There is danger in limiting landing page design and implementation to just five rules but I like Billy Blog’s presentation. According to Billy you should:
Keep it focused: Force your page to have only one goal. If you are required to have two, then choose one as a priority and emphasize that one. Remove excess baggage like advertisements and navigation bars so that visitors have only two choices: convert or leave.
Give a good second impression: People don’t see the landing page first, they see your PPC or banner ad, e-mail or even search result. Build relevancy between them. Use the same messaging from the first point of contact to your landing page. I try to use the same words or exact title from advertisement to landing page. Keep creative consistent too. One thing that is often overlooked are offers, if you put an offer on your page, put it on your ad and vice versa.
Target your biggest (middle) audience: There’s 3 types of visitors. Ones that’ll convert no matter what, ones that might convert and ones that are just looking. You only need to grab that middle audience. A landing page is not meant to please everyone, it is meant to drive conversions, meaning pleasing only those that will convert! For example, putting less information on a page will drive away people who only looking to learn more, but help push along those that are looking to buy.
Stop talking about yourself: Customers come to your page to read about the product, not your entire company history. Talk about yourself to the extent that it will calm visitor’s fears about your legitimacy and quality, else you’ll clutter the page and intimidate the visitor with blobs of text. Third party validation logos (BBB, Hacker Safe) and quotes from happy customers are often enough.
Use a product shot: So a cheetah might be a great symbolic way to show how fast the computers you’re selling are, but really you should be showing your computer. Customers come in and will only spend a few seconds to see if they’re in the right place before hitting back and so you need to communicate what you’re selling fast. Why distract them with symbolic images, when your product is what you want them to buy? If you’re service oriented, then people probably are a good idea, but make sure they directly represent what you’re doing.
For more from Billy go to Billy’s Blog.
Technorati Tags: Landing Page Optimization, Landing Page Testing , PPC, SEO, Paid Search