You don’t have long – sometimes only a second or two – Will visitors to your site stay or will they go?  Will they want to bookmark your site or is it forgotten before the window has closed?  Creating a captivating landing page is a challenge to anyone.  You want to grab your visitors, shake them up, make them laugh, cry or curse, teach them something they didn’t know they wanted to learn.  You know the saying, “You only have one chance to make a first impression” How many times have you been advised to give a “solid” handshake to project a favorable image of yourself? Whether you’re interviewing for a job, meeting your boylfriend’s family, or trying to close an important business deal, making a solid first impression is extremely important.  You’ll see some companies spending millions of dollars on a single ad campaign – Why?  Because they know they probably only have a couple seconds to snag someones interest.  I know how I react to advertising on tv, in magazines and billboards – sometimes there is just something that makes you stop and really look at the advertisement.   Internet advertising, has the same principles. But instead of a magazine, tv or billboard your focus is the main page of your site or the “landing page”.   A landing page is what the user arrives at when they click on an ad or as a result from a search. Think of a landing page as your “digital handshake” – you need to make a solid first impression! Depending on what you want to get accomplished, landing pages can take two general forms. The first is as a transaction page, meaning it will prompt the visitor to complete a form to make a transaction – filling out things like contact information and so on. The second type of page assumes the role of a reference page, and may feature relevant content in the form of text, videos, and graphics. Whatever your goal for your landing page, here are a few general rules to follow if you want to make a solid first impression and retain your visitor’s attention. First, get your main point across without cluttering up the whole page with sentences – don’t use ten words when five will do. This is a simple rule of effective communication. The visitor is not here on your page to read an essay, just give them the information they need. This is being considerate to their time and yours. How do you make an effective pitch? Think headlines from magazine and newspaper articles.   Second, don’t make your page gaudy – flashing images, overloaded colors, and other distracting visuals. You’re trying to create a digital pathway upon which to lead your visitor, not doing your best mockup of the Las Vegas strip. This will demean the seriousness of the landing page; your visitor will feel like he’s stumbled onto a shameless commercial ploy and be turned off – a quick back click would be a likely result.    And finally, don’t be too cut-and-dry. Yes, be terse and efficient, but don’t be boring and listless in your headlines. When creating a landing page, you are trying to attract a viewers attention. You need to make an effective argument for why the visitor should stay on your page. Don’t just tell them to “click for more information.” Tell them what they stand to gain by doing so, but just remember not to be too wordy.  

I have used a couple of different types of landing pages.  One was strictly a site for building landing pages.  This service is great if you are promoting a website or blog that has google ads on a traffic exchange or any other site that won’t allow any pages with google ads.  This can be very succint and to the point – a couple lines of text and a cool picture that’ll make them want to click on your link.  I used a site called splashpagemaker – one ofo many sites of this type (I’ll come up with a list of these if anyone wants one.  My VERY favorite type of landing page is of course, my blog.  I can type a cool post and use the url to that page to pull people into my blog – one of my favorite methods of keeping people here is to post lots of lists – kind of a chronicle of what I have learned while working online (and off) – anything I can share that I think may be useful to ohers. (You make a lot of friends this way to)

So, what kind of an impression does your “landing page” leave?  You don’t know?  Well . . . . ask someone – friend, spouse, go to a forum, ask people on twitter, ask your contacts through facebook.  Not only will you get some great advice to help you create an awesome landing page – you’ll also get lots of visits to your site.

Good Luck!

Want me to visit your landing page?  Leave a link!