If your website includes pages that visitors will see first—such as the topmost page devoted to a group of products, a service, a subject, or the like—because of unpaid backlinks to those pages, because you’ve paid for search engine marketing or display advertising that links directly to those pages, or because they appear in natural search results, those pages can be as important as your home page. Such landing pages are, in effect, home pages of their own.
Your visitors will make a decision whether to spend any time on your website at all on the basis of those pages—in a fraction of a second. In many cases, the landing page will be the only page they look at to decide whether to become a client, customer, or member.
The Effective Website will ask—and answer—questions including these:
- Is the value proposition or mission statement of your company or organization prominently displayed on your landing pages? Is it clearly communicated to the visitor? Is it credible?
- Is the brand identity of your company or organization clearly conveyed on your landing pages?
- Is there a call to action on your landing pages? Is it prominent and clear?
- Are all the standard elements a visitor has come to expect present on your landing pages? If any are missing, what are they?
- Is navigation from your landing pages clear and simple?
- Are all the links on your landing pages good?
- Is the content of your landing pages sufficient
and appropriate? - Is the source code of your landing pages appropriate for purposes of search engine optimization?
- Do your landing pages invite visitors to go to your home page and explore other areas of your website?
- How can your landing pages be improved?