A common question I field is what is a landing page, and why do I need one? What makes it different from other pages on my website? Let’s talk about landing pages!
Typically, a website is structured with a homepage which provides an overview of the organization, and subpages or inner pages are focussed around specific topics such as products, services, information on the company, it’s team, a contact us page, that sort of thing. Subpages have a unique and specific goal centered around the overall business.
Landing Pages and Ad Campaigns
When you’re executing advertising campaigns or a lead generation strategy, whether it’s on Facebook, Google Ads, a magazine ad, a radio spot or anywhere else, for the campaign to have it’s highest likelihood of success, the page you direct people to after they click or respond to an ad is critical.
Let’s look at a specific example. Let’s say you’re running an ad on Google where you want to let people come to your website and download a factbook (you can have any goal, such as a link to a great how-to guide, top 10 tips on a subject, registering for an event, etc…). When people click on your ad, they’re going to want to get somewhere on your website that’s going to be exactly about the ad they clicked on. Imagine you had an ad talking about a factbook download, and your users ended up on your services page, or your contact us page where you’ll collect their email address and send them their download. While it’s great in theory, it’s not great in terms of marketing. Your users will wonder why they’re being asked to fill out a form to contact you. By the way, the number one reason we see this happen is to save costs on developing a new page.
This person who wanted to learn about a specific topic you promised in your ad is going to end up on a Contact Us page with a form to fill out wondering why am I even filling out this form. Where is that download or where is that information I was promised when I clicked on the ad. What happens often is, they’ll hit back on their browser and go on about their day without you or your website collecting that lead.
Enter the landing page.
Landing pages are specifically designed around a campaign. The branding, the messaging and the imagery are all of it tied into the original ad you had so that when people click on an ad, they have a seamless experience and end up on your website, on a page that delivers exactly what they were promised when they clicked on that ad. Your users know why they’re on the page, see they’re in the right place and are more likely to take the next step and fill out the form or contact you.
That, my friends, is why you need landing pages. You don’t need many, just enough to cover the different campaigns or promotions you’re running.
