Give your customers a soft landing

Many website designs assume that the customer’s first point of contact with the site will be the home page. However, this is increasingly not the case, as more and more site traffic is driven by off-site links from search engines and paid advertising. In this case, the actual page a customer starts on might be several levels removed from the home page, and if what the customer finds doesn’t match their expectations, they are very likely to give up and go back to their search results to try the next page on the list — probably your competitor!

For this reason, it’s important to make sure that these “landing pages” are carefully designed with the customer’s journey in mind:

• Match landing pages with your Google search result. Let’s say you’ve just searched for “men’s dress shoes” on Google. When you click on a search result, you want to be taken to a page that displays shoes for purchase: men’s dress shoes, not sandals or high heels. And once they’re there…

• Give the message pride of place. How many times have you clicked on a search result in Google, only to have absolutely no idea why you’ve been brought to that particular page? Make sure your customers don’t have to go hunting by using good design techniques to present the key message in the most important place —- and keep your information concise and relevant! Ten short, specific landing pages are usually better than one giant omnibus.

• Make sure the landing page relates to the call to action. If a customer clicks on a promotional link in an email or on an affiliate site, make sure they are brought directly to a customised landing page dealing specifically with that offer or promotion. If they are simply dumped at the home page, they may be confused about how to take advantage of the offer, even if the call to action is as simple as “25% off books”.

• Match your click-through advertisements, newsletters or emails to the landing page. In any marketing campaign, consistency of message is key. Use consistent design elements such as colours, photography and layout to provide your customers with a comfortable, seamless transition onto your site and into your key pathways. Which leads neatly to…

• Provide your customers with a clear path. We’ve spoken about this before, but it really is important to make sure that the action you want your customers to take at any point feels like a clear, natural choice. If they don’t get that feeling on a landing page, they will eventually learn to mistrust links to your site as ‘dead ends’.

• Include positive quotes from other satisfied customers. On a landing page, it’s often possible to know quite specific information about what sort of people will see that page. Use this knowledge! Include quotes from past customers with similar needs to enable new visitors to feel looked after.

• Take the time to research. The more you know about your customers and their needs, the better your landing page can reflect that knowledge, and the better your customers will feel about doing business with you.

If thought through properly, your site’s landing pages can be a powerful driver for your online marketing. The great thing is that the more you practise the techniques above, the better your site will be. There’s absolutely no such thing as caring about your customers too much.