Landing pages are yesterday’s news.
Well, that’s the opinion of some SEO analysts anyway. They will tell you that doorway pages don’t add enough value to justify the time and effort spent creating them: they’ll also mention that there are better and more effective ways of providing customers with a portal to your website – ways which will ultimately lead to a higher rate of conversions. Yet, doorway pages remain as popular as ever and there’s a reason for this: they work. Landing pages are the first point of contact between potential customers and business websites: as soon as readers click on the link they’ll be taken to your page.
So the question is how do you make these pages as effective and punchy as possible?
How do you add impact and sell yourself to customers? Well, it takes effort and commitment, but it will be worth it in the long run. These would-be customers have taken a leap of faith in you and opened your doorway page, so it’s up to your business to reciprocate and give the customers the information they’re after.
The purpose of any landing page is essentially to convert the readers into buyers. So if you want to convert that interest into a sale your page will need to not only keep the reader interested , but also give these potential customers the opportunity to sign up to your promotion or buy one of your products. In short it has to include a call to action. How do you as a business owner do this effectively? Well, that’s the 64 thousand dollar question. Optimising a landing page so that it is as effective as possible will take some work, yet ultimately it will be worth it. There are no guarantees in life other than death and taxes, but hopefully the following tips on doorway page optimisation may be of help.
Keep your landing pages functional.
Your landing pages should be simple, direct, uncluttered and functional. You’ll need to ensure that all the links are relevant and that the information you provide is current. If it’s not then readers will look elsewhere.
Keep the readers involved.
As already mentioned the purpose of your landing page is prompt visitors to act in a certain manner or do something specific like sign up to a newsletter or social media platform. Unfortunately not every reader will cotton on to what you want them to do unless you spell it out. That’s not meant to sound patronising; it’s just a fact. Make sure your call to action is clear and unambiguous.
Make landing pages for each product if your business sells multiple products.
If your business sells lots of different products or services, then it makes sense to have landing page for each of these. Most readers are searching for specific items, so you need to provide the information they looking for. However, if you do go on to create multiple landing pages then it’s essential to make sure that the message and content for each of these is unique.
Make landing pages are working for your business.
Ideally online businesses should build the landing page into their websites. Ultimately this will be beneficial as they will then be indexed by search engines just like other pages of your business website.
Don’t use flash if you can avoid it.
Flash may well look flash and add impact, but it can often prove to be a pain for the viewer and isn’t always effective on a landing page. Flash animation extends page loading times and that could prompt any visitor to take their business elsewhere. Time is in short supply and no one likes to be kept waiting.
Make the transition from browsing to sale seamless.
It doesn’t really matter what action you want the reader to take, what you’ll need to do is make sure this action can be done from the landing page itself. It needs to be seamless. What you don’t want to do is sent the reader off to another page to secure the sale. The chances are they will bounce away to your competitors. If you want them to buy something, make sure they can do so right there on the landing page.
