While we all know the importance of having an engaging homepage, the truth is that very few customers actually arrive on that particular page when they first interact with a brand. They have probably clicked through from a link on social media or they’ve received a marketing email and want to discover more.
In many ways, it’s actually good that potential customers don’t view your home page first, particularly if they are looking for a specific product or service. Home pages have so many roles to fulfil – you need to quickly show your company’s culture and philosophy, as well as including links to all those sections visitors expect to see, such as ‘about us’ and ‘contact us’.
It’s likely that you are welcoming myriad types of potential customer to your business. The trick is to draw them all in and quickly point them in the direction they want to go. If, for instance, your business offers lighting solutions – customers could range from shopfitters looking for lighting for a new project to a consumer on the search for new lights for their sitting room.
Today, a Google search is unlikely to take you direct to the home page of a website. If you’ve searched for ‘grey sofa’, you’ll typically be pointed towards grey sofas which feature on the pages of furniture retailers and home stores, not the home pages of those stores.
Landing pages are an integral part of a business’ marketing campaign. You might develop some email marketing, which could have initially been created on the back of a social media campaign. Within that will be a link to a specially-created landing page, so you can direct potential customers to what they are looking for quickly. You can also track the journey that these customers are making and, in doing that, start to personalise their interaction with your brand.
Generally, Google acknowledges that landing pages surrounding specific subjects or products are there to help a customer, so you’ll be rewarded for them.
Often our clients will initially ask us for a website which is simple to navigate without myriad additional pages and we will then explain to them the advantages of having landing pages. They aren’t obvious to visitors who arrive on a home page – they exist apart from your main website, linked instead to social media campaigns, a paid ad or marketing promotion of some sort. Even having just a few landing pages on your website can increase the opportunity of turning website visitors into prospective customers.
In many ways, a landing page is the modern version of a direct marketing letter. It will be targeted and there will be a very specific outcome. Used properly, they should offer higher conversion rates as compared with the regular pages on your website, as the traffic which heads there is highly targeted. It is likely that some landing pages will be temporary, as they are tied into specific marketing campaigns, which are leading visitors to view a time sensitive offer.
Unlike a home page, which as we mentioned above, is very often ‘all things to all people’, a landing page has a very clear objective. It is less ‘busy’ than a home page and typically features a single offer or deal. Because potential customers will have arrived on that page with a specific need, some businesses use a landing page for lead generation, so the details of that potential client are captured. Others might use it in a more direct sales way, with a clear ‘buy’ button.
If your potential customers are led to what they are looking for straightaway, without having to trawl through your website, then not only will they be more likely to convert but they will potentially see you as a more credible business, who understands them better and, thus, a trust will develop quicker.
If you want to know more about how landing pages can help to send potential customers in the right direction, then get in touch.
By filling out this form, you agree to the terms laid out in our privacy policy
