Keep your website landing page visitors on a short leash

Why you need website landing pages

Landing pages are a very important part of Internet marketing because they’re an effective method of capturing sales leads. According to HubSpot’s research, companies with 30 or more landing pages generate seven times more than those with fewer than 10. Why? Because landing pages come up in response to clicking on a search result or an ad that the website visitor comes across and finds interesting. So when they get there you want to provide them with sales copy that expands on what interested them in the first place. The last thing you want is for visitors to leave before you get the information necessary to turn them into bona fide sales leads.

Effective website landing pages are like a minimum-security prison

This is where the notion of the subject line of this blog comes into play — keep your website landing page visitors on a short leash.  The best way to keep them on the page and focused on filling out the visitor info-gathering form is by limiting the number of ways that they can leave.  A good way to do that is to make sure you provide answers to questions like “ What is it that you are offering?” “Why us?” “Could you help me decide?” Answers to questions like these, along with designing your website landing pages using your company’s branding elements, but with a different look and feel, will keep visitors hanging around longer, taking in your message.

Landing page best practices

Now that you got them to your landing page, what type of information do you want from them? Here are some examples to consider:

• Get them to register for the purpose of generating a lead, which hopefully will lead to a sale.
• Profile and qualify the visitors in order to deliver more relevant follow-up marketing communications.
• Explain the value proposition offered by your company to differentiate yourself from other sites that visitors may view during the buying process.
• If some visitors don’t want to disclose details about themselves right now, provide contact info for traditional sales channels such as a phone number, or give visitors reasons to return to your site or engage them through other relevant content or offers (more on that coming up).

What to do once they leave your website landing pages

Sometimes getting sales leads is easier than nurturing them. Bringing them along is important because very often visitors who become sales leads aren’t ready to buy, which is why you need to provide them with ongoing lead-nurturing content to get them to purchase your products or services when they’re ready.

Here are some effective forms of lead-nurturing content:

• Email newsletters to help keep your company top of mind.
• Informative content that your leads can use to improve, and even solve business challenges they’re facing.
• Promotional content that allows you to test offers to see what works and what doesn’t.
• Other forms of content such as surveys, questionnaires and new industry reports. 

Whatever type of content you send to sales leads, be sure to track and test it. When you do, your landing pages are sure to land more sales. Which is the reason why you created the landing page in the first place!

Best of Days to You…

Audrey Ferrante
Ferrante & Associates, Inc.