What’s a Landing Page and How Do You Use It?
What do you think a ‘landing page’ is? You probably have some idea as to the definition, but that can actually change depending on who you ask and what they use it to accomplish. What we’ll attempt to do with this post is clear up any confusion, and help you come up with some ideas on how landing pages could be useful for your website.
What’s a Landing Page?
In the purest sense, a landing page is the web page users land on when they’re redirected to your website. When you take that definition, any page on your website such as your homepage could be a landing page. However, in the context of a marketing or advertising campaign, landing pages are often streamlined web pages with a single goal of converting users that land on them. Having a single Call-To-Action (CTA) makes it easier on the user to convert thus improving your conversion rate.
In addition to having a single CTA, it’s also common for landing pages to not feature your traditional navigation bar or a link to your home page embedded in your logo image. It may seem like you’re trying to corner the user, but landing pages serve a specific purpose targeting mid-funnel sales. Landing pages encourage the interested user to take one, specific action and ask nothing else of the user.
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5 Ways to Use a Landing Page
Now that we have an established idea of what landing pages are, how would you use one?
1. Sell a Product
When used in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, landing pages that encourage purchasing a specific product are particularly effective. Since landing pages are best used for mid-funnel users, the streamlined design will help nudge users already interested in your product or service to complete their journey.
2. Event Registration
Registering people for events such as webinars is another great use of landing pages. The user completes a form with their contact information, and you’re able to easily move that information into your registration and/or customer management system.
3. Share Resources
Another popular use of landing pages is allowing users access to gated content. Similar to event registration, this landing page allows you to capture user’s email addresses in exchange for downloadable guides, exclusive content, and sometimes even ebooks!
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4. Encourage Subscriptions
While the previous examples might be more geared towards one-time events, you can also use landing pages to encourage subscriptions. By using a landing page, you can lead people to sign up to your monthly newsletter or start a free trial of your product. Similar to the above point, this landing page use immediately gives value back to the user, encouraging them to come back for more.
5. Generate Leads
Yes, even your contact page can be a landing page. All the previous landing page use suggestions will help you generate leads through collecting user contact information. However, like how a landing page gives the user a direct path to the desired goal, having a contact landing page gives you a direct path to the user.
The thing to remember about landing pages is that they are tools. They are not meant to replace pages on your site or - Turing forbid - your home page. Where your website has multiple goals, a landing page only has one: drive conversion actions. Thinking about your own business, where would a landing page help you?
By Jordan Latham
