Don't Overcomplicate Landing Pages
Don't Overcomplicate Landing Pages
I see a lot of WA members getting themselves into a mess with landing pages, often after installing a plugin or theme that has a build landing page option.
The first thing you need to understand is why it's called a Landing Page.
It's not because it has any special structure.
It's called a Landing Page because it's a page you want (some of) your visitors to land on.
Yes, it really is as simple as that.
This means that you can use WordPress's standard Pages >> Add New facility to build your landing pages (note that I've removed the capitals now that we know there's nothing really special about them).
With one caveat:
Some people believe that a landing page should not include menus. This is so that a visitor "landing" on it has only one choice. Take the desired action or leave. So if your theme allows you to omit the menus from a page, that's an additional option that's available to you.
So What Do You Use a Landing Page for?
Well, that depends on what type of visitor you're aiming for.
But generally it's one or the other of:
- A potential customer for a product or
- A potential contact for your email list.
If it's a potential customer for an affiliate product, your landing page will pre-sell the product and contain the affiliate link to the vendor's site.
If it's a potential contact for your email list, your landing page will contain the illustration of your giveaway and the form that the visitor fills in to get the giveaway, be added to your contact list and start to receive your email series.
In either case, you will entice visitors to your landing page through relevant blog posts, ppc advertising, social media or other means.
Conclusion
So that's landing pages.
I use one for every product that I'm promoting on a website and never use direct affiliate links in my blog posts. Internal links to the landing page help with SEO as well.
Just don't overcomplicate them.
Recent Comments
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Hi Phil,
A useful and thought provoking article. I agree the reason for using the landing page will reflect the conversion you are looking for, whether it be an opt-in to your mailing list (first stage) or a product sale (second stage).
Given I assume that the perspective here is from your website, in reality you are only talking about the first stage conversion, gaining subscribers to your email list. Astute marketers then use email marketing for the second stage conversion to generate product sales. This is the reason, of course, why email marketing is so important.
I think we are in agreement on this as you do say in your concluding remarks that you never use direct affiliate links in your blog posts, and rightly so. Perhaps you can therefore confirm you use an autoresponder series to warm some leads to prospects, and some prospects to buyers?
I trust I have interpreted this correctly.
I certainly use landing pages the way you describe, to build up my email list with an opt-in for future sales, but I also use them for direct affiliate product sales. So for example a review post promoting a certain product will link to my landing page for that product.
Yes, of course, but the problem is there are different types of landing pages. For example, lead capture pages versus sales pages. When doing a product review, do you use an opt-in form or direct leads to your affiliate link?
I'd use a direct link but my point was that whatever you do, the landing page is simply the page you send your visitors to "land" on. Too many people think they are more special than they are and so never build them. And although many templates are available (and useful) they aren't essential.
Yes, I understand, but you run the danger of over simplifying what is really at the heart of successful marketing. The choice of lead capture versus sales page is the dilemma. Do you recognise both are landing pages?
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Hey Phil,
So, would that just be if your promoting a single product. for instance, you have 20 blog posts and they are all promoting the same product, they all link to the one same landing page... OK, so if i have 20 posts promoting a couple different products, how would you work that ?
You should only promote one product on a blog post as otherwise you are confusing the message. And of course that blog post could promote that product more than once but each occurrence would link to that product's landing page.
gotcha. ta