Home Page vs. Landing Page
Your website’s home page is basically a storefront. It showcases everything you do or sell. A landing page is like a specialty display that provides your customers with exactly what they’re looking for. It increases sales and decreases frustration. Many companies rely entirely on their homepage to make sales and they’ll lose out quite a bit because of this. Ideally, you want a landing page for each campaign you plan. These will be very specific to the advertising campaign and will help you with lead generation and sales.
Simple Ways to Optimize Your Landing Page
Keep your landing page relevant to your customers. If they clicked on an ad, the same headline or wording should appear on the landing page to assure readers they are in the right place. Your landing page should also be focused on one single thing. Don’t make it easy for the reader to click away. You want these visitors to do one thing and one thing only while they’re on the page, be that buying something, giving you their email address, or something else. Keep that the focus throughout the entire page.
The call to action should be above the fold so it is one of the first things visitors see. Don’t keep it tiny and unobtrusive, either. Remember that the reader is there for one purpose and make sure he or she knows exactly what that is. This is the main reason you see calls to action in red or with arrows pointing to them. Also, be sure to use images. These add interest, but more than that, they can be used to subtly direct people to what you want them looking at. For example, if you have a form you want filled out, have a picture of someone looking in that direction, a road leading to the call to action (CTA), or something similar. You can also use more obvious arrows, of course.
Elements of Your Landing Page
Wondering what your landing page should include? It can be kept fairly simple, but you will always need a call to action to let readers know what they should do. There are other elements that can be included, however, to create a successful page. Video has been proven to convert far more than just text and photos. In fact, it can boost conversion rates by up to 80%. Video is an excellent way to show exactly how your product works or to introduce the main spokesperson for your company. It can also be handy for reviews from real people. Speaking of reviews, testimonials are a very powerful way to increase sales. Social proof is an amazing method of getting people to trust you and your company, so make good use of it. You can use testimonials, video reviews, and “featured on” badges to help increase your landing page’s value.
Finally, before you publish that landing page, make sure you have done everything to keep the copy clean and short. There should be no extra words or flowery prose. People are busy and you should respect their time. It may even be appropriate to use bullet points in some areas to tighten up the copy.
Landing pages are an essential part of business. Whether you’re paying for advertising or you just have links to a specific product, your page will help convert more people than just a homepage. Make full use of it! One easy way to create your landing page is to use the templates that we have available for you on your OSP site. If you are not yet an OSP client, be sure to click here to see how many tools and resources we have for you.
