Iroegbu Outlines “7 To-Dos” for Optimizing Landing Pages in Q3 2013

Kanu Iroegbu, a certified digital marketing consultant, has reeled out advice to organizations on leveraging the potentials of marketing in growing their businesses.

According to him, the goal of any marketing campaign is to generate leads.

“Whether it is organizing an event or advertising on television or in the print media, the end goal is to generate leads that can be converted into sales. Every branding activity that a business engages in has to support this objective.

Explaining the nitty-gritty of landing page and usage, he said, “Simply put, a landing page is a web page that helps businesses capture leads. It is different from a Home page, which usually serve as the doorway to generic information about the various products, solutions, and services offered by the business. As such, a typical Home page has too many elements vying for the visitors’ attention. A targeted landing page will work towards compelling a visitor to take the specific and desired action”.

He opined that, there are several ways a visitor can be directed to companies’ or individual’s landing page as “Search engine results link when someone runs a query for your keyword; clickable links in your pay per click ad or other online advertisements; links pointing to this page incorporated in social media posts; email campaigns providing links to this page and Organic search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns throw up links to this page during relevant keyword searches”.

He added that the impact of a landing page can be measured by analyzing the number of visitors who convert. “Tools are available to measure the number of visitors. These tools will also provide you information on the means by which they landed there – was it your SEO strategy or your PPC campaign or your social media activities or even your direct mail campaign.

“If your campaigns are attracting a lot of visitors but none are converting into leads then the problem might lie with your landing page. The solution lies in enhancing and optimizing your landing page to maximize conversions.

On types of landing pages, Iroegbu, said depends solely upon the objective one wants to achieve, and they are categorized into “Informational landing page: If you want to present yourself as a thought leader then you can create an informative landing page, which displays content that is relevant to your visitor. Ideally, the information should center around the keyword that brought the visitor to your landing page in the first place”.

The other is “Action-oriented landing page: This is a landing page with a clear call to action. It could be oriented towards convincing a visitor to buy a product or capture contact information through an online form. If making a sale is the objective, you have to ensure that previous interactions with you provided the visitor enough compelling reasons to do so. If capturing information is your goal then you can do so by offering valuable content”.

On how to optimize landing pages in the third quarter of 2013 mainly, Iroegbu who had help organizations in creating effective landing pages outlined that a good landing page needs to target a particular action.

“Leading visitors to your Home page, for instance, can prove confusing. The visitor might have been searching for information on a particular keyword. Now unless your Home page immediately offers information related to that keyword it is likely to leave your visitor confused. More often than not, this will result in a quick exit from your website, and thereby, a missed opportunity for you.

“You need to be very clear about what you want your visitor to do once they land on your website. Only then can you increase the possibility of converting your traffic into actionable leads. Below we have listed a few measures you should take to optimize your landing pages in Q3 2013.

1) Singular purpose: You need to be absolutely clear about the targeted traffic and the action you desire from them. Minimize distractions. Eliminate unnecessary copy, graphics, form fields, and links. Provide clear and simple call to actions. Do not confuse your visitor. Make it easy for them to focus on your call to action.

2) Short lead form: Visitors hate filling forms, so the longer your lead form the more the number of visitors who are likely to drop off. Keep it short. Capture only information that is necessary to stay in touch.

3) Relevancy of content: Ensure that the content on your landing page is relevant to your keyword. Highlight the benefits of engaging with you for business. Ideally, your landing page headline should match the link your visitors clicked to get there.

4) Call to action: Make sure your call to action (CTA) is clearly visible. Use directional cues to direct attention to your CTA. Have CTA links spread across the page in order to make it easy for visitors to take action whenever they are ready.

5) Responsive design: Think like a user. Test your page to check whether it provides information that is relevant to the keyword they used. Is it visually pleasing? Is the messaging consistent throughout?

6) Transparency: Visitors will always be wary about sharing their contact information. Clearly state what you intend to do with the information you collect. Ease any concerns they may have about the information falling into wrong hands. Highlight your contact information such as phone number and address. Provide links to your social media handles at the bottom.

7) Test thoroughly: Creating a landing page is only the first step. Use real-time A/B or multivariate testing to continuously test the various elements on your landing page and determine what resonates best with your visitors. Improve your page accordingly.