7 Elements of a Perfect Landing Page

Landing Page Definition: A webpage intended to identify the beginning of the user experience from a defined marketing effort. 

Landing Pages are an integral part of your direct mail marketing these days, for the main reason that they finish the communication once started by your direct mail postcard.  No longer is it in vogue to direct a prospective customer directly to your website to get lost in all the different services you offer trying to navigate to find the answer to what you are specifically promoting to them.  To help you understand the key elements you need on your landing page, I have culled together the 6 most important tips and the rationale behind their usage.

Every Landing Page should have:

1. A design & color scheme that matches the ad that brought them there.

The reason for this is you don’t want people to think they ended up in the wrong place.  You are communicating a particular communication (service or product) and you want to make sure that your landing page has the same look and feel as the ad that directed them there for further information.

1. Additional information about the topic in the ad that brought them there.

Since you are continuing the communication with a landing page, you want to ensure that you do just that.  If there is nothing new in the landing page, your prospect is going to wonder why they visited your landing page because they’ve already gotten all the data – and then they are going to leave your landing page.  That is not what you want them to do.  You want to give them some more information that is new data, such as more information on the offer, links to get more information, or even a giveaway.  But don’t give it all away there either.  You are warming them up and want them to keep reaching.

3.      Make sure there is a good reason for them to go to your landing page (e.g. coupons, reports, additional access to information, free consultation, free samples)

4.      A fill in form to capture data.

Don’t just give the stuff away that I mentioned above without getting something in return.  Make them fill out the form so you can collect their contact information.  That is the exchange.  It won’t cost them money, but they have to give you their contact info (so later you can sell them stuff).

The reasoning is this.  You are moving people through the sales process – you don’t only want the people who are ready for more information (which are your hottest leads).  You want everyone, so you need to find ways to get their information and then you can continue to work them through to the point where they are interested in getting more information about your service or product.  You do this by continually communicating to them, but you are going to have to give away something first in exchange for their very valuable contact information.

5.      Add ‘Trust Logos’… online security, BBB, affiliations, etc.  Anything you have to build credibility.

The more things people see that they are familiar with; the more they are going to trust something.  Let’s take an all-too-simple example.  You have a certain kind of dog.  Your dog is sweet and is the best dog in the world.  Most likely when you see another dog like yours, you are going to have a natural affinity toward that dog.  

Same goes with logos that people trust and are familiar with.  Position your site with identities people already trust and are familiar with to increase your own credibility.  You are basically saying, “These people trust me, why don’t you?”

6.      All your company’s contact information so that your prospect can take the next step in whatever way they feel is necessary (email, phone, address, etc.).

There are a lot of people that are further along in the sales process than the barely-warm or    luke-warm lead.  Those that are hot will want to contact you, so you need to have the information visible for them to do so easily.  Make sure you have all your contact information on your landing page.

7.       A dedicated phone number.

In order to track reaches that find your landing page you could have a dedicated phone number just for that page.  That way you can see who is calling because of the data on the page.  Using a service that also records the incoming calls to that number can help you on the sales end too.

About the Author

Using a powerful, simple, extremely cost effective way of communicating with customers has earned Joy Gendusa Inc. Magazine’s recognition as the nation’s fastest growing direct mail postcard-marketing firm with year 2008 revenues close to $19,000,000. Gendusa began in 1998 with zero investment capital. Today, her Clearwater, FL firm called PostcardMania (www.PostcardMania.com), employs over 160 people and prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards representing 35,000-plus customers in over 350 industries each week. Download the first three chapters of Joy’s book “The Ultimate Postcard Marketing Success Manual” here: (www.PostcardMarketingSuccessManual.com)

Best Landing Page Examples

Landing Pages – What Is A Landing Page Or A Squeeze Page?

For anyone interested in article marketing, you need to know what a landing page or squeeze page is.  This article will talk about what a landing page is and when and why to use one.

If you are an article marketer, you basically have two choices in how you get prospective buyers to a sales page.  In your article, you can link directly to the sales page or you can link to a landing page or squeeze page that “pre-sells” them on the product you are promoting.

Landing Page Definition:

In simple terms, a landing page is the page your website visitors arrive at when they click on a link from an article or other advertisement.  This can be a page or sub-page on your own website or it could also be a blog, Squidoo or Weebly page, just to name a few.

The Purpose of a Landing Page:

The purpose of a landing page is to reach your customer on a personal level.  For example, if you were going to sell a dog training product, your landing page would not talk about the product itself, you would discuss the benefits it would bring to the buyer.  I wouldn’t tell someone that the product has been around for 10 years and is a number one best seller.  That would be the job of the sales page.  My job would be to touch the readers’ feelings by asking questions or making statements that fit their needs at that time.  The buyer doesn’t care about the stats at that point, he wants someone to something like, “Are you tired of your out-of-control dog jumping on everyone that comes in the door?” or “Finally, a proven way to get your dog to stop peeing in the house and making it smell like a kennel.”  Both of these statements touch the frustration of the buyer and make them want to read more.

How to Set Up a Landing Page:

One of the first rules about landing pages is to make sure the only way out is to click on the link to buy, register for a newsletter, or use the back button.

Secondly, make sure the landing page is very easy to read.  Most people spend less than 2 minutes at a company website.  Make the points clear and, if you need to, in bullet form.  People scan they do not read.  People decide within seconds if you have something to offer, so make sure that you get their attention quickly.

Third, but probably most important, is to have a great headline.  This goes along with people wanting to scan, not read.  Sometimes the only thing someone will read is the headline.  The keywords that you are focusing on should be in the headline, plus reaching the customers self-interest.  What this means is knowing what they really want and telling them they can have it.  If you are trying to sell someone on a make money product, you don’t want to say, “Make More Money Today!”  Boring.  Tell them how they can add another $1000 a month to their income and how proud their family will be.

Don’t Clutter the Landing Page:

As mentioned before, you want to go for simplicity on your page.  You want it clean and easy to read, so do not clutter it with lots of ads or irrelevant information.  Also keep the color scheme simple.  Two or three colors throughout the page are good.

Graphics can be fun on landing pages, but use them sparingly or do not use them at all.  They cause some computers to load slowly and you may lose customers before they even get to your page.

About the Author

If you would like more ALL FREE information about article marketing, go to www.gotoaffiliatemarketingschool.com

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SEO Optimization–What’s better between these 3 options?

I need to know from the experienced webmasters out there the answer to this question (thanks):

You forgot option d. “hyphens”

At Metapilot, we get this question quite often from our clients. Option d. is best. Hyphens are the best way to separate words in your URL according to Matt Cutts (Google’s Spam Engineer). Next best is an underscore and finally, running them all together. Your Option C doesn’t actually exist because web servers will insert a character into the spaces (typically a % sign) and the bot will see the % and not the space between the words.

Best Ppc Landing Page Examples

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