A landing page is a web page with a singular focus. Landing pages are used to capture visitor information or sell something outright.

When someone visits your landing page, they can either leave the page altogether or they can do the one thing you want them to do, whether that is fill out a form or buy a product from you. They should not be able to do anything else!

Conversion

Landing pages are all about conversion. Each landing page can be measured by tracking how many of the people that visit that page carry out the action you want–like filling in their contact information. What percentage of the visitors to the landing page actually enter their contact information? What percentage of the visitors to the page buy your product?

Link your Landing pages from a web page

We typically use landing pages that are linked from an informational page such as a web page or a blog post. When someone reads a blog post we offer them more information (often more in depth information such as an e-book on the subject). This information is offered in the form of a call-to-action, which is often a graphic (“button”) that sits on the bottom of a blog post (see example below.)

This “button” will say “to learn more about this topic download are great e-book”. When the visitor clicks on the button they are taken to a landing page. That landing page has one job and only one job. It offers the visitor the chance to trade their contact information for an e-book. See the landing page example below.

Keep your landing pages simple

As you’ll see in the landing page example above, one of the best practices for landing page design is to remove navigation and hyperlinks. At first it seems odd to remove the very things that make “the Web” a web. But that’s where landing pages are different to “regular” web pages or blog posts. The goal of a landing page is not to help you surf the Web. The goal is to get the visitor to do the one thing you want–usually right on your website.

Real marketing starts after the landing page

Once we have someone’s contact information via a landing page, we will send them a series of emails with further offers that seek to move them down the path to becoming a sales prospect.

These further offers may include another e-book on a subject that indicates they are further down the buying path or a free trial offer of one of our services etc. We’ll cover this email marketing process in future posts but the key point here is that this email marketing can only begin once the landing page has done its job.

Landing pages are simple web pages but they are critical for turning your website (and blog) into a sales engine vs. an informational resource.