Recently I put together a landing page for GotChance, which I’ll be using in any future promotions. Its really useful. But, many are not aware of what a landing page is. Wikipedia defines it as :

In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.

Now, that is a bit more complicated than required. In blogging, it is basically a page through which a visitor enters your blog. I did a quick search and found a lot of articles on “how to create a great landing page“, “how to create a landing page that works” etc… But, no article focuses on why one must put up a landing page. It may be simple to say “it gives more information to the visitor about your site”. But, there is more.

Visitors May Feel Deserted

Your blog may have the greatest of designs. But, still your visitor is new to it. He might find the place quite strange. It may be completely different from other places that he might’ve visited on the web. So, quite naturally he might leave your blog, adding to your bounce rate.

If you don’t want this to happen, you need to tell him what is what. You need to tell him what your blog is about. This will make him accustom with your blog…

Your Blog Is Too Crowded

Quite often I come across a blog that is very crowded. Crowded in the sense, a lot of links, banners, widgets and what not. I am used to visiting such websites. But, it may not be the case with everyone. With such a blog, you may “scare away” your visitor.

Well, not necessarily.. Just as above, if you teach him what is what, he’ll become better accustomed with your blog. Just do that in your landing page.

Your Blog Is Like A Big Shopping Mall

Consider your blog as a shopping mall and yourself its owner. A visitor enters a mall with a clear idea of what he wants. But, in a huge shopping mall, he doesn’t know what is available where. You need to tell your visitors about it. Shopping malls do it with “direction signs” and bloggers should do it with “landing page”. You get the idea, right ?

Convert Into A Potential Reader

RSS Subscriber count has become an important metric in the blogosphere. With a good landing page, you can convert most of your lurkers into loyal readers. All you have to do is, put an RSS Subscription Link and/or an Email Subscription box on the landing page, just like how I’ve done.

You don’t know what amazing effects “calling to action” can have, unless you try out.

Increase Visit Length

By putting links to popular posts on your blog (which you can easily do with a plugin) on your landing page, you can give some life to your old posts. Not only that, you can get your visitors to hang out on your blog for more time.

Now, that would automatically make your visitor accustom himself to your blog, your writing style etc…

I hope the post was useful for you. Do you have a landing page for your blog ? If so, what all do you have in there ? Any tips to make these page even more effective ?