What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is an “entry point” for a visitor to your website; the page they first see when navigating to your website. Most often, the landing page is your website’s homepage, but it can be other pages, too.
If a prospect Googles one of your community’s names, Google it typically smart enough to take them directly to that specific page on your website. In this instance, that main community page is this user’s landing page.
Promotions can sometimes include targeted landing page. Builders can encourage shoppers to “Go to http://abcbuilders.com/promo/ for more” and that page is the landing page detailing the promotion.
Who Cares?
A landing page is the shopper’s first impression. You don’t want people walking into a model home that smells bad and turning around. You don’t want your prospects first impression of you to be poor and result in a bounce. You want them to slow down and learn more about what you have to share.
Best Use
Your website’s homepage is the obvious landing page and everyone spends lots of time making sure that page performs well.
- Choose Wisely. When you’re buying Google AdWords or banner ads, or sending an email message to drive prospects back to your website, take the time to use links that bring visitors to the most relevant page possible. For example, if you’re placed an ad on a website for your Green Acres community, don’t include a link to your homepage. This forces the user to search through your site to find the info on Green Acres. Instead, provide a link that takes them directly to the Green Acres page on your website.
- Unintended Landing Pages. Search engine choose which pages of your website appear in search engine results pages (SERP). This means you may not always be planning for visitors to enter your site the way that they do. Check you Google Analytics under Content>Site Content>Landing Pages to see a list of your panding pages. Examine the bounce rates and time-on-site for each to determine how well they might be meeting the needs of your visitors.
- By Design. Landing pages are an integral component of a well planned search engine optimization (SEO) plan. Consider some common ways a user might discover your homes and communities and design landing pages to meet that experience. For example, you may build across multiple states, counties, and municipalities. You have one single “Communities” page that lists all of your locations (covering all of those sub-markets) in one page. Creating a page for a popular sub-market that includes very targeted information about that area and the homes you offer there would provide a very relevant experience for the user, and a friendly page for a search engine. Hello opportunity.
