Landing Pages are simply pages within your site designed to gather hits and create conversions. These landing pages are just normal pages on your site, and you don’t necessarily have to use them to make money online selling products or services. However, they can bring in more passive income than any other product or service you offer. They are very different from home pages, but often the two are used together.
The following are some of the main characteristics of a Landing Page which will ensure revenue:
- Size and Graphics: Ensure that everything important to the conversion: Call to action, images, headlines, and so on are visible without scrolling. The graphic should look professional but doesn’t need to be the same as the rest of the website.
- Heading and Contents: The headline should explain what you want to sell. Be quick and smart, and include a slogan with more explanation. Show preference to bullets and numbered lists to explain the key features and advantages of using you service.
- Pictures and Videos: A picture or a video is highly recommended, almost mandatory but keep it simple. Clients want to see what they’re buying so keep in mind that a picture worth thousand words.
- Buttons and Calls to Action: They must be visible without having to scroll and the use of colors and catchy words is helpful. Be a little creative and don’t use words like “Click here” or “Subscribe” but rather “Try it now for free” or “Join the community today” or “Buy now and we’ll toss in a bonus item” or “This offer is only available until ___”. Such calls to action encourage the buyer and create a sense of urgency in order to get the best deal.
- Testimonials and Trust Signs: Only a small percentage of people (known as early adopters) like to be the first to buy something. Therefore, include testimonials and include trusted signs like PayPal, Credit Cards and Verisign logos to show your clients that your partners are solid and established.
- How many Landing Pages: Often one per site works, unless you are selling many different products or services. Still, if you use more than one keep them a bit shorter.
- When do Landing Pages work: You’ll know by the bottom line: the number of hits and how many conversions you get. Of course you want a reasonable percentage to go ahead and buy your product or service. If you fail to sell enough, you might want to rework the Landing Page.
- Incorporate Meta data: SEO is the foundation behind any pages on your website but no more so than the Landing Page. Search engines are hungry for Meta data to navigate so feed them keyword rich title tags and description tags. Your efforts should include careful marketing analysis to determine the most effective terms to include in your copy.
When you are looking to make money online you have to consider the user experience, marketing tactics, keyword research, and the effectiveness of your Landing Pages. That is why it is always a good idea to employ A/B split testing. It is difficult if not impossible in all cases to tell at a glance if one Landing Page will "sell" more than another. This is where split testing, or A/B testing comes into play. Split testing is the practice of using separate pages to sell a product in an effort to learn which one sells more and why. Frequently, advertising and search marketers will test components such as the length of sales copy, images which enhance the desire of a product or include empirical data such as charts and graphs to create a rationale of why someone should use a product.
For more information visit www.wsiwebapplications.com and follow me on Twitter @cmappleton
