Landing Page
Landing Page: Brief Summary
A landing page is a stand-alone web page, which website visitors might ‘land on’ after using a search engine, clicking on an advertisement, or following a link contained within an email or social media post. Essentially, landing pages serve as the entry point for a website, or a particular section of a website, and are used for lead generation purposes. For this reason, a landing page may also be referred to as a lead capture page.
In most instances, marketers use landing pages to encourage website visitors to carry out a specific action. For example, a landing page might be used to persuade users to fill out a form, download an app, call a phone number, register attendance for an event, or purchase a particular product. Due to this single focused objective, many landing pages include a clear ‘call to action’, urging users to perform this desired action or task.
Landing Page: Detailed Summary
Technically speaking, a landing page is any page that a user can ‘land on’ as their first contact with a particular website. However, within marketing circles, the term tends to be used to refer to pages that have been designed specifically to encourage a particular action, after a user lands on the page. This will typically occur after they have clicked a link on a search engine results page, email, social media post or advertisement.
As landing pages are strongly connected to search engine results pages (SERPs), many marketers focus strongly on them when implementing a search engine optimisation, or SEO, strategy. In most cases, website owners and online marketers want visitors to land on an intended landing page first, which makes high placement on SERPs important. Therefore, it is common for landing pages to contain keywords and other SEO elements, in order to ensure this.
Broadly speaking, landing pages can be divided into the following categories:
- Lead Generation – A page designed to encourage visitors to leave contact details, such as their name, email address, company, age, etc. The page will place a strong emphasis on the form that needs to be filled in and will usually have little in the way of other elements to distract visitors.
- Squeeze – Similar to a lead generation page, however, a squeeze landing page will usually focus on gathering a very specific piece of information, such as an email address. Moreover, users will be required to provide the requested information in order to continue further into the website.
- Sales – As the name suggests, a sales landing page is designed to attract a sale or a conversion from the visitor. It will generally provide information about the product(s) for sale, will include a call to action, encouraging the visitor to make a purchase, and will have relevant links to product pages or purchase forms.
- Splash – Splash landing pages effectively function as a greetings page, which visitors land on before entering the main site. This type of landing page was especially popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and can be useful for drawing attention to information, such as a new product release, or a new website feature.
Aside from lead generation, conversion generation and assisting with an SEO strategy, one of the most common reasons why marketers create landing pages is to create a coherent structure for a website, and provide visitors with a clear starting point. This can help to prevent some of the problems associated with users landing on a less relevant page and subsequently struggling to find relevant links.
Nevertheless, a landing page differs from a homepage, because a homepage is essentially a central hub, whereas a landing page is specifically intended to encourage visitors to carry out a particular action. Visually, the main difference between a landing page and a homepage is that a homepage will usually have more links, may not include a clear call to action and may not feature sign up forms or action buttons.
Landing Page Optimisation
Landing page optimisation, or LPO, is a practice used by marketers in order to optimise landing pages, so that they produce the best possible conversion rate, generate as many leads as possible, and/or result in as many sales or sign ups as possible. This usually requires some trial and error. Often, it involves comparing the performance of multiple different landing pages, looking at key metrics to see which is most effective.
The most common technique used for the purpose of optimising landing pages is A/B testing, also known as A/B split testing. Essentially, A/B testing involves testing two different versions of a landing page (version ‘A’ and version ‘B’) and this can be done at the same time, or in sequence. Sequential A/B testing is the most common form, as it is easiest to implement, but in both instances performance can be directly compared.
Marketers then look at the most important performance metrics – such as click-through rates, conversion rates, email sign ups, or sales – in order to determine which of the two landing pages is most successful for achieving the key objective. This can be extremely useful if a business has two different calls to action, but is unsure which is more effective, or if there are two different layouts and a decision needs to be made between them.
Although the elements that lead to success will vary from one website to another, depending on the business, the desired action and the target audience, successful landing pages usually contain the following elements: clear branding; an attention-grabbing title; information about the products, services, event, or file being pushed; a sign up form; and a clear call to action. Links should be kept to a minimum, with only the most relevant links included.
Conclusion
A landing page is a page that has been designed to be ‘landed on’ by customers who are visiting a website via search engine results pages, an advertisement, a social media post, or a link contained within an email. A landing page differs from a homepage because it is specifically intended to encourage visitors to perform a specific action, such as leaving their contact details, downloading a file, or making a purchase.
This emphasis on lead generation and conversion rates is the reason why landing pages are sometimes called lead capture pages. An effective landing page will entice visitors in, provide them with relevant information and feature a call to action, asking them to perform the desired action or task. Landing page optimisation also forms a key part of many SEO strategies, due to the close association between landing pages and search engine marketing.