How to Create Landing Page for Different Traffic Types

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In the previous article, we’ve highlighted practically everything you need to know when creating a landing page (its meaning, purpose, types, and categories), uncovered the difference between websites and landing pages as well as revealed some secrets of creating an irresistible landing page (In fact!, we’ve got an advanced Magento 2 extension for SEO-friendly Landing Pages creation).

Direct traffic, organic search, referral, paid search…There is a multitude of channels that can attract prospects to landing pages. While some have nothing to do with promoted pages (like direct search, for instance), its optimization for other traffic types can become a game-changer as visitors that come from different channels may look for the same offers differently.

There are 2 parameters that landing pages greatly depend on:

• Engagement rate of the target audience

Here, specific and action-oriented offers will be more appropriate for ‘hotter’ traffic. For instance, your website’s product page can be the same as the landing page.

A separate landing page will be certainly required when it comes to ‘colder’ traffic. It will be aimed at capturing users’ attention, educating and informing them on your product.

• Traffic cost

If you acquire expensive traffic, then product page = landing page would be just what you need as product pages lead users directly to the shopping cart. That’s when you’ll have the highest chances to both convert as many shoppers as possible and cover the advertising expenses.

Landing pages and different types of traffic channels

Traffic from organic search

The organic search channel primarily includes Google and hardly ever Bing.

There is a belief that SEO promotion of landing pages is ineffective and practically impossible. The problem is that they are created to generate higher conversions, i.e. persuade a visitor to perform a desired action – complete a purchase, register, etc.

I won’t reinvent the wheel by saying that pages that provide valuable content to readers are ranked higher by search engines. I’m talking about quality written articles as other content formats (Infographics, GIFs, diagrams, etc. except for PDF format ) are not seen by web crawlers yet. So, your website should be aimed at either conversions or SEO. However, it’s not all that simple as a landing page of this traffic types must be well-optimized and contain rich and valuable content.

You need landing page SEO (please, click here, if you are looking for Magento store SEO solutions), because:

• If it gets to the search engines’ top, conversion is the last thing you will care about as you will still drive more traffic without spending a buck.
• Traffic from the search engines is normally ‘hotter’ than the one from commercial advertising.
• Landing pages are created to boost sales. However, if you are using a new domain, the chances to reach the top are incredibly low. You will start getting more traffic in 6 months at best.

8 tricks to promote your landing page through organic search:

1. Regionality. Don’t even try to promote a landing page across the globe. There are almost 100% chances that multipage websites will crush it with their rich content. It’d be even better if you create several landing pages and set different regions for them.
2. Classic optimization. As simple as it might sound. Quite often we forget to optimize description tags, the title and keywords when creating a landing page. Moreover, it’s also highly recommended to use keywords in the <h1> title, descriptions to images and in the <alt> tag. That won’t take you much time but make the page more visible for the web crawlers.
3. Main page. By default, main pages are more ‘valuable’ than internal ones. So, make sure your landing page is the main one. There is no need to use one domain name and then add numerous landing pages to it. Shoppers will simply delete the end of your URL and go directly to the primary domain to see what it is all about. Yep, you are not the only one who acts like that! Therefore, it’d be much better to purchase different domains to make your landing page the main and only page there. This will certainly help you hold the cards among multipage websites.
4. Right domain name. Choosing a domain name that contains at least one of the keywords will surely help you get ranked higher in the organic search results.
5. Mobile presence and high performance. You know that no online user, especially shopper, won’t wait for more than 3 seconds for a page to load, don’t you? If your landing page is slow – which is the reason for a high bounce rate – the chances to be in the top are low as well.

Therefore, make sure to:

•    create your landing page using an HTML template that is clean,
•    minify the programming code (or addresses professional developers to do that for you),
•    make your landing page mobile-friendly,
•    optimize images for the web.

No doubt that these little changes will positively play into your hands. Also, don’t avoid using Google Page Speed or any service of the kind to check a page’s load time.

6. Different target audiences. There are basically two variants to consider:

• you can create a landing page for multiple audiences and describe all the advantages of using your product/ service all-in-one place. These will let you drive more traffic but may hurt conversion rates.
• you can create landing pages for different target audiences, which guarantees higher conversions. However, you need to make sure that those target audiences do search for products differently. Otherwise, such landing pages will compete against each other.

7. Backlinks. While it is widely stated that backlinks are out of the picture today, they still do matter, especially when it comes to Google search. Therefore, having as many backlinks as possible is what you surely need. Make sure to be careful with that not to get under the sanctions of the search engines. Participation in affiliate programs is probably one of the most powerful ways to gather loads of backlinks to your landing page as it will both drive more traffic to your website and help you climb the rankings.
8. Hidden content. As we mentioned above, search engines prefer pages with rich content. Landing pages normally contain as little text as possible not to decrease conversion rates. There’s a way out: hide a part of content from visitors’ view with the help of a drop-down arrow. Thus, detailed information will be available to your shoppers in case they need it. The page will be rich on content for web crawlers, while it’ll display all the necessary data for your visitors. It’s nice to eat cake and have it, isn’t it!

Traffic from paid search

Paid search is about advertising your landing page within the sponsored listings of a search engine. This channel can be made of any number of traffic sources as soon as their medium is ‘cost per click’ (CPC) aka post-per-click (PPC) or paid search.

Wouldn’t it be one of the ugliest things that could possibly happen, if your shoppers abandoned a landing page after clicking a paid ad? Unfortunately, that’s a common practice.

Therefore, when creating a landing page for this traffic type make sure:

•    its content contains the same keywords as the advert itself. This will positively affect your conversion rates. Ads will drive traffic to your landing page. However, if they aren’t good enough you’ll end up with high bounce rate and no conversions.
•    you align headline in your ad with the one in the landing page perfectly so that visitors are absolutely sure they’ve landed on the right page.
•    conversion ratio is 1:1. Get rid of any disturbing link on a PPC landing page. There must be just one CTA.

It is often recommended to include the following elements on a PPC landing page:

•    catchy headline that corresponds to the paid ad,
•    description with the product benefits (not solely its feature description),
•    CTA,
•    trust symbols,
• emotionally appealing image.

Traffic from display ads

This channel can be also made of any number of traffic sources as long as the medium of them is ‘display’, cost-per-thousand (CPM) or ‘banner’.

It is distinctive in that both interested users (remarketing) and absolutely ‘cold’ ones (affinity audience) can come to your landing page from your traffic channel. Thus, your target audience will determine what strategy is just right for you:

• A specific proposal will work well for the ‘hotter’ traffic, while
• A more informational page that aims at getting users interested and engaged will do for the ‘colder’ one. Here, offering visitors a product page may result in an increased bounce rate. A beautifully created landing page in every sense of the word is just what you need in this case.

When it comes to creating landing pages for this specific traffic type, they must be designed in the full compliance with the ‘banner’ ad. Content and design of your landing page should be entwined with the ones of a banner ad. Visitors that come from this traffic type are typically in search of a specific solution/ item they are already aware of.

Make sure to optimize your landing pages for this traffic type:

1. Matching text. Keywords should be the same or deeply intertwined.
2. Be neat. Landing page must be straight to the point. If you are uncertain about any part of its content, then it probably shouldn’t be there.
3. Clear call-to-action (CTA). If your shoppers have come via display ads, then they’re looking for a certain solution and are not window-shopping. Direct them with a clear CTA.
4. Don’t ask for too much. Some landing pages are created to collect data. Don’t make your shoppers spend a great deal of their time on filling in multiple forms. In fact, there are 50% chances that they won’t do that, especially when asked to provide phone number and/or date of birth.

Traffic from social networks

This traffic type is normally used for ‘in-stream’ targeting, i.e. targeting that is audience-based. Shoppers from this traffic channel are usually still looking for solutions/items and weigh options. However, quite often social network users do not like to be directed away from the social media interface.

Landing pages for this type of traffic should contain data that are catchy for certain social groups and communities. First, you should do you best to engage members of those communities and groups through social networks. So, do your best to build strong connections with them. Then, the ‘warmed-up’ target audience should be softly directed to your landing page.

It is recommended to create ‘Social Media Landing pages’ based on data on networks they mostly come from:

•    try to establish a better sense of consistence with images and colors depending on what social media shoppers mostly come from,
•    create a more seamless sign-up experience for returning visitors when trying to generate more leads.

Also, it is commonly believed that landing pages for such a traffic type are most effectively used to grow email lists. So make such pages as easy as you can. Introduction of gamification would certainly be a big plus.

Email

Email campaigns and landing pages walk hand-in-hand as the last mentioned ones also target to concentrate visitors’ attention on a specific service/item and trigger their completing the desired action.

Landing pages that visitors come from email campaigns should contain detailed information about what was offered in the email letter, and motivate shoppers to complete the desired action. It is also recommended to have such landing pages similarly designed as well as contain the same text.

Tips for the finale

Before proceeding to creating a landing page, make sure to:

•    choose top use cases for your product/ services,
•    break them up in relevant keywords into ad groups that will be used in different ad campaigns,
•    build a relevant landing page based on previously created keyword groups and a message that you intend to pass along,
•    place tracking pixels on a landing page to track engaged users for future retargeting display ads,
•    let shoppers take one step further with your landing pages, don’t repeat the message but provide additional data that will help convert visitors or complete a desired action.

Bottom line

When creating a successful landing page, it is a must to set different conversion goals for different traffic types as their visitors have quite different mindsets. While directing shoppers from one traffic type directly to CTA would be quite timely, visitors from other channels may look for more educational or informational content, which will require you to establish a problem and show how your solution pitches in.