Over the years I’ve heard the advise that I should have a dedicated ‘landing page’ designed to maximize ‘conversions’. I’ve always said phooey. Turn ’em loose and let them find what they want once I get them to our site.
Now the Marketing Maven at GlobalSpec is backing me up. In their latest newsletter, there is an article titled Landing Page or Landing Path? Improving Post-Click Marketing that identifies why landing pages may not be a good idea.
“But landing pages can be fraught with problems that turn visitors off and lower your conversion rates. Some of the common problems include:”
- Loading up on content
- Trying to close too soon
- Being all things to all people
- Looking cheap
In other words, for the ‘complex sale’, you can’t try to force the visitor to fit their complex needs into a simple one-page landing page. Better to make a ‘landing path’ with navigational cues based on different needs of the visitor.
The Maven goes on to give some clarification when to use a ‘page’ versus a ‘path’. Ultimately, it depends on your products and prospects. Use what makes sense, not what you hear others saying should be done.
Good points. But every page on a website is a potential landing page. For example on http://www.leonardo-energy.org, we have about 1800 nodes, and over 60% will be visited at least once per day. It’s worth thinking about the design of the most popular pages.No b2b marketeer thinks users will immediately click the order button on the landing page. It’s more about what action the user should do next.While the analogy landing page/path works well, they’re flip sides of a coin. We cannot think of either of them in isolation.
Good points. But every page on a website is a potential landing page. For example on http://www.leonardo-energy.org, we have about 1800 nodes, and over 60% will be visited at least once per day. It’s worth thinking about the design of the most popular pages.No b2b marketeer thinks users will immediately click the order button on the landing page. It’s more about what action the user should do next.While the analogy landing page/path works well, they’re flip sides of a coin. We cannot think of either of them in isolation.
Dave, I wholeheartedly agree with your post and second your “phooey” to the notion that dedicated landing pages maximize conversion rates. The online marketing industry is using landing pages as a crutch: a crutch that is cheap and limits the full potential marketers yield in selling their product or service. Why should marketers (and users) settle for one-size-fits-all landing pages, when conversion paths (or landing paths, like you mentioned), are able to engage and segment users, and yield much higher conversion rates? I actually created a blog and campaign in protest of single page landing experiences. Check it out! http://www.nomorelandingpages.com.
Dave, I wholeheartedly agree with your post and second your “phooey” to the notion that dedicated landing pages maximize conversion rates. The online marketing industry is using landing pages as a crutch: a crutch that is cheap and limits the full potential marketers yield in selling their product or service. Why should marketers (and users) settle for one-size-fits-all landing pages, when conversion paths (or landing paths, like you mentioned), are able to engage and segment users, and yield much higher conversion rates? I actually created a blog and campaign in protest of single page landing experiences. Check it out! http://www.nomorelandingpages.com.
Like most things, landing pages are not an “all” or “nothing” issue (put another way, a “hurrah” vs “phooey” issue.If the goal of your landing page is to SELL, then almost certainly a single page won’t be enough information.But if the goal is to capture a lead — especially in response to an offer that was made by the ad (e.g. free whitepaper, watch a demo), then anything on the page that is not related to the offer is extraneous. The proof of this is in the measurement: a report from Atlas OnePoint found the average conversion rate for lead generation sites that used the home page as a PPC destination was just 6.3%, but using targeted landing pages raises the average conversion rate to have 11.8%.If you ask me, when I’m paying for the click, I’d rather get almost 2X return for my money.
Like most things, landing pages are not an “all” or “nothing” issue (put another way, a “hurrah” vs “phooey” issue.If the goal of your landing page is to SELL, then almost certainly a single page won’t be enough information.But if the goal is to capture a lead — especially in response to an offer that was made by the ad (e.g. free whitepaper, watch a demo), then anything on the page that is not related to the offer is extraneous. The proof of this is in the measurement: a report from Atlas OnePoint found the average conversion rate for lead generation sites that used the home page as a PPC destination was just 6.3%, but using targeted landing pages raises the average conversion rate to have 11.8%.If you ask me, when I’m paying for the click, I’d rather get almost 2X return for my money.