Small Business Design Resources

Landing Pages: What They Are and Why You Need Them

If you’ve been considering an online advertising campaign for your small business, you’ve probably come across the term “landing page.” The concept of a landing page is new to many small business owners, so don’t worry if you aren’t sure what it is or how it’s different from the other pages on your website. It’s actually a very simple concept that can really increase the effectiveness of your advertising campaign.

What is a landing page?
A landing page is exactly what it sounds like—the page a potential customer lands on after clicking a link. Technically, any page on your website can be a landing page. However, the most effective landing page is one that was created to match the needs of the person who clicked on the link that leads to it. The goal of a landing page is to capture the visitor’s attention and get them take an action you desire—make a purchase, for instance, or fill out a sign-up form.

Why you need a landing page for your advertising campaign
When you create an advertisement, whether it’s a banner ad or an email to your client list, you craft it with a specific goal and audience in mind. You do this to connect with your customers and encourage them to click on the link to your website. But your interaction with your customers doesn’t end there—you want them to take a certain action once they reach your website. This is where the landing page comes in. Sending people to an ad-specific landing page on your website will provide them with exactly what they came to find, making it more likely that they will make a transaction.

Here are a couple examples to illustrate what a landing page can do for you:

Imagine that you own an online store that sells women’s clothing. To market your website, you create an advertisement that promotes your new swimwear collection for summer. To go along with this advertising campaign, you design a landing page that features the top-selling swimwear items. People who click on the swimwear ad are more likely to stick around if they land on this page and immediately see what they’re looking for than if they’re directed to the homepage of your site, which has just a small link to the swimwear section.

Or maybe your marketing goal is to get people to sign up for your email list. To do this, you offer them a free e-book in exchange for their name and email address. When people click on this offer, they’re sent directly to a landing page that contains the form they need to fill out in order to receive the e-book. This will be much more effective than sending them to your website’s homepage, where they will have to hunt on their own for the link to sign up for the e-book. You’ll get many more people to sign up for your email list if you create a landing page specifically for this purpose.

Essentially, a landing page increases the effectiveness of your advertising campaign by immediately engaging visitors who are attracted by your ad. How many times have you clicked on a link only to find yourself on a webpage that seems completely unrelated? That was an example of a bad landing page, and chances are you hit the back button on your browser within seconds. Keep that from happening with your ads with a well-crafted landing page.