Landing Pages

Best Practices

  1. Landing pages should be highly focused. Have a specific goal in mind, and design the page around that single goal.
  2. Eliminate unneeded elements, such as links to other resources, or other pages on your website. The consistent navigation bar that makes sense on a website doesn't necessarily make sense on a landing page.
  3. The heading of the landing page should match the user's search term or the subject of the e-mail message.
  4. Keep all content above the fold. Design for scan-ability. Make good use of copy, graphics and white space to lead the reader along the path to your offer.
  5. Test. For examples of different things to test, see Optimost Case Study for homepage optimization.

Other Resources

5 Things Every Landing Page Must Possess

Kevin Gold, Search Engine Marketing Standard magazine (June 2006)

  1. Overall design arrangement. What do your customers expect to find and what goal do they want to achieve when they search on a particular keyword.
  2. Headline. Use the keyword in the headline
  3. Call-to-Action button text
  4. Credibility Assurances by Call-to-Action button
  5. Image

Most Common Mistakes

Interview with Nick Usborne, Search Engine Marketing Standard magazine (June 2006)

  1. Lack of clarity as to the objective of the web page
  2. Lack of clear Unique Value Proposition in the headline
  3. Lack of clear sales path
  4. Poor page design
  5. Poor copy writing
  6. Asking for too much personal information too soon