Landing Pages

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What are landing pages?

So, what do we mean when we talk about landing pages? Landing pages are the entry point for a website from a traffic source. SEO expert Neil Patel puts it another way. He says: 

“A landing page is any webpage where you send visitors in order to initiate a conversation and close a deal. Effective landing pages are often webpages with a single focus.”

To illustrate the point, let’s look at these two examples.

• In marker 1, we can see it’s the terms and conditions page. 
• In marker 2, we can see it’s for a sprained ankle page. 

Now, it doesn’t really make sense to optimize the terms and conditions page. There aren’t keywords there that we need to rank for. So, we won’t optimize that page, and there will probably be quite a few pages on your site that you choose not to optimize. 

So, when we talk about SEO landing pages, we’re talking about pages that we’re actively targeting for keywords and actively targeting for traffic.

Characteristics of a successful SEO landing page 

Let’s now look in more detail at the four characteristics of a successful SEO landing page. 

Focuses on one topic

First, a successful SEO landing page focuses on one topic. As Neil Patel says, it should have a single focus. At times, that means focusing on a specific subtopic, not just a topic in itself. (We’ll come back to this in a moment.) 

Satisfies searcher intent

Second, it satisfies the searcher intent. When you type something into Google or another search engine, there’s an intent behind what you’re searching for. You want to be satisfied, and feel you’ve found the information you were looking for. 

Uses optimized keywords

Third, it uses optimized keywords. So, we need to think about where we’re placing these keywords on the page. Ideally your priority keywords should be in the page title, and featured throughout the paragraphs as synonyms and related keywords. This will help the search engine to better understand the page content, and match it to relevant searches from people looking online.

Contains a call to action

And fourth, it contains a call to action, or CTA. This might be something as simple as asking visitors to “leave a comment” on a blog post. Or it could be directing the user to buy something or to download a PDF. Whatever your desired action, it needs to be clear when the searcher arrives on your landing page.

When things go wrong

So, what happens if we get our landing pages wrong, or work our keywords into the wrong landing page?

• First, it creates a bad user experience, which will mean the user will bounce. In other words, they’ll go back to the search engine and look for another answer to their question. 
• Second, search engines will realize that that the page is bad fit for the keywords you’re targeting. So, you won’t rank as well on search engines.  
• And third, if you’re adding the wrong keywords to a page, you’re missing out on the opportunity to rank on a more relevant, and better-fitting page for the keyword.