Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

I think the single most effective thing that makes a landing page effective is relevancy. In other words, it has to be relevant to what the consumer is looking for, and more importantly it has to be relevant to what you promised.

The basis for almost all marketing really- give the consumer what they're looking for. But this is galvanized further on the web. People researching products and services online are very goal oriented - they are on a hunt for something specific. If your landing page can help them achieve their goal, then that's a good landing page.

The second factor is being relevant to what you promise. If your ad says "Click here to buy a widget." Your landing page better be about buying a widget. Too many online marketers make the mistake of sending people to their homepage or a page unrelated to their ad promise in the hopes of generating more traffic or increasing awareness. But as I mentioned earlier, people online are goal oriented. If they want to buy a widget, that's what they want to do. They don't want to navigate through a site to find that widget.

I'm not going get into page design - Flash, AJAX, viral, etc - because if your page isn't relevant to your customer, design doesn't matter. It all comes back to Marketing 101: Know your customer; Learn what they want; Give it to them.

You need a big, obvious banana so the monkeys will know what you want them to do.

If that's not obvious, get a copy of Seth Godin's The Big Red Fez. The subtitle is "How to make any website better." It explains the banana metaphor.

If you don't have a big, obvious banana, your landing page will -- by definition -- be less effective, not more effective.

Juliet -- there was also a recent seminar from Marketing Profs -- and if you join as a Premium Member, you have access to every seminar in the library. This will not only assist you with your landing page issue, but will also provide extremely valuable resources that I find unbelievable useful in my marketing efforts. (https://www.marketingprofs.com/premium/seminar_main.asp)

I was just considering since you are asking about landing pages, there are probably a great many more resources you would find valuable here.

Best wishes,

Jennifer
XPRT Creative