Where do you send people when they click on a Facebook or Google ad? Your homepage? Perhaps a page you already have set up for the service you’re advertising? While the latter is definitely better than the former, you might be surprised to learn that neither of these is ideal—you should direct people to a landing page. Not only that, but if you’re running multiple advertising campaigns, you may want to use multiple landing pages, each with copy that aligns with the copy in your ads.
Below, we answer some of the most common questions our clients have about landing pages.
What’s the purpose of a landing page?
Landing pages are designed to get users to take a specific action. For most of our clients, that means generating leads or sales, but it could also be signing up for a newsletter, downloading an app, etc. Landing pages are used for both SEO purposes and for paid advertising.
The copy on a landing page is carefully crafted to persuade a visitor to act and it’s always congruent with the messaging in your ad. This is important! If your ad promises one thing, but your landing page is about something else, it’s a sure way to lose a potential sale or lead.
When we develop landing pages for our clients, we start by asking them their goal, then we determine the actions needed to reach that goal. From there, we write the copy and design the landing page. For example, if you want to generate leads, your goal and actions might be the following:
Landing Page Goal: Lead Generation
Landing Page Actions: Schedule an appointment, Via Form and/or Phone
Why do we need landing pages if we are driving to the website?
There’s a difference between driving people to landing pages on your website and driving people to your website more broadly. Here’s why:
Action-Intent: For Landing Pages
Paid traffic is best directed to a landing page, a page that is focused on getting users to take the desired action that matches their search query/ad targeting only. Your goal is not for them to click and browse around, it’s to make a sale, schedule an appointment for a consultation, etc. In addition, after users submit their information, they can then be redirected to the full site, so they’ll still have the opportunity to browse your website to see what else you have to offer and learn more about your business.
Research-Intent: For the Website
When users are going to your website, it could be for many reasons—research, comparison, reading blog posts, etc. This is great for SEO, functionality, and business! This is where your organic traffic will go. Think of your website’s homepage as the top of the marketing funnel, while landing pages are at the very bottom; your homepage is there to offer visitors options, while the landing page exists to carry out a single objective.
What’s wrong with links on a landing page?
Links give users the opportunity to take other actions that are not aligned with the desired goal. Other best practices for landing pages include keeping the call to action (CTA) on the top half of the page so when users open the page on desktop or mobile they don’t have to scroll down to take an action, and limiting the number of barriers to taking the desired action. The fewer number of actions (clicks, scrolls, or pages) a user has to go through to get the information they need, the better your conversion rate will be.
How does Instapage (Main Street ROI’s landing page tool) work?
Instapage is simply an online landing page builder. It doesn’t build websites, but instead has a streamlined setup designed specifically for landing pages. You can read more about Instapage here, then check out their Landing Page Design Best Practices.
Will these landing pages be on our website?
Not exactly! They will be hosted on a subdomain (ex. sub.yourdomain.com vs. www.yourdomain.com), so we can track and tag them just like if they went to your website, but users organically searching on your site can’t find them on their own while browsing.
Why can’t I just make a page on my website be a landing page?
You can! However, if you are going to make a landing page on your site, please consider the following:
- Use an unlisted path (www.website.com/unlisted_path) so the landing page can only be accessed when someone receives a direct link to it, and it is not included in any menus or linked in any content elsewhere on your website.
- Add the “noindex” tag (<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”>) to your landing pages so they do not impact your SEO efforts
- Keep the CTA streamlined and focused on the page, as well as at the top, bottom, and middle of the page, if you can.
- Minimize scrolling by placing a CTA before the user has to scroll. This could be a simple link on the top right of the page that is a Click-to-Call button, or a button that redirects to a signup form.
- Hide or remove all navigation and blocks that have links or promotions that are not aligned with the CTA. For example, menus with blogs, FAQs, about us—all can be hidden, depending on your hosting platform and theme.
- In addition to the CTA, you may also want to include a unique value proposition, benefits of your offer, and social proof showing that other people are taking advantage of (and pleased with) what you’re offering.
It’s also important to make sure your landing page provides a good user experience. It should load quickly, without errors; users should be able to access it from mobile devices and computers. The overall design should be clean, modern, and professional. If you have typos, grammatical errors, or an outdated design, potential customers may treat your offer with skepticism.
Need Help with Landing Pages?
If you have questions about building out landing pages or you’d like to get a quote for our Google Ads or Facebook Ads services, contact us today.
