If you’re an auto dealership looking to shine a spotlight on your hot new 2010 mid-size SUV lines, then why fill the limited real estate you have for content on your landing page with general information about your brand and dealership?

Because it’s too tempting (and often much easier for busy business owners) to simply re-use existing Website content to populate your landing page. After all, it’s all about driving traffic … right?

It’s a tight-rope walk for most brands. While there is certainly value in establishing the positives that your brand offers potential customers via the content on your landing page, in the end the true value of a landing page all chalks up to relevancy. The more on target and relevant your message is to the solutions, products or services people are actively searching for, the more likely you are to increase your loyal customer base.

So while driving traffic is an essential first step, once you’ve connected with your audience your follow through is even more crucial to converting your audience into customers.

Here are three important questions you should ask before writing your landing page content:

How relevant is your landing content to your PPC ad copy?

Effective PPC marketing is all about relevancy. Creating a positive feedback loop on publishers like Google requires a simple three step process:

1. Keyword and competitive research to help you understand what your targeted prospects are searching for so that you can shift your PPC efforts and provide enticing copy that captures search demand.
2. Write engaging ad copy that is relevant to what your targeted prospects are searching for (if it’s tips on pet training, don’t focus all of your efforts on writing ad copy offering discount puppy chow).
3. Ad copy should be hyper relevant to the content on your landing page, creating a positive feedback loop with both user and search engine.

Relevant ad copy supported by relevant landing page copy = winning formula every time.

Are my headlines both keyword relevant and engaging?

An important litmus test for landing page copy is whether a) the primary headline grabs your attention and entices you to keep reading, and b) your headline is targeted and meaty vs. irrelevant and generalized.

Focus your headlines on the product or service that you are promoting on the landing page. Your headline should both engage the user and tell them exactly what to expect if they continue reading your content.

Am I talking too much about my brand instead of how I can help my audience?

General copy about your company history, while important in helping to establish trust with your audience, is not always best applied in the body of your landing page content.

Cut to the chase. Use bullets to present the benefits of your products and services. Separate chunks of copy into shorter paragraphs using sub headlines. Keep the copy concise and use your landing page content to build a case for conversion – from engaging headline to benefits copy to a stirring call to action.

Simply put, your landing page content should focus all of its energy on helping the user understand why this particular product or service can change their lives, solve a great need or concern, etc. Focus only on the higher points of your company/brand, and risk being relegated to irrelevancy bin ten fold.

After reading through the article, we realized that many of the principles driving these best practices are excellent principles for your business to follow in its online presence.

Here are a few of the best practices discussed and how they relate to an effective web presence:

Links should indicate where they will take the user.

People like to know where a road will take them before turning onto it. Think about how you would feel if you got on an interstate and followed the signs to Indianapolis, but at the end of your trip ended up in Dallas. Now, Dallas is a fine city, but it isn’t where you expected or wanted to go. That’s why it’s important to set proper expectations for your customers.

>Your website is the very first impression most people will get of your business. It’s important that what you present sets a realistic yet flattering expectation of your service or product offering.

Take a few minutes to look over your web site. Better yet, ask a few friends or colleagues to look at your site and tell you what they might expect. Then compare that to your real business offerings. Exercises like these can be invaluable to your business and the results you’re getting from your website.

Ensure Contrast – Links should stand out.

Are you truly standing out from your competition online? Ignoring colors and general layout, is your site all that different from your competition? Are you saying something different or more compelling than others?

Take a look through the lens of an outsider at a few competitors’ websites. If you aren’t sure your’s is standing out, take some steps to change that. It may be as simple as taking a look at what your company really does well and stating that boldly on your home page. Or perhaps it’s even as simple as stating exactly what it is that sets you apart. Don’t be afraid to tell your customers exactly why you’re the best!

Don’t Forget About Visited Links

Once your website has converted prospects into customers, make sure you don’t leave them out in the cold!

Many businesses think of their websites solely as a sales tool, or as a method for converting prospects. While this is a big part of an effective web presence, it isn’t all there is.

No matter how big or small, any company can benefit from offering some type of ongoing interaction with their customers. While there are many ways this ongoing interaction can positively impact your bottom line, one of the most compelling is maintaining top of mind positioning with your customers. If you can stay in touch with your best customers, you can turn satisfied patrons into raving fanatics!

Of course all of these ideas are based just around best practices in link styling on web pages. But it’s a great example of taking concepts from one arena and using them as inspiration for making a business or product better.

What inspires you to constantly improve?

So you’ve got a killer online display and paid search campaign; or maybe you’re starting to gain traction with an email marketing campaign. Congratulations, you’ve managed to create interest in your product or service and motivate prospects to do something very difficult: take action!

Your next challenge is to motivate your prospects to actually buy into your product or service. If the links in your other marketing campaigns are directing customers to the home page of your website, chances are you aren’t seeing the results you’d like from your marketing campaign.

But don’t worry! You can get the results you want through the use of a well-crafted landing page…

Click here to continue reading –

What is a landing page?

A landing page, also known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines. Basically, it’s a web page custom-tailored to customers coming in through an advertising campaign.

3 Tips to Maximize Your Landing Pages

1. Don’t Give Users a Choice!

While you may have 5 different product options or service plans, you should focus on one option that you will push on your landing page. Studies show that if people feel there are too many choices to consider, they simple won’t choose one at all.

You can still list other options, but make sure one stands out visually from the rest. That way, customers can still choose the option that suits them. If they’re confused, you’ve provided a suggestion that will keep them from choosing none of them!

2. Lasso Eyeballs!

Usability studies and eye-tracking research shows a clear pattern in the way people scan the contents of a web page. Their attention always goes first to the boldest or most contrasting visual element of a page.

What is the one element of your landing page that you want people to focus on? Take that element and surround it in a contrasting color. If you aren’t comfortable changing the colors on your landing page draw an arrow to it, put a circle around it, or put a big check mark next to it… Do something bold to lasso those eyeballs and make sure they see what you want them to see!

3. Show the Next Step

People lose interest fast. No matter how compelling your content is, people simply lose interest after a few seconds. Now, to clarify, they aren’t necessarily losing interest in your product or service, but they quickly grow weary of all of the content on a page if they feel it isn’t leading somewhere. Many people visiting your landing page are already sold on what you have to offer and just want you to get to the point.

A great way to cater to impatient readers is to prominently display the response mechanism that allows them to take the next step in the process. This can be a contact form, a phone number, an email address or even a coupon that can be printed out. This will make users feel as though they are moving forward in a process and are not just being sold to.

These are just a few little additions/changes you can make to your landing pages that will increase conversion rates. If you’d like help crafting your landing page or want a custom landing page from the ground-up, visit our website here and click “Contact”.