Landing Pages, Part Two: How to Craft Your Landing Page Message

If you read our post on landing pages a couple weeks ago, you know how important it is to anchor your search marketing campaign with a landing page. But what makes for a good landing page? That’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

Eight out of ten times you conduct a search for a product or service, you will click on a paid search ad that leads you to a landing page that doesn’t speak to the two questions all searchers are looking to get answered: “How can you solve my problem?” and “Where do we go from here?”.

Simply put, most landing pages do not have a clear and concise call-to-action that spells out exactly what action they want the user to perform.

The key to a good landing page is to always focus your messaging in a way that guides users as to what you want them to do.

Here are a few best practices to go by when trying to develop your landing page message.

Make sure you have a clear and concise call-to-action that lets the user know exactly what is in it for them if they perform one of the following desired actions to become a lead or customer.  Keep the content relevant and the text brief and to the point.  Examples include:

• Download a free whitepaper.
• Fill out a Contact Us form to hear from one of our representatives.
• Call now to learn more about our investment planning services.
• Sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter.
• Fill out this survey so we can better understand your needs and setup a free consultation.
• Print out a coupon for 10% off your next in-store purchase.

Include just enough information about your company that answers the following questions:

• What separates you from the competition?
• What qualifies you as an industry expert (years of operation, knowledgeable staff, etc.)?
• What products or services do you specialize in?
• How is your company better suited to solve the user’s problem?

Other best practice considerations:

• If you include a link to your corporate website, make sure that it opens up a new browser window.  This way, the user can easily get back to the landing page without having to click back multiple times. 
• You also may want to consider putting a link to your corporate site on the Thank You page only.  The user can fill out the form, click submit and get a message that says something like “Thank you for filling out our contact form, a representative will be in touch shortly to discuss what our company can do for you. In the meantime, please click this link to visit our homepage and learn more about us.”
• Make sure that your ad copy matches the offer on your landing page.  Most of the search engines will evaluate if the claims made in the ad copy are easily verified on the landing page itself (50% off, Free Evaluation, etc.).
• Keep the call-to-action and form fields above-the-fold whenever possible.  This is crucial to ensuring that we keep users focused on the goal.

Tags: landing pages, paid search