What are you doing with your website?

If you run PPC campaigns, landing pages are critical to your success. If you run email marketing campaigns, landing pages are critical.

In fact, landing pages are critical to organic search engine marketing, press releases and just about all Internet marketing efforts. This SAP campaign targeting small & midsize business is a great example....LINK

Internet pimps know to spend as much time developing the landing page as they do on the offer that drove their visitors to that page in the first place.

1. Know When To Keep It Simple: Some direct response practitioners like an exciting if not circus-like - atmosphere in a landing page. Perhaps for some consumer categories it works well. But my experience in the b2b space tells me otherwise.In today's "give-it-to-me quick-or-I'm-out-of-here" world, you need to keep your landing page very focused and pretty simple. Let's face it, staring into a light source and reading long tracts of information is stressful and hard work. We all do too much of it as it is.Help the visitor to your landing page digest what you are offering quickly and easily. Use short paragraphs and bullet points. Offer crisp value propositions to readers that pay off the question in their minds, which is: "Why should I take the action you want me to take?"

2. Tell Them Where They Are: Think about it. When people click on an ad in a Web Digest For Marketers email newsletter, for example, or a link in a solo email, they're being transported from one medium into another, namely, the Web. Putting language at the top of the landing page telling them they've landed in the right spot takes away the first question that any visitor understandably has.Some advertisers in my newsletter will actually put the words "Welcome, Web Digest For Marketers Subscribers". Other advertisers have been known to reiterate the offer that caused my readers to click on the link that brought them to this particular landing page.

3. Don't Take Over My Computer: I've seen some landing pages get too tricky and try to wow their visitors. Often this frustrates visitors because they've lost control of their own computers. They may well get that control back by simply closing their browsers - and you are a goner.Yes, yes, there are some categories such as online video gamers who will appreciate the whiz bang effects. But many landing pages tend to go over the top with special effects because some agency told the client it's a cool idea and it meets with branding objectives. Don't do it.Remember, many computers aren't running the latest apps. So your brand image then becomes a dialog box that says you can't view this site because you don't have the latest version of whatever. Also, many computers and networks have firewalls that prevent such programs from running. Again, keep it simple and stay on message.


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