There are plenty of factors to discuss when it comes to making a solid landing page. For those car dealers that are using pay per click advertising, this is an especially important consideration. Optimizing your landing pages will help reduce bounce rates and improve your conversion rate, and the Landing Page Utopia panel was able to shed a bit of light on how exactly that can be done.
Scott Brinker from Ion Interactive was the first speaker to discuss what makes a successful landing page. While traditional thinking says that the fewer pages there are after arriving at the landing page, the more likely it will be at converting the user. Interestingly, Brinker’s take on the topic was quite a divergence from this line of thinking. He proposed that when executed correctly, a multi-page landing page can actually improve landing page conversion. This is because post-click segmentation can be utilized strategically to better direct the type of customer to the information they’re seeking, even more so than the keyword/ad variation used to get to the landing page. For example, in a hypothetical campaign for Richmond Ford, perhaps the dealer would use truck-related search queries to drive traffic to a general Ford truck landing page. Once the user arrives at the page, the user will be segmented by an option for those seeking either new Ford trucks in Richmond or for those seeking commercial trucks Richmond, differentiating the average consumer versus a fleet vehicle buyer. As Brinker admits, users do want to take fewer clicks when everything else is equal, but sometimes everything is not always equal depending on the segment, the target audience, and the marketing objectives.
Landing pages can also be switched out or tweaked depending on the season. Seasonality affects many different industries and verticals, including car buying. Even financing specials coincide with holidays and specific times of year. Thus landing pages should also be designed to highlight these special holiday offers to get potential car buyers excited about coming to your dealership.
When it comes to landing pages, perhaps more so than static website pages, the panel as a whole agrees that A/B and multivariate testing is becoming increasingly paramount in the creation of a high-converting landing page.
There’s a number of best practices that should typically be addressed for a successful landing pages. This includes keeping the page sparce, without adding clutter. In addition, contact forms should be kept brief as well without requiring the user to input data and personal information that isn’t absoletely necessary.
Rather than discussing best practices, panelist Jonathan Mendez of Ramp Digital took a different approach by discussing what he has determined is the world’s greatest and most succecsful landing pages (shown below).
Needless to say, Google’s classically simple home page has been a success in user interface design. It provides the users with control as they already know what they want to search for, without the need for other content to interfere with their intended quiery. As such, Google has also reduced choice which helps support the flow of what the user is supposed to do, which is to perfom a search.
Landing pages should be current with Web trends and technologies, utilizing the latest Java, ajax, APIs, and/or other languages to help make the page dynamic and easy for the user. The content should also be targeted to the user and appropriate. When designing the page, a good rule of themb is to design it for the goal of the landing page in mind rather than just the person to ensure your conversion objectives are met along with the user’s needs.
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