Create landing pages without a developer

Many marketers would have you believe a landing page is simply any page a visitor lands on after clicking through an advertisement or promotional link. That’s incorrect.

While countless campaigns use a variety of website resources (like homepages, “About” pages, or “Contact Us” pages) as landing pages, that does not make them landing pages.

Think of it this way: You could use a baseball glove to retrieve a hot dish from the oven, but that doesn’t make your baseball glove an oven mitt.

Similarly, directing visitors to your homepage or “Contact Us” page doesn’t make those pages landing pages. A landing page is a standalone web page, disconnected from a website’s navigation, created for the sole purpose of convincing a visitor to act (to sign up, buy, download, etc.). This is generally powered by a robust landing page optimization platform.

As businesses become more data-driven, landing pages become more popular for their ability to deliver high ROI. Research has shown that companies using 40 or more landing pages generate 120% more leads than those using less than 5.

There are two major reasons every promotion needs its own landing page. Both highlight why it’s a bad idea to direct visitors to your homepage, or a generic page on your website like “About” or “Contact us.” They also highlight how landing pages can generate more conversions for any business. User expectations need to be met with message match. Also, prospects are easily distracted with an imbalanced conversion ratio aka the amount of outbound links on a page compared to conversion goals. On your landing page, that ratio should be 1:1 — meaning, there should be only one outbound link and one conversion goal.

Any marketing campaign can benefit from the help of a targeted landing page, but it’s paid promotions that absolutely should not be run without one. When you’re spending valuable chunks of your budget to generate traffic, outbound links and lack of message match can translate to lost dollars.

The following are campaign types that should not, under any circumstances, be run without a landing page:

• Paid search campaigns
• Paid social media advertising campaigns
• Retargeting campaigns
• Email marketing campaigns