The Landing Page
The Landing Page is simply the page the website visiter enters on. It is often recommended that you build a separate landing page from your Home Page.
At first, one may be tempted to think that the Home page is the landing page. While that is often true, it is also true that the Home Page may be entirely inappropriate to the task at hand. Remember in the last lecture we said every page has a specific job?
The most common example of a landing page will be the page that is created to support an ad. For example: say you run an ad that offers a pirate T-shirt at fifty percent off. The ad features a call to action with a link to the website.
Now, you do not want this link to simply dump people onto the Home Page. We know that these visitors want pirate T-shirts at half price: that’s why they came. Let’s create a page just for them. This page should only be about the offer. Everything the visitor needs to complete the purchase should be right there. Everything!
Often these pages don’t even offer navigation to the rest of the site. They are single purpose and designed to give the visitor plenty of information so the decision can be made then and there. There will be a video and third party endorsements. Normally, there is also some lame reason why the offer simply must be cut off in a few hours. A count-down clock is included to build urgency. This style page will often run long and is referred to a squeeze page.
Not all landing pages are Squeeze Pages. Obviously, if this is a big ticket item it is not realistic to expect the visitor not to do due diligence. Give them a menu bar and let them see the site. There is a relationship between time on site and conversion rate.
The other side of this story is that you may not want regular visitors to the site to see this special offer. The Landing Page is often not included in the regular menu across the rest of the site.
As an aside, should someone who bought the widget yesterday at full price discover it today at half-price; don’t be a jerk! Apologize and quickly offer a cheerful refund for the difference. Turn the negative into a positive and if they are truly happy, ask them to leave a review of their experience. Keep a list of review sites you’re on near the phone.
Video Transcript
This is the old walled city of Famagusta
and over the centuries Famagusta
has belonged to several huge powers,
including the Ottomans and last the
British. And to be completely honest with
you, these pictures do nothing to convey
the size of these fortifications. This
time it's Lecture 3.3, the Landing Page.
Landing page? A landing page is nothing
more than the page a visitor comes into
your website on. So you'll be tempted at
first to say your Homepage is your
landing page and often times you're
correct. But what if you bought an ad?
What if you bought an ad on Google
talking about specials? Obviously you
want that ad to go straight to your
specials page. You don't want folks going
to the Homepage and having to look for
your specials. There are websites that
would have daily specials. On this type
of website your Landing page may in fact
get more traffic than your Homepage.
Another great place to use a Landing
page would be in your newsletter.
Remember, your newsletters going to
consist of two or three articles about
what's going on in the organization. But
it should also have some kind of call to
action; a special or a reason for people
to click over to your website. Once they go
to the website you don't want them
searching around on the Homepage. You
want to send them directly to whatever
the newsletter was telling them about.
Let's take another example; you know an
excellent place for you to go look at
different landing pages is right in your
own Facebook account and so I've found a
page here for a magazine called The
Economist. Let's go click and have a look
at what they're doing. This is going to
allow you to find things you like and
what you don't like.
And it gives you an opportunity to
consider what you're looking at.Look at
this, they've got all of these different
choices for us to make and as we go down,
there are even more choices. They want an
account, they want the family name, and on
and on. Here's payment information and
they want to tell us about the payment
and terms and conditions. Where do we
want to send our magazine? Down at the
bottom would we like to sign up for a
newsletter. Only now, after all this
fooling around, are we going to be able
to complete the purchase. This is
something I probably would not have gone
with. However in fairness to the
Economist, I have no idea how this page
is converting. It's just not something I
would have done and if we look at some
of the other options we realize they're
doing the same thing. They've got all of
these different options and once again
PayPal will have everything in just a
single click. They've got several hundred
million people over here. We've got
another sponsored link and I want you to
look at this lady, Let's go check out
their website. There she is again. Do you
remember our talk about Spaced
Repetition? By the way, I don't care for
clipart. I wouldn't have gone with that
probably but again I don't know how they
are converting. Notice there is no menu
bar. You are given a choice A or B. This
is always a highly effective sales
strategy. Instead of saying would you
like to place the order; they're asking
you which order you would like to place.
Once again what they're doing right
at the very top in big bold letters -
they're going to give you three choices,
and just a short little description
about each of these three choices. Down
here at the bottom they're going to ask
for the order again and that's important.
Do you remember us talking about the
Credibility Statement? A third-party
credibility statement is hugely
effective and that's what they're using
here down at the bottom. There's no bread
crumb, there's no privacy policy, this is
it: you're going to choose A or B.
And that's what they want. This, I think,
is a more effective landing page. Back a
couple of centuries ago those would have
been cannon ports. That's going to do it
for this Lecture: The Landing Page. Coming
up next time, it's all about the FAQ page
and how you can help your customers. I'll
see you then...
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