Like a lot of businesses, you may well assume that everyone entering your site comes in by the front door; that’s to say via the page you’ve designated as the homepage.
The bad news is that they don’t. If you have access to your website user stats, take a look at the ‘Entry Pages’ bit and see how many different pages on your site have been the first thing seen by a visitor in the last 7 days.
The good news is that this could, and should, be working FOR you, not against you.
Here’s what smart companies do.
They have a homepage, just like you do. And they have ‘landing pages’.
Maybe they have one, and maybe they have several.
What’s a landing page?
It’s a page of your website that precisely matches the expectation of the visitor to the site.
Let me give you an example.
Say you’re a law firm with 5 practice areas.
Imagine each Partner in the firm has the company website url in their e-mail signature.
So now property clients, tax clients, and litigation clients are all clicking through to the same page, and it’s not ideal for any of them!
But suppose each practice area has it’s own landing page: a page that exists specifically to receive visitors who have clicked a link in the signature of an email sent out by someone in that practice area.
I’m a tax client? I arrive on a page <www.pretendlawfirm.co.uk/tax.html> that presents the firm’s tax message, and gives me all the tax practice options I could conceivably be looking for.
I’m a property client? Same applies. I’m greeted by a page <www.pretendlawfirm.co.uk/property.html> that gives me all the property stuff I might want to access.
It’s better, right?
Now your visitors are arriving at something precisely relevant to them.
YOU WANT THIS TO GET BETTER STILL?
Now say you’re not a law firm. Say you sell cosmetics.
And say that the people coming to your site aren’t coming because they’ve clicked a url in the signature on an email, but are coming because they’ve clicked an Adwords ad on Google. (An ad that you’ve paid for!)
So where do you want them to land?
On the general homepage of your cosmetics store site?
Or on a ‘lipstick offer’ page if they clicked an ad about lipstick, and an ‘eyeliner offer’ page if they clicked an ad about eyeliner?
How about on a ‘Valentines Day’ page if they clicked the ad in the second week of February?
THE POINT IS THIS.
Every time you set up anything that is intended to drive people to your website, think it through and take the time to put into place an appropriate landing page, that gives them a very clear ‘next action’, tailored precisely to whatever it is you would like them to do, or whatever it is you know they’ve come to do.
