Landing Pages, to be more specific. And pineapples? What do landing pages have to do with pineapples?
If you’re from one of the original 13 colonies it’s almost impossible to travel to any historic site and not see pineapples everywhere. From table decorations to weathervanes, carved door lintels, fence posts and furniture, pineapples became the symbol of hospitality throughout Colonial America.
A pineapple symbolizes “welcome.” It shows visitors that you’re glad they came. Which is just what you need to do when someone happens upon your website. Rather than sending them to your website’s home page, you want to give them a special greeting and show them around a bit; just as you would a first-time visitor to your home.
So exactly what is a landing page? It’s any page on your website where you send traffic to, typically for some specific purpose. In this instance it’s to introduce yourself, to make the visitor feel welcome and want to learn more about you and your establishment. To encourage them to sign up for your newsletter. And to make them want to come back.
And where would that traffic be coming from? Likely candidates might be your Twitter profile, your Facebook page, or Google Local.
To get started, create a new page on your site. If you’re using WordPress, be sure to create a new Page rather than a Post. You won’t want this showing up in your date, tag, or category archives. Be sure to give your page a meaningful title; you’ll be including this in your link.
Not sure what to write? Try this:
- Thank them for stopping by
- Include a brief overview of who you are and what your business is about
- Highlight a few of your product offerings, particularly any that are unique
- Point to two or three interesting articles on your website or blog (recipes, tutorials, etc.)
- Explain how to sign up for your newsletter, follow you on twitter, become a fan on Facebook
- If they came from your Twitter profile page, tell them what you tweet about and how often you tweet
- If they came from Google Local, remind them about the coupon (you do have a coupon on your Google Local page, right?)
Don’t make it too long; you don’t want to scare them away! Since this page isn’t intended to be ‘found’ by the search engines — it won’t actually be linked from anywhere within your site — you don’t need to worry about keywords and meta descriptions.
There’s no reason to exclude your common website navigation elements; you want your visitors to be able to freely explore the rest of your site.
Once you’re happy with your page, copy the URL to your Twitter, Facebook, or Google Local profile.
NOTE: Do not use a shortened URL (bit.ly, su.pr, is.gd, etc.) in your profiles. These are typically seen as spam. Let your visitors know exactly where they’ll be going when they click on the link.
To see a Twitter landing page example, visit the BlogArtisans custom landing page by clicking on the link.
