The goal of online marketing like banner ads, pay per click (PPC) campaigns and email blasts is to drive prospects to your website. Most professional services online marketing campaigns send users who click on links to their homepage or maybe a practice area or service area page. But what will your prospects do once they get to those pages? They’ll disperse, and you won’t have any way to capitalize on their interest. Landing pages help you convert prospects by providing them with relevant and valuable content.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a webpage where users are sent once they click on your ad or link in your eblast. It’s the first page of your site they will see. Here are the elements of a strong landing page:
1. Tailored content
If financial regulatory restructuring is a keyword you’re using in your PPC campaign, then your landing page should include content about that topic. You could include overview text as well as links to white papers or newsletters on the subject. Which brings me to…
2. A clear and simple call to action
This could be a call to download a white paper or attend a seminar the firm is hosting, but whatever the call to action is, it should relate to your keyword or eblast topic.
3. Contact form
What good is a call to action without a form that allows prospects to send you their contact information? In fact, this may be the single most important element of your landing page. Sending someone to your website without getting their contact information is like chatting with a prospect at an event and walking away without their business card. You want to be able to stay in touch with this person. The contact form should be positioned “above the fold” meaning that your prospect shouldn’t have to scroll down the page to see it.
4. Limited navigation
The goal of a landing page is to gather prospect contact information so you can share valuable insights and updates with them and ultimately convert them to a client. As a result, you don’t want to give prospects any excuse to leave the landing page. Par down your navigation to the essential sections of the site to keep prospects focused.
The value of landing pages
Landing pages are extremely valuable because they:
• Help your site to be more client-focused by allowing your prospects find relevant and valuable information
• Help you increase the conversion rate of your website
• Allow you to measure the effectiveness of your external links and online marketing campaigns
Once your landing pages are up and your campaign is launched, you can use tools like Google Analytics to measure click through rates to determine your highest performing efforts and recalibrate where necessary. And don’t forget to develop a different landing page for each ad or eblast.
