Putting Your Landing Pages to Work - Refining the Details
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Your landing page did its job if it convinced your prospect to convert; heaven knows it's hard enough to appeal to the needs of a varied target audience! But what if your prospect doesn't convert? That's where it (and you) can go the extra mile.
First, you should consider including options for people who aren't ready to buy right then and there. After all, even the most information-packed landing page provides limited real estate for getting your point across, and every prospect comes with his or her very individual needs. So include options that let them contact a real human being: a phone number, e-mail address, or the chance to engage in a live chat. Many people still prefer to make their purchases through a real human being, and if you don't cater to this, you could lose potential sales.
On a more positive note, what about the customer who really likes your product, and wants to know if you offer bulk pricing? Or the one who thinks “Gee, this is close to perfect, but do they offer it slightly bigger or with X feature?” If you're trying to sell one particular product this time, don't make it hard for these prospects to get their needs met. Include a link on your landing page to your regular web site, preferably to a page that showcases your full line. Interested users may want to browse the rest of your web site to get a better feel for what you can do for them; don't make this difficult.
Your job does not end after you create your landing page. You must test it and tweak it to see if you can improve its conversion rate. Graham Charlton writing for SEO Consultancy notes that “The only way to be sure of what works for your audience and your market is to conduct structured tests such as usability studies, A/B testing or multivariate testing. The right web analytics tool is crucial.”
By the way, when you decide to retire a landing page, do it right. Remove the links so no one stumbles across it by accident. Out-of-date offers are kind of depressing. So use a custom 404 error page or a permanent 301 redirect to manage retired landing pages.
Nobody ever said building a good landing page was easy. It has to deliver on the promise made by the advertisement, tell your prospect what he or she needs to know to convert, provide options if the visitor chooses not to convert on the spot, and otherwise lead the user to the relevant information they're seeking. It needs to do this in a simple manner, with no Flash or anything else that will cause the page to take too long to load. It's not an impossible dream; keep your landing page focused, think like a consumer, test often, and you will be well on your way to building a landing page that will repay your hard work with hard work of its own. Good luck!
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