Why You Should Never Neglect Your Landing Page

Landing pages are often the least considered aspect of websites. But we are sure that, if businesses knew how important they are for their marketing strategies, they would pay them the attention they deserve.

Landing pages are simple at first sight – they have only three things: concise information, backlinks, and visuals – how hard can it be to build one?
Well, knowing that landing pages are crucial for conversion, we would say that building one should be taken seriously.
Your site’s landing page is the first impression your users have of your business, hence why it’s a strong deciding factor on whether they will stick around on your website or not.

But, why?

We’ll answer to that question with an example:
Let’s say that you’re watching YouTube videos, and suddenly an ad breaks in in the middle of the video. It’s about this purse that you can use for everything, anywhere; and your interest is awakened. You click on the link to the purse’s website, and you’re redirected to a landing page. What would be better for the purse company? If the landing page is clear, catching and intuitive enough to get the user’s contact information? Or, if it showed a 404 error?
We can all agree that the latter scenario is not favorable for any purchase from that site, right?

Getting your user’s contact information is crucial for conversion, and that’s what the main purpose of landing pages is. If you can’t obtain it at that very moment, then the conversion becomes more unlikely. Its importance resides in your users’ trust. Just think about it: if you were a user and didn’t trust a company, you wouldn’t buy anything from them, regardless of how good their products or services may seem. Therefore, getting your user’s trust is the first and most important step for conversion, and the greatest proof of trust you can have from them is their contact information.

A very popular tactic that marketers use to earn users’ trust and thus obtain their contact information, is by asking it in exchange for something else, whether it is a registration on your system, a free trial, a bonification, a subscription to a newsletter, or an eBook. We highly recommend using it as the dominant element of your landing page.

Ok, but hold on for a second: why do I have to plan all this for a landing page, when I already have a homepage that has all the information about my company and products?

The answer is very simple: homepages and landing pages have completely different functions! Homepages are all about you, but landing pages are all about the user. One describes your products, services and mission, and the other focuses more on convincing the user to stick around. And, if you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world: if you were a user, you would prefer to be redirected to a simple, clear and trustworthy transition element that gives you context and expectations on the outcome of visiting your website, rather than to a busy and overwhelming homepage that does not give you any trust incentive. Remember this: if you overwhelm your users, your chances of conversion are minimal.