What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a special type of website sales page. It may be a page that directly sells a product or service. Alternatively, it could be a web page that sells visitors on the benefits of entering their name and email address in exchange for a free download; or to get more information about a product or service (usually for more expensive or complex products or services); or to subscribe to a newsletter; or to register for a contest; or to call for more information; or for any of many other types of lead generation strategies.

In most cases a landing page is not a home page (although there are exceptions – including for certain websites that only sell one product or service).

In certain limited examples, a landing page is not even part of a website’s navigation menu, which means that users would not end up on such a page as a result of browsing a particular website. They would arrive, or land there, by being purposefully directed to that page via an email, or an advertisement. (By the way, the advertisement could be an ad on one’s own site, in addition to other sites).

Landing Page Expectations

Typically, a visitor “lands” on a landing page via an advertisement (such as PPC or other ads), e-mail, or search listing. That initial message establishes the viewer’s expectation for what the user expects to see when they click on a link that leads them to your landing page.

An obvious point that contributes to the sales success of any landing page is how well the landing page delivers on the promise of the ad or email that drove the visitor to the landing page.

If a person clicks on a link from an ad, or email, or search result, with a promise of a solution to a problem, or more information, or certain details, only to land on a generalized page about a company (such as a home page), then the visitor is forced to search again for the information that brought him to the site. Most visitors will leave such a site and look for another website that makes it easier for the searcher to find what they’re after.

For example, if a searcher clicks on an ad that describes a sale for a particular brand of motorcycle tire, only to land on the home page of a motorcycle dealer’s website that features all kinds of motorcycles, helmets, jackets, accessories, parts, mechanical services – as well as motorcycle tires – the visitor would be forced to do further searching on the dealer’s website to find the tire sale. Many visitors will leave such a website disappointed, and continue their search for a site that will show them the exact motorcycle tire they’re after.

A better example would be a searcher who clicks on an ad for a particular brand of motorcycle tire, and arrives on a web page that has a picture of that exact tire, with the regular price, the sale price, the tire’s specifications, shipping details, a phone number to call for any questions, and a very easy-to-see “BUY” button (or “Add to Shopping Cart”) so that such a consumer can get the info they’re after (if they want), but more importantly, so they make their purchase and move on with their day.

Landing Page Call-to-Action

The “call-to-action” is what you want the visitor to do, such as make a purchase, download some information, make a phone call, etc. In the above example, the call-to-action is represented by a very prominent “BUY” button.

Whatever it is you want the visitor to do, be sure to clearly state it on the landing page. Any visitor should be able to quickly identify what their expected action is.

Market Testing Landing Pages

There is more than one can know about landing pages, including not distracting visitors from the main intent of the web page. Hence, landing pages can be made more effective by “not” including other advertisements.

More importantly, landing pages can be made more effective by testing, testing and more testing. Market testing landing page variables such as the wording in the headlines, the main copywriting information, the placement of “more details,” and product images are among some of the fundamental items that should be statistically compared and then refined.

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Building Links With Social Bookmarking‏

Social bookmarking is extremely popular with marketers in many niches. Social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, and Technorati allow users to add links to sites they like, and then other visitors can grab those links and add them to their own lists, making your URLs go viral.

Social bookmarking sites can be great for getting traffic to your own domains. You can bookmark your sites yourself and then hope others will share the links, and in some cases vote your entries up, like Digg users often do.

If enough people vote for a particular story, it might make it to the front page of that bookmarking site. A front-page listing can mean thousands of visitors a day. But because of the very nature of social bookmarking sites, if you want to get a lot of traffic from the bookmarking sites themselves, then you have to make sure that the links you submit are newsworthy - not just your sales pitch page.

Use the news to work your site into the bookmarking bevy of links. For instance - let's say you're in the gardening niche and you have a site on growing tulips. A simple how-to site may not get shared a lot.

But let's say you read an article about a the discovery by a group of scientists that says people who grow tulips in their yards are 60% less likely to develop lung cancer, for example. Then you'd have a pretty decent shot at having a lot of users in both the gardening and health demographic share your links with others.

If your sites tend to be less newsworthy and more general, then you shouldn't worry about how many people vote for a story or share your links. Just concentrate on using the social bookmarking sites to gain backlinks to your sites.

Concentrate on bookmarking the index page of each of your sites first. Be careful not to bookmark too many of your own sites at first, since that can appear "spammy" - remember to bookmark other interesting sites you see that you don't necessarily own yourself.

The key to social bookmarking is to become part of the community who shares interesting information. Create a good profile that tells a little about you. Add a picture, and if the site offers it, start building a "friends" list.

Be careful about how many links you add per day. You shouldn't go crazy and add 100 links the day you sign up to a social bookmarking site. It's often helpful to keep it to ten or less per day, but check the individual site's tutorial to be sure.

After you've been a user for several weeks, you might be able to add more per day. Just make sure to keep bookmarking stories on other websites. Vote for a few of the stories that made it onto the first page. Bookmark a story at a news site every once in a while, or a funny YouTube video. This helps make your profile a lot more legitimate in the eyes of the community.

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Top 5 Link Building Strategies for Your Site

The best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts can guide and assist you in link building strategies that will increase your website’s visibility on the internet. The following categories of backlinks give an excellent overview of the wide variety of options available for improving your site’s SEO ranking.

Links from Multiple Domains

While your link building strategies should focus on volume, your plan should not be to get most links from a single site. Instead,work towards just a few links from many sites for best results.

As search engines rank sites, they consider how relevant the content is to the keywords and search terms. When you get links from multiple domains, you demonstrate that many sources find your content useful.

This is critically important when you develop additional backlinks from authoritative domains.

Deep (Ingrained) Links

Instead of directing links to your site’s main page, use links directly to specific pages of content or images. These are known as deep or ingrained links, and they show that you have important information throughout your site, not just isolated on the home page.

Using deep or ingrained links adds to your ability to use important keywords for greater ranking in search engine results. You can spread these words throughout your site as appropriate, which will ensure a user-friendly overall appearance.

Links to Local Sites

If your link building strategies don’t include neighboring customers, you are missing out on a large opportunity. It is exciting to develop international backlinks, but it is the locals that will keep you in business.

Obtaining authoritative links from local sources is far easier than from nationwide or internationally renowned experts. Nearby specialists enjoy building their communities by working with neighboring businesses. SEO rankings will climb when you include local authorities such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Better Business Bureau for your state. Consider local organizations, libraries, museums, and similar sites as well as your local government agencies. Directories like yellowpages.com and superpages.com are also excellent options. You might have to pay a fee for the service, but this tends to be very low. Some of those you approach will jump at the chance for a quid pro quo linking relationship.

Links to Authoritative Domains

Sites classified as authoritative on a subject are those that offer expertise in a given industry or specific field. For example, nytimes.com has extensive, reliable, and accurate information on events relevant to New York. Its strong reputation as a source of specialized knowledge lends it authority on New York news.

Link building strategies that include government and university websites lead to high ratings, as these are accepted as authorities on their subject matter. They can be easily recognized by their .gov and .edu domains, for example IRS and California State University.

Authoritative domain links lead visitors to extensive amounts of quality, well researched information, and they often contain additional links that lead to good sources for further exploration.

Linking through Anchor Text

The strongest and most popular tool available today is linking through anchor text. For best SEO ranking results, be sure to make this part of your link building strategies.

They work by turning your text into hyperlinks, so as readers go along, they can click on an interesting keyword. The link directs them to the page you specify, which makes your keywords even stronger, improving your site’s ultimate ranking.

Grow Your Rankings with an SEO Expert Today

Higher rankings mean higher traffic to your site, which results in more business for you. Don’t delay in designing and implementing your link building strategies. Begin with the five ideas listed here, and consider a professional SEO expert for

even greater success.

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