You’ve probably heard that you only have one chance to make a first impression. You’ve been told that first impressions last, so make them count.
Do they really matter? Consider the book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell. He cites numerous studies that show our first impressions are fairly accurate, and that they do indeed stand the test of time.
According to an article by ABCNews, first impressions are the most important. They indicate the future course of a relationship with someone.
Just what does this have to do with your landing page?
The BBC tells us that Internet users make up their minds about the quality of your website and the information on it in the blink of an eye. That’s just a 20th of a second.
Because of the importance and value of the first impression, we’re going to look at five reasons you need a great landing page.
Your first impressions and future relationships with your customer depend on it.
Let’s first define the landing page.
Landing Pages Are…
Your landing page is a page that your website visitor lands on after clicking to it either from a search, ad, email or social media post.
Dedicated landing pages are part of your marketing strategy. They exist to capture leads and/or move people through your sales funnel.
Landing pages can exist for a number of reasons:
- Sell a product
- Capture an email address
- Promote a service or product
- Offer a download like an eBook or white paper
Now let’s look at why you need a great landing page.
#1: Lead Generation
Landing pages are built to capture leads. With a well-designed landing page, you can increase your conversions from pay-per-click or email marketing campaigns.
Instead of directing people to your website as a whole, you can send them to a dedicated landing page.
This sends people to a page that matches exactly to what they clicked on. It provides them with specifically targeted content that then moves them down a path you pre-determined.
#2: Advertising Conversion
Let’s say you’re running a Google AdWords or paid Facebook ad campaign.
Your advertising is much more effective if you send people to your dedicated landing page. The only thing on this page? The content your website visitor expects to find.
The landing page should be specific to the ad with keyword-optimized pages that match your keywords in your AdWords campaign or match the ad you post on Facebook or another paid social media platform.
Speaking of Google AdWords, your ad has the potential of ranking higher on the search page when you have a dedicated landing page. Why? It increases the relevancy of your page to the ad and vice versa.
If your relevancy is higher, you’ll have a better quality score which can in turn mean a cheaper cost per click.
#3: Better Data
By creating landing pages, you’ll have more accurate statistics and data pertaining to bounce rate and click rate.
You’ll be privy to a great deal of information about user data on your page. This helps you make necessary changes to improve your landing page even more.
You can also easily see which landing pages are working and which aren’t.
For example, if you look at the bounce rate on several of your landing pages, you can study the metrics to gauge which pages need adjustments for performance.
#4: Brand Reputation
Imagine you ran ad campaign after ad campaign sending users to your website’s home page. Then, imagine your promised your social media followers access to specific articles on your blog, but you again sent them to your website’s home page.
Your users, when landing on your home page, are confused and don’t want to mess with finding the information you promised them.
They leave, and this hurts your brand reputation.
Landing pages allow you to enhance your brand by giving visitors what they expect.
Another way landing pages help your brand is through customer reviews and testimonials. You can include these as well as awards and professional credentials on your landing pages.
These small touches help establish you as a brand worth trusting.
#5: Narrow Focus
When you create landing pages, you can narrow the focus of the page and eliminate all distractions. You can include one call to action, thus giving you greater control over leading your website visitor to the desired action.
This greater focus can also lead to higher search engine rankings. Why? You are consistently meeting the needs of Google searchers because your landing pages have a narrow focus.
Search engine optimization uses specific keywords and phrases to drive Google searches. By using an optimized landing page, you are perfectly targeting these keywords.
Specific keywords that result in pages that match make Google very happy and can increase your click through rates as well as your search page ranking.
As an added bonus, the more specific the key words you target, and the more specific your landing pages, the better the odds that the website visitor takes your desired action.
How to Create a Top-Notch Landing Page
Now that we’ve given you five reasons you need a great landing page, we’re going to list a few aspects you need to remember when creating your pages:
- Landing page goal – what do you want the visitor to do?
- One, strong, clear call to action. Keep it very near the top.
- Succinct headline
- Clear, concise and persuasive body text that supports the call to action
- Reviews and/or testimonials
- Video and/or image
- Form – keep it short and simple. Only ask for what you absolutely need and will use.
- If you’re leading someone to your landing page from an ad or an email, make the headline and graphics match.
- Test. And test again.
Final Thoughts
Yes, first impressions matter. And, yes, your landing page is vital to your success.
Why? Without a superb landing page, your users will bounce off.
With an exceptional landing page that meets your user’s needs, they are more likely to take your desired action and will perhaps move on to other areas of your site with an open mind.
They’ll have the “halo” effect, and feel positive about your entire site just because of your landing page.
Your favorable first impression means the difference between a sale and a bounce. It means the difference between a long-lasting relationship with your customer and none at all.
Are you ready to squeeze more profit out of your website by fine-tuning your landing pages to skyrocket growth? Are you ready for landing pages that convert?
That’s terrific! We’re here to help you optimize your website so it works fluidly for your website visitors. In fact, we promise you we’ll do just that.
With our guarantee, you can rest assured we will increase your profits through landing page optimization.
If you’re ready to work with the leader in landing pages and conversion rate optimization, contact us today. We’ll provide you with our FREE site performance analysis so we can work on your landing page conversion rates.
Image: Helloquence
If you want some examples of great landing pages, just look at the landing pages for any of those super popular diet supplements. Not saying that you should copy them to a T, but you can be sure that whatever they’re doing is super effective since so much money is on the line for them.