Want to see your sales take off? Guide your website visitors to a happy landing
It’s rainy-time again and we’re all dreaming of relaxing in sunny places,
(we’d be lucky if we had enough sun to relax in the back garden). I
ought to drag my wandering mind back from my Caribbean haven to finish
this blog post; no co-incidence that this one’s travel related and all
about landing pages.
A landing page is anywhere your visitor ends up when they follow your link or complete their search. Given the chance many advertisers link directly to their homepage, assuming their website has clear enough navigation for visitors to find their way around. Think about it from your average visitor’s point of view. In the search for the ultimate solution, they’ve already scanned line after line of information. Within seconds they’ve decided what’s treasure and what’s trash. By the time they land on a page worth reading (hopefully yours), they could be feeling frustrated, relieved but rather impatient. Firstly, they need to quickly qualify whether or not to read on or click away. That’s not the time to present them with another micro-journey through your website.
There’s a real danger that having come this far, they simply can’t be bothered to sift through more messages on your website before they find the finish-line. Think of a pilot and his communication with a control tower. Imagine air-traffic control saying, “You’ve come this far, you can see the airport...you work it out!” Instead, a series of detailed instructions guide even the well-seasoned pilot towards a flood-lit runway, with flag-waving ground-staff to guide him in. OK, so there’s no lives at risk if someone misses your virtual runway, but it’s every bit as important that you eliminate every possible distraction to guide your visitors to a safe landing.
I often tell my advertisers that it’s perfectly OK if some flight paths don’t lead directly to a homepage. It depends on what you want that visitor to do. Do you want them to sign up to your newsletter, or download an e-book? Is your goal for them to buy a product or respond to a survey? The information they’ll need to complete the action should determine what they see and where you direct them. The good news is that you can use a specific, effective landing page. They’re designed with a clear action in mind, unlike your homepage which might need to fulfil several different objectives. Whenever someone proudly tells me about thousands of hits they get on their website, I tend to ask them whether those visitors have simply crash-landed or if you had a clear end in sight. Most importantly did they get to the right destination to make a difference to the sales figure?
Map out the entire journey for visitors and if you link directly to your website, make it a relevant page rather than just the homepage. Better still, see how newsletter or a well designed listing can summarise targeted messages and display your links with a clear call to action. If you’re going to turn traffic into measurable sales, stay focussed and don’t leave your weary internet traveller to get lost on your website.
A landing page is anywhere your visitor ends up when they follow your link or complete their search. Given the chance many advertisers link directly to their homepage, assuming their website has clear enough navigation for visitors to find their way around. Think about it from your average visitor’s point of view. In the search for the ultimate solution, they’ve already scanned line after line of information. Within seconds they’ve decided what’s treasure and what’s trash. By the time they land on a page worth reading (hopefully yours), they could be feeling frustrated, relieved but rather impatient. Firstly, they need to quickly qualify whether or not to read on or click away. That’s not the time to present them with another micro-journey through your website.
There’s a real danger that having come this far, they simply can’t be bothered to sift through more messages on your website before they find the finish-line. Think of a pilot and his communication with a control tower. Imagine air-traffic control saying, “You’ve come this far, you can see the airport...you work it out!” Instead, a series of detailed instructions guide even the well-seasoned pilot towards a flood-lit runway, with flag-waving ground-staff to guide him in. OK, so there’s no lives at risk if someone misses your virtual runway, but it’s every bit as important that you eliminate every possible distraction to guide your visitors to a safe landing.
I often tell my advertisers that it’s perfectly OK if some flight paths don’t lead directly to a homepage. It depends on what you want that visitor to do. Do you want them to sign up to your newsletter, or download an e-book? Is your goal for them to buy a product or respond to a survey? The information they’ll need to complete the action should determine what they see and where you direct them. The good news is that you can use a specific, effective landing page. They’re designed with a clear action in mind, unlike your homepage which might need to fulfil several different objectives. Whenever someone proudly tells me about thousands of hits they get on their website, I tend to ask them whether those visitors have simply crash-landed or if you had a clear end in sight. Most importantly did they get to the right destination to make a difference to the sales figure?
Map out the entire journey for visitors and if you link directly to your website, make it a relevant page rather than just the homepage. Better still, see how newsletter or a well designed listing can summarise targeted messages and display your links with a clear call to action. If you’re going to turn traffic into measurable sales, stay focussed and don’t leave your weary internet traveller to get lost on your website.
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