This is term used frequently in online marketing conversations – so what does it mean?
It's an important concept that can make a significant difference to the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts.
Theoretically, a landing page is any web page that a visitor can arrive at or “land” on. If you look at Google analytics under behaviour, site content – it will refer to landing pages and it literally means where people entered your site.
But, when discussing landing pages within the context of online marketing and advertising, it’s more common to refer to a landing page as being a standalone web page that has been designed for a single focused objective.
Often, and some would say preferably, they should be separate from your main website. This means no menu or links to other pages on your site to distract visitors from the main conversion goal of the page. Especially since the traffic to these pages are often paid for traffic.
Typically, a visitor would land on such a page in response to a campaign of some kind such as:
- Adwords
- Facebook or other social marketing
- Affiliate marketing link
- Email newsletter or campaign
- Other online advertising
The landing page will usually display content (or 'sales copy) that is specific to and a logical progression from an ad or offer.
The usual goal of a landing page is to get the visitor to take action or 'convert' into a sale or a lead.
- If the goal is to obtain a lead – these are often referred to as lead generation pages, the page will include some method for the visitor to get in touch like a phone number or contact form
- If the goal is to make a sale, the page will have a link to the shopping cart or checkout
- If the goal is to gather email addresses, there will be a sign up form (these are actually a form of lead generation page)
Landing pages are particularly useful in terms of tracking. Because they are single purpose, conversion statistics can be obtained for a particular advertising campaign right down to the individual ad. But of course you must have conversion tracking set up in the first place.
Tracking could include recording:
- A call to a dedicated phone number
- A form completion
- A sale
- Clicking a button or link
- Downloading an e-book, report or other document
With a single focus page, you can test out different offers, calls to action and layouts to see what gets the best conversion rate.
Service landing pages
Sometimes people refer to pages on a main website as landing pages. It is useful to think about each of your service or product pages as landing pages even if they are not the result of advertising.
This is because similar rules apply:
- Stick to a single focus – one offer, one call to action
- Create text (or copy) that focuses on the path the visitor has to take to make a decision to buy
- Minimise distractions
And this can improve the conversion rate of these pages as well
