How To Create An Effective Landing Page

Driving traffic from PPC (pay-per-click), an email campaign or any advertisement to your home page is a mistake.

Sending your prospects to your homepage (which is filled with so many different options) and hoping they take action is a recipe for disaster.

You want to drive your traffic to a landing page that focuses on conversion. Your landing page should be independent of your main website, and its sole purpose should be converting traffic.

A landing page is focused on a single action that you want visitors to take ' with the theme or topic of that page being relevant to the keyword or topic of the PPC ad, email campaign etc.

Warning: This list may seem a little long, but each point is very important to the creation of an effective landing page.

Here are some key points to consider when creating your landing pages:

Many visitors will scan your entire site before deciding whether to read your copy. So you must design your landing page with scanners in mind. Do your headline and subheads tell your story?

Go through your copy and reading only the headlines and subheads to make sure they are compelling.

Typically Landing pages work best when designed as a single column. However, please test this theory for yourself.

Remove any navigation elements. Your regular navigation will just serve as a distraction. You want to keep the prospect moving forward, and not have the eyes wandering all over the page.

Graphics and copy unrelated to the offer can be a distraction and interrupt the flow through your Landing page.

Keep your critical elements "above the fold." Research shows you have anywhere from 3 - 8 seconds to convince users to stay on your site. What they see must convince them they are in the right place and give them a reason to stay.

Make sure your call to action is above the fold.

Your call to action should be repeated for each full screen view that the user sees while scrolling through the page.

Above the fold is also the best place for your product image. Images work best to the left of text.

The headline may be the only thing your visitors read. This makes your headline vitally important. Your headline should be compelling and match the message from the PPC ad, email campaign etc that drove your visitor to your Landing page.

Subheads should be included for every major information point. This will break up copy and make it easier to read.

Bullet points are essential for any lists.

Never ask for more information than you absolutely need when asking people to opt-in. Make sure the information you are requesting is relevant and tell the user why it is relevant.

Having a visible privacy policy next to any form copy will also help.

Your "Submit" button is the final step people have to take. Make the text compelling. "Submit" is not compelling. Try "Give Me My Free Report" or "Yes, I Want My Free Report."