A landing page is any page on your site, other than the home page, that is setup with the intent of being the first page a user will see. In other words, the user “lands” on the page. Landing pages should be different than other site pages, especially the homepage. Landing pages are generally used for marketing. Whether it is email marketing, banner ads, or pay-per-click advertising, these landing pages play a strong part in ensuring the success of your marketing campaigns.

Landing pages provide benefits to both the end user and the marketer. They are typically designed with the intent of making it easier for the user to find the specific information. This means the user doesn’t have to hunt through the site to find the desired information. It also increases the chance that the user will see the content that you wanted them to find.

The use of landing pages also increases the chance of conversion. By immediately providing the user with one or two calls to action on the landing page, the user doesn’t have to make any additional clicks through the website to get more information, sign up for a newsletter, or download a white paper. They won’t be overwhelmed with too many choices and will be able to clearly understand what action they are intended to take.

According to Omniture®, a world renowned leader in analytics, conversions can increase by 25% with the use of a landing page. That number can increase to up to 50% with split testing and optimization.

Especially with pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, landing pages can increase the relevance of the page to the ad and to the user’s search query. Increasing the relevance will increase the Quality Score (QS) in AdWords, in turn reducing your cost-per-click (CPC). This gives you more clicks for the same cost. A landing page can also make tracking the success of a campaign easier. Generally speaking, users can only arrive at a landing page by clicking through a PPC ad, which means that any activity that occurs on your landing page is the direct result of your paid campaign.

Landing pages can also be built fully optimized, making them load quicker. Load time is so important to end users that Google began incorporating this into their algorithms over a year ago.

Finally, landing pages give you more freedom. Since they aren’t part of the site proper, you can deviate from the site-wide design to test other layouts without the expense of a full-site redesign. Landing pages also have fewer stake holders involved, making the approval process much simpler.

A good landing page provides the user with:

• Targeted, relevant, and concise information
• A clear call to action – two at most!

By providing the user with these two advantages, they will have a successful experience with your website, and you will get the results you want from more leads.

Contact Cool Blue today to get started on your landing pages!