What Is a Landing Page and What Is It For?
Before getting into the essence of the article, let’s first find out what a landing page is and how it works.
A landing page, in other words, a landing, is any page of a website with the purpose of inviting a user to perform a certain action. This can be any action depending on the site’s thematics and business niche. For example, to place an order, leave contact details, or download a file.
A landing is not necessarily one page; it can be used for both one-page and multiple-page sites. If you are a business owner, then working with landing pages will become an integral part of your business.
Let’s find out more about the creation of a landing and landing page optimization.
Subtleties of Creating a Landing and Peculiarities of Its Optimization
The main distinction of a landing page is that it is developed for one particular action. Your task is to set the target correctly and create all the conditions for a client who has followed the link to the landing to be interested and click the button. But the primary task is the landing optimization and attraction of traffic to the target page. How do you do this?
Collection of Semantics
Collect the semantic kernel that corresponds to the business thematics. All the keywords are usually impossible to be included in the content on one page. That is why it is crucial to not only collect all the keywords but also to cluster them. To introduce a large number of keywords, it is necessary to create a greater number of landing pages.
A good foundation for the creation of landing makes medium- and low-frequency keywords. With such search requests, it will be easier to get to the top positions in search systems due to lower competition.
There are a lot of tools that can collect semantics. Use the one that you find more convenient to work with: Semrush, Serpstat, Google Keyword Planner, and others. You can read more information in the article How to Do Keyword Research.
Page Structure
Landing page optimization best practices include the creation of a well-thought-out landing structure. There are several classic formulas of landing page creation:
- The attraction of attention, raising interest, inciting wish, and achieving a particular action;
- Description of the problem, enhancement of the problem, the revival of hope, and the proposal of an optimum solution.
By taking such uncomplicated steps, a user will go through the landing page from the beginning of the visit to the action.
Below, we are going to list the main elements of awesome landing pages:
- A title that attracts the attention of a visitor;
- Structures unique content that helps a visitor understand the benefit of the site;
- Call-to-action buttons or a form of conversion;
- Trustful elements that can establish credibility to a page;
- Clear and understandable page design.
Yayapapaya
In the era of mobile technologies, more and more people are visiting sites and making online purchases via their mobile devices. For this reason, mobile landing page optimization is essential and it should be given ample attention. Read more in the article Mobile Search.
Content Optimization
Content is the basis of a landing page. It should be written in such a way that a user can clearly understand from the very first visit where they are and what the topic of the landing is.
Distribute keywords evenly all over the page in different blocks: in headers, paragraphs, in the title, and description. You can read more information on this topic in the following articles:
Keep an eye on how you optimize a landing page. Do not only focus on keywords but also create quality content for users. Try not to write canvases of text, divide it into short paragraphs, and make it more readable.
Create the content structure using h1-h3 headings that will contain key queries. The text of the landing page should be well-thought-out in such a way that it is simple and understandable for a user and can catch their gaze.
Separate attention should be paid to the creation of the page title and description. It is important that they contain keywords and form a search snippet attractive for a visitor and inciting to be clicked.
Do not forget to add pictures on the topic and to use infographics. Sometimes, it is much easier for people to understand the meaning of the content by only looking at one picture; use keywords in title and alt tags of pictures. You can read more information on this topic in the article SEO Images.
Remember the page intent. The content should be created in a way that will depict what the interest of a user will be and how exactly you can solve the visitors’ problems. List the benefits and guarantees that you can provide compared to competitors.
And the most important is content uniqueness. Copying is wrong. Be creative and create new content that will be useful to users and that search systems will like. You can also read an important article on this topic – Website Content Audit.
Let’s continue our landing page guide on your way to getting to the top-3 of the search systems.
Commercial Factors
Contact Details
People will treat you with more trust if there is company information on the landing page. Indicate your address, phone numbers, email, Google maps coordinates to get to you, or create the callback form. This is important, be it a blogger landing page or a case study landing page.
Mention Prices
It is no less crucial to indicate the cost of the provided products. It is more likely that users will fulfill an action on the site if they understand the approximate price or can carry out the calculation of services in which they are interested.
We are sure that customers are less interested in filling in the callback form to find out the price of the service. In any case, foresee both options.
Trust Blocks
A good practice of clients’ attraction is the use of the trust blocks. Provide the information that will prove your intentions and guarantees on services. It is possible to use the number of clients who have worked with you, the number of fulfilled orders, number of visitors per day. Be creative and use methods that can attract clients.
Methods of the Service Work
Try to explain in detail how your service works and what the stages are. Divide them into several steps (this can even be done visually) for users to understand the way from the possible product/service order to getting it.
Guarantee Block
Provide the information on guarantees that a client will get from working with you. This is probably a guaranteed money return, keeping confidentiality, quick order processing, and other peculiarities of your business.
Use the System of Discounts
If the landing thematics allow it, use discounts. A user will probably be attracted by a profitable offer and this will serve as the beginning of long-term cooperation.
Behavioral Factors
Session Time
Try introducing interactive elements and video materials on the landing page. It will raise additional interest and will keep the user on the page.
The use of these techniques will increase users’ session time on the page and will help to decrease the bounce rate. In their turn, these factors can positively influence the page ranking. Search systems will notice that users are interested in this landing page, and they spend enough time on this site. Find out more in the article What is a Good Bounce Rate?
Use Heat Maps
This function is rarely used; however, this is a mistake. The use of a heat map helps make the landing page better and will show its weak points. Keep an eye out for the users’ behavior on the landing page, what they pay attention to, what they click, and which elements they skip.
External Factors
One of the basic landing page optimization tactics is the improvement of external ranking factors of a landing. The more your site is referred to, the more authoritative it will look to the search systems. Try making publications on thematic forums, platforms, look for partners within your business thematics. Read more in the article about how to Build High-Quality Backlinks.
Do not forget about social networks. The more people from the potential audience find out about you, the more chances you get to attract clients to the landing page. Place social networks’ buttons on the landing page. Read more in the article Social Signals in SEO.
Use crowd marketing, let people leave comments about your service, write on thematic forums and other platforms.
Improving the Landing Conversions
The main purpose of a landing is to attract clients, interest them, and entice them to make a required action.
Let us discuss some aspects, such as landing page conversion optimization. The landing page in a day is not our option. It is important to constantly experiment, keep an eye on visitors’ behavior, and improve the landing page.
Online Chat
Adding an online chat to the page will help to significantly increase the conversion. For instance, a person has come to your landing but has some doubts or have not found an answer to the query. The possibility to ask a question in the chat will become a great solution to this problem.
Real Photos
Do not forget to use pictures of your clients, employees, or management. This method is used to increase landing page credibility.
Secret Signals
Be creative while developing the design and using images for your landing page. It is possible to upload the photo of a satisfied client whose eyes are pointing at the order button or callback form.
Free Test
If the topic of the landing page allows this, suggest users trying your service for free or at a symbolic price for a short period.
Call-to-action Button
Experiment with the color, form, location, and text of the call-to-action button. A round button is considered to be more attractive to users. Think about how to label the button, so that users are inclined to press it.
Pop-up
The use of pop-up messages can keep users on the site. Provide visitors with a proposal they will not be able to resist. However, do not overuse this method. People do not like it when too many windows pop up when they are on a site.
Outgoing Links
If it is possible, try to avoid a high number of outgoing links to other sites. It can result in a user leaving your resource following one of the links. If they are necessary, reduce their number to a minimum and add tags that will open these links in new tabs.
A/B Tests
Introducing new marketing approaches, always try to evaluate their effectiveness. A/B testing is a good solution for this purpose. To briefly describe this, some people will see the old version of your site, while others will see the new. After some time, you will analyze the available data and understand if the introduced changes are useful.
Loading Speed
Do not forget about the loading speed of a landing page. Users dislike it when a site loads too slowly and will leave it in favor of competitors. Besides, loading speed is an important ranking factor for search systems.
Landing Mobile Version
As mentioned before, take care of the mobile version for your landing page. Make it adaptive, check that everything works properly, just like on the desktop version.
Best Practices of Landings
Let’s have a look at landing page optimization examples. As we already know, there are different directions of landing pages. Someone is beating one’s head over a blog page, while others are checking which practice is best for optimizing a landing page for Adwords.
When creating a landing for advertising, it is important to minimize the content, number of various blocks, and buttons. They will only distract the attention of the target action for which a user has been attracted to the site. However, for a user to make an order, it is important to provide sufficient information for understanding.
Demica
Landing pages are different according to their purpose:
- Advertising
Ad Targeting
- For sale
Paramount Essays
- Informative
Apple
- Presentational
Ekfluid Gaming
- Gaming
Blizzard
This list is not exhaustive. All of the pages are different from each other, but at the same time, they are similar. In any case, it is up to you to choose the best landing page example. Analyze businesses, check what competitors do, and look for new possibilities to attract users.
Optimization Tools for Landing Pages
It is time to learn more about landing page optimization tools. With their help, you will analyze pages and introduce changes to them better and more quickly.
Google Analytics
If you read the article The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics, you can learn the benefits of this tool. Confidently use Google Analytics, create a sales funnel, keep an eye on your indices, and analyze data and use it to improve your landing page.
SEMrush
Considering landing page optimization services, SEMrush will be a great assistant for the analysis of competitors in your business niche, for tracking the success of your sites’ promotion, measuring the positions of keywords on the site, and even for content search by keyword queries.
Control the development of your resource, check which platforms refer to your site, as well as find and introduce new keywords.
Yoast SEO
It is a popular plugin among site owners, which was developed based on WordPress. It helps track all the basic SEO settings for every page of a site. You just need to download, install, and activate Yoast SEO on the site.
Check the readability of pages and the presence of all the tags that will help increase the site positions in the SERP. Read more in the articles Yoast vs. All in One SEO Pack and Setting Up SEO Plugins.
Yoast
Screaming Frog
This tool is designed to expand the knowledge about the site you are promoting. It is possible to go on and on about this tool, but it is always better to try it out for oneself. Here is a video presentation of the service that might interest you.
We will tell you about some cool features provided by the service.
Using it, you can easily define which links on your site are broken, independently create a sitemap, integrate such services like Google Search Console, as well as to build the visual map of the internal site linking. Define the essence of the problem and analyze the site together with Screaming Frog.
GTmetrix
Today, Google gives more preference to sites with fast loading speed. GTmetrix is great to help make your site faster. It will give insight on how to trace the loading speed of page elements and install notifications if the loading speed decreases.
Gmetrix
GTmetrix will provide detailed information on the weak points of a site, will show where it is necessary to reduce the sizes of images, to rewrite the code, and make a page faster.
MOZ
The last tool we would like to draw your attention to is MOZ. A lot of SEO specialists are actively using it in their work. It will help collect the site semantics and will provide you with the information on the promotion. With MOZ, you can easily audit the site, analyze backlinks, and collect important metrics.
Read more in the article about Top SEO Tools for Businesses in 2020.
We hope that the information we have provided on the promotion of landing pages will suffice and that you are ready to fight for the top-3 positions on Google by creating your unique landing pages. Study various promotion practices, and you will leave competitors behind.
