Happy Landing: Getting the Most From Your Landing Pages

Tips from your web hosting provider

Many site owners, newbies and old vets, think that if they maintain a captivating, enticing home page they’re home free. Nothing like a good home page to draw in visitors and keep that bounce rate down to nothing, right?

Well, sort of. No doubt about it, you do need an attractive, eye-catching, intriguing home page to entice visitors to stick around long enough to see what you have to offer (a statistic called page views indicates the number of pages visitors saw before leaving and it gives you a very good idea of how long that visitor stuck around, and even why s/he left, but that’s another story).

Sure, the home page has to have eye appeal but not all visitors are going to find your site via the home page. In fact, just as many will find your site via a landing page.

What’s a Landing Page?

Each page of a website is spidered and indexed within Google, Yahoo or some other search engine. And not all of these pages will be cataloged together. In fact, they’ll be cataloged by the search engine’s taxonomy - the sorting and classification system employed by a particular search engine. (And of course, the taxonomies of the big search engines are all different. You can’t win.)

Web hosting provider explains landing page concept

A landing page is a specific page designed to sell a given product, service or message - let your web hosting provider explain. Let’s say you run a big, online clothing store. You sell men’s clothes, women’s clothes, kid’s clothes – the whole product line for the whole family. Well, one of your site’s zones is going to be “women’s sweaters.” That landing page will be sorted into a different classification than, say, children’s outwear.

A search engine user, who queries “women’s sweaters” may discover that your site’s “women’s sweaters” landing page pops up at the top of the SERPs, though the rest of your digital shop doesn’t appear at all.

That’s how you often land in the middle of a website. That landing page, according to search engine taxonomy, had more relevance than your site’s home page. And it does for someone looking for women’s sweaters.

This means that any landing page must have the staying power to keep visitors staying on site.

 The Well-Designed Landing Page

There are several critical functions of the well-designed landing page. First, it must provide the information to tell the search engine user where they are and why. Remember, the user just clicked on a SERP link so the landing page should provide reassurance that “you’re in the right place.” Put your logo up on every landing page so visitors know where they are.

The Zone Page

A zone page is often a landing page. When visitors, who land on the homepage, click on the “For Women” link, they’ll be taken to a zone page – the women’s section. Here, they’ll be able to click on links to specific item classes like women’s sweaters. For visitors who arrive via homepage, the zone page will always be a landing page. And, depending on how your site is constructed, it will also often serve as the landing page for search engine users who click on your SERPs link.

Again, tell visitors where they are: “Welcome to OfftheWrecks.com” women’s clothing section.

Provide a prominent home button on this and every other page (landing or otherwise) so that visitors who get lost can always get back to the home page and start over.

You can also do a little selling here. The organic visitors won’t have seen your snazzy, zippy home page so a little eye candy and some catchy text is definitely the way to go – even though it’s one of 30 zone pages you have. Take the time to write a little paragraph of soft-sell directly above the links to specific products. Use it as a call to action, encouraging the visitor to keep exploring.

The Product Page

Search engine indices have billions and billions and billions of web pages indexed – many of them product pages. This way, if a buyer conducts a search for an Acme 338-XB107 (just made that up), your product page may be the first page the visitor sees, making it, and all other product pages, potential landing pages based on how the search engine has each page classified.

Here, you can assume the searcher knows what s/he’s looking for. Who else would be looking for an Acme whatchamacallit? So, as usual, tell the visitor where they are (use your logo), provide ordering options – an “Enter Quantity” form or a toll-free order/customer service line. These are buyers not browsers so make it as easy as possible for them to buy. Today. Now, even.

In fact, if they’re regular buyers (the best) you can even set up a one click checkout to keep things simple and to keep them coming back.

Also, be sure to provide all product information – total, complete – so the prospect can determine that it is, indeed, that Acme 338-XB107 and place the order with confidence.

The fact is, almost any page can be a landing page – and, by coding each page of your site, you can be sure that all desired pages are indexed, thus spreading your presence over numerous categories within the search engine taxonomy – a very simple, effective strategy.

The points are these:

Consider every page a potential landing page. Include all contact information and all assurances that the visitor is where s/he wants to be.

Use zone pages to sell – a little. Most visitors will see one or more zone pages, based on how many different items or services you sell. Use these pages to provide “Where am I?” information, a link to the home page and to tell readers why your items are the best

Product Pages. The most specific and complete information you’ve got. Also, easy ordering. Regardless of how the visitor got to that page, you want them to have all the facts before they place an order. Cuts down on returns – a lot.

Take Me Home. You know, not all web users are even aware of the back button on their browsers. It’s true. That means all navigation must be screen driven – on the computer screen in a place where even a five-year old could find it. Make sure that the visitor can return to the homepage with a single click from every other page on the site.

If you assume that a snappy home page is all you need to build site traffic think again. You don’t know which page a visitor will land on. It’s kind of up to the search engine and its taxonomy. However, you can assume that every page has the potential to be a landing page (not the back office of course, but the presentation layer for sure) and, as such, each page on your site should be attractive, informative and provide easy navigation and ordering options.

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