Online, a landing page is the first impression a potential customer, friend, or even an enemy, has to a website. The landing page is an opportunity to answer a question, deliver an opinion, offer a product or service, or completely alienate a visitor to your web property. Depending on your goals, your landing page may be effective – but let’s look at some practical uses of landing pages – making online “friends” and converting customers.
First, making friends is sometimes easy – the reader may agree with the opinions that are already proposed, but the job then is to feed the fire. This is a great tactic when a webmaster or advertiser already knows their audience. Basically the idea is to become part of, or a more integral part of, the conversation on a particular topic. If done to task, once a visitor leaves the site in question, this visitor is hopefully left with a feeling that the site they visited has reinforced, or even validated an already existing point of view – a vantage point the visitor has already experienced.
While the “making friends” tactic is incredibly useful, if a site wants to expand then it must reach out to those who don’t already have an opinion made. This tactic is not only useful in marketing and to increase readership, but more to really expand the reach of a website we, as web people, have to reach out to the questioning majority – those looking for myriad opinions on which to inform themselves in order to better grasp the product or ideas that are being proposed by culture and society. Those same ideas and products which with they may choose to involve themselves.
While a conversion may be seen as a lead, sale, sign up, or other typical web conversion term, the idea of persuasion is in constant effect in any converting that can be done. This is where the landing page really can come into a power play. It is often said that first impressions are everything, and that is in no case truer than with web interaction.
If at a party, gathering, or dinner, a first impression may subside over the course of an evening of interaction. With the web space, it is easy to just slip out… to just hit the back button, retype “google.com” in a browser, or just hit a bookmark (these cases are the equivalent to a good friend calling you to enable you to get out of dodge).
All this said – YOU – webmaster, site owner, advertiser – YOU are in control how you inform and reach your guest, or your new client or friend. Be inviting – know your goal as such – reach out a friendly hand – give searchers what they are looking for. Make sure there is a connection between how this page (your ambassador) was reached and the information the visitor receives. Make sure this page invites them in and makes them comfortable enough to stay. In real life, more is learned of a house guest than a passerby.
