign of what the reader was responding to in the ad. Marketers who do this will waste a lot of time , money and eergy creating ineffective campaigns. Reader will not spend much time trying to figure out what you want him'her to do.

Spider
06-29-2009, 09:24 AM
Okay - I can see the argument for a single-purpose landing page as described, with a single choice (or, as VG says - 2 choices, click or leave.) It is not 50/50, though - well, the choice is but the results won't be, I think. If 100 people come to the dedicated landing page, I don't think one can expect 50 completions and 50 desertions. More like 5 clickthrus and 95 exits (5% isn't bad, I think.)

I think wasting 95% of your visitors (or whatever percentage) is a shame. Can't we try to keep some of that traffic? They came for a purpose somewhat allied to our business, even if the particular offer wasn't to their liking. I'm sure someone must have done a study to determine the most effective number of choices. Perhaps 2 choices--

-- Buy (desired result)
-- Investigate further
-- Leave

Or 3 choices--

-- Buy (desired result)
-- Investigate A further
-- Investigate B further
-- Leave

I wonder, on average, how many people who don't buy straight off would come back and buy after they have investigated further.

Dan Furman
06-29-2009, 10:48 AM
If 100 people come to the dedicated landing page, I don't think one can expect 50 completions and 50 desertions. More like 5 clickthrus and 95 exits (5% isn't bad, I think.)

*snip*

I wonder, on average, how many people who don't buy straight off would come back and buy after they have investigated further.

Happens to me a lot - I know I get bookmarked often, then many times the person returns later to contact me.

vangogh
06-29-2009, 11:09 AM
If 100 people come to the dedicated landing page, I don't think one can expect 50 completions and 50 desertions.

Absolutely. I don't think you're going to get a conversion rate to match the rate of choices. Say your 5% estimate of success is right when you offer the two options (buy or leave). Had you added navigation and links to other options that conversion rate might have been 2%. The idea isn't so much that your rate of success will mimic how many options you present, but rather the fewer options you present the more likely someone will choose the option you want them to choose.

Spider
06-29-2009, 04:30 PM
Yes, I can see the suppositions. I wonder, though, if anyone has done any testing to determine an optimum number of landing page choices.

vangogh
06-30-2009, 02:41 AM
I can't say I've done the testing myself, but I believe those who have tested have found it's best to offer as few options as possible. Every extra option only reduce the odds the option you want is the one chosen.

painperdu
06-30-2009, 07:22 AM
spider, the landing page is meant to be at the end of a funnel process that filters out prospects. In other words, if everything was done correctly and ideally the landing page with only the choices of action or leave should be the exact place the user wanted to be.

The landing page shouldn't be like a trap door where the user is surprised to be. It should be a well thought out buying process meant only for users interested in your offer. Of course this is marketing and not an exact science so there will be users who find themselves on a landing page not meant for them but then again . . .it's marketing.

Spider
06-30-2009, 11:08 AM
...the landing page is meant to be at the end of a funnel process that filters out prospects. ...That's interesting. I was under the impression that the landing pages being referred to in this thread were for SE-marketing - where someone searching for widgets would find a landing page for widgets in the SERPS.

So, do we have two different kinds of landing pages? One for searchers and one for site visitors?

Landing page for searchers >> You wanna buy my widgets? Click here or leave!

Landing page for visitors >> Now that you have read about our widgets, seen the varieties we offer, know how we make them (etc. etc.) This is where you make up your mind to buy - so, put up or leave!

If that is the case (please forgive my frivolous descriptions), how does a searcher distinguish between a landing page - buy or leave - from an information page(s) that will help him decide if a widget is really the answer to his problem.

vangogh
06-30-2009, 12:56 PM
Landing pages is one of those terms that can be confusing since different people end up calling different things landing pages. In one sense they are simply the first page a visitor lands on your site. In another they're a highly focused page meant specifically to sell a single product. The latter page might still be the first one seen on your site, but that person has been usually been primed on other sites or in ads to be highly targeted toward what your page is selling.

Here's how the article defined landing page


A landing page is a page that displays specific content based on how the user is referred. For example, if you ran a newspaper campaign about a new product, you would direct them to a “landing page” that promoted that product specifically.

It's referring more to the second kind of landing page where the visitor is already primed.

So while the page may be the first someone sees on your site in the sense they've landed there, it's still a page with a single focused goal. It doesn't have to be to sell a product directly, though it often is. The goal might be to collect an email address or get a subscriber to your a blog, etc.

It gets confusing though since the term landing page makes it seem like the page is going to be the visitors first impression of you and you always hear the phrase thrown around how every page on your site is essentially a landing page. Usually though if you see an article about landing pages, odds are it's the single focused page where much of the priming has happened off the site.

Dan Furman
06-30-2009, 03:42 PM
Look at it this way, Fred... say you're a plumber. You have a ten page website. A few of those pages are for individual services (one for water heaters, one for remodels, one for new construction, etc)

Your home page, obviously, gives the birds-eye view of your business. The navigation bar will have links, and maybe the "services" link has a javascript flyout that shows the individual pages, etc. And maybe even your homepage copy has a bulleted list to a few of the services

Fairly normal so far, right? Despite that I used "plumbing" in my example, I'm really describing millions of business websites.

Now, say you run a google ad for water heaters. Instead of sending those clicks to your home page, why not send them to your water heater services page? And tweak the copy ever so slightly to "welcome" people as if this is the first page they are seeing (which to many, it now might be)

THAT'S now considered a "landing page".

In other words, because you control the google ad and where the click ends up, why not send the people interested in water heaters to a water heaters page, and send the remodel people to the remodel page, etc etc? It falls right into the "solve the problem people came with" quite nicely.

When landing pages are discussed, the conversation is almost always talking about PPC, e-mail, or some other type of "direct" advertising. Because it's very easy (and fast) to control who clicks. With organic, it's nowhere near as timely - you might have to wait a year, making it impractical for testing products, strategies, etc. This isn't to say you can't tweak pages to welcome organic traffic, but it's MUCH more scattershot, and usually not implied whenever landing pages are discussed in the context they usually are.

vangogh
06-30-2009, 10:28 PM
Now, say you run a google ad for water heaters. Instead of sending those clicks to your home page, why not send them to your water heater services page?

Yep. You always want to take people to the most direct page that matches your ad. Someone who clicks on a link to your water heater services page has shown an interest in your water heater services. Don't make them spend another click or two to find that page. Take them right to the page and also make sure to match your page heading to the ad. They clicked looking for water heater services so make the main heading on the page read Water Heater Services.