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Definitive Guide to Landing Pages

Best Blogs — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:42:35 +0000

I won’t bore you with long details as to what a landing page is (it’s a tailored page where traffic is sent to prompt a certain action or result) or what tools to use (Google Webmaster is useful) but will explain what makes a successful landing page and why it works.

Using Current Resources

First, I’d recommend taking a look at Google’s excellent Web Optimisation review which includes some sections on landing pages and what they should contain as well as this Split testing article.

Landing Page Example

We’ll get straight into the action and look at a successful example of a landing page in action. Note: The design, the lack of ads, the testimonials, use of pictures and the visibility of the order/buy it now/sign up boxes.

Other examples are:

Designing for Adwords

Landing pages and Adwords campaigns work really well together and I could write a whole new article on this subject, but for now I’ll write a short guide on what your landing page should contain if you’re using Adwords.

Google has a habit of raising bidding prices if it doesn’t like the page you’ve created. Perhaps it’s a new website, contains a lot of links, doesn’t contain original content or that the landing page isn’t in the context of the current site. Google has written up guidelines on Landing Page Qualities and I recommend heading over there before placing bids.

In the mean time make sure your page has links to the site’s privacy policy (include your address/phone number), terms and conditions, contact us, about us and sitemap.

Gotten Google Slapped?

“Google Slapping” usually happens when your site doesn’t meet the correct requirements and huge extra charges are levied on your bidding keywords. So what’s the alternative? I personally don’t use Adwords and learnt from many years ago not to put all my eggs in one basket. I go for cheap clicks with no restrictions by using Networks like Adtoll and Adbrite, then redirect users to my landing pages.

Using Landing Pages for Subscriptions

Gaining more subscribers to my sites has become an important thing for me and it only recently “clicked” that I should be trying to build up a continual subscriber base to my blogs rather than hoping users who enter my site would click on my adverts and move on from my blog.

Directing the user to a custom landing page and getting them to signup and subscribe to your site makes greater sense. Building up a fan base, capturing email addresses and allowing users to come back to the site is very useful.

If you take a look at my own site’s example page, you’ll see what I’m referring to. I’ve kept the landing page in the style of the site, removed the adverts (with the help of php includes), showcased the site’s most popular posts and also gave an incentive to the potential subscriber by offering them an exclusive unpublished eBook.

Other Page Tips

There’s other important tips not just about what the site should contain and how it should look, but more importantly what the text says on the page. The content should be easy to read, focused on the product and “pitch” and there’s a need to explain how the reader would benefit by signing up. A landing page should communicate the value of what you’re offering.

Keep your Landing Page Current

It’s all too easy to build a page, use ppc and forget about it. The user visiting the page may of visited previously so what can be done? Try this free snippet of code below which uses Javascript to implement the latest day, month and year. This gives the impression the page is upto date:

Landing Code Snippet

Monitor your pages

Finally, sometimes landing pages stop functioning and if you’ve got 100’s of campaigns, there’s no way of knowing. One solution is that for a small fee, your host can monitor your pages and page/call you if they’re not functioning. Another way is to sign up for the many free monitoring solutions available on the web.

Best Blogs Asia.

Funk Shui Wordpress Theme

Best Blogs — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:11:46 +0000

I’ve created a Feng Shui inspired Wordpress theme which uses related colours, has a simple spaced layout and directs the flow of positive energy around the site. I’ve always wondered how it could be applied to a web site, so here’s my try.

Funk Shui Theme

Feng Shui is all about the way that we live in harmonize with the nature, benefiting from the ‘positive’ energies in our living environment.

About the Funk Shui Theme

I thought I’d design a Free Theme for Wordpress only, called the Funk Shui. It’s a very simple site, with a simple layout but has a unique twist of integrating the flow of positive energy or “chi”. My wife is a Feng Shui practitioner in Hong Kong, so she was an advisor on this project.

The Theme

SEO friendly, fast loading and HTML Compliant.
Ability to change code, without touching the Wordpress php files. (via the change/ directory)
Version 2.7.1+ compatible.

Download Funk Shui Theme

Download the Funk Shui Theme 70kb

Flow of Chi Energy

The screenshot shows the entrance/exit points of the flow of energy around the site.

Note how the energy flows:

Past the top title.

Enters into the main content on the left.

Directs into the sidebar on the right.

Exits at the bottom of the page.

Wordpress Setup

Download the theme archive and extract the files it contains. You may need to preserve the directory structure in the archive when extracting these files.
Using an FTP client to access your host web server, create a directory to contain your theme in the wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress.
Upload the theme files to the new directory on your host server.
Log in to the WordPress Administration Panel.
Select the Design subpanel, then Themes.
From the Available Themes section, click on theme title (or theme screenshot) for “Funk Shui”.
A preview of the theme will be shown to activate theme click the Activate “Theme Name” link in the top right.

How did you get on?

I’d like to know if anyone using the theme felt positive effects, such as perhaps an increase in visitors, revenue or anything else?

Best Blogs Asia.

Make a Twitter Site using Sweetcron

Best Blogs — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:55:30 +0000

I’ve just installed Sweetcron for the first time, I initially had problems with adding my Wordpress Feeds whilst I found adding Twitter feeds was very simple, so I’ve created a step-by-step guide on making your own Twitter website using Sweetcron.

Sweetcron Setup

Sweetcron is a self-hosted automated life-streaming CMS / Blogging tool, which creates blog posts in an instant drawing content from your activities on various social sites like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Tumblr etc. You just have to add the feeds from these sites, do some customization and your posts are automatically created by SweetCron.

Recommended setup

PHP5.
A web host (I use Liquidweb)
A Database.

Download Sweetcron

Download at Sweetcron.com, then follow the Installation Instructions.

Birdbox Theme

I thought I’d design a Free Sweetcron Theme for Twitter only, called the Birdbox.

Download Birdbox Theme

It’s usable since you can display your Twitter Feeds more clearly, allow direct comments on the site and even monetise from it by placing adverts on the site.

The Theme contains…

Own Site Feed, Comment options and Contact Page.
SEO friendly, fast loading and HTML Compliant.
Uses bird graphic from iampaddy site (now defunct).

Setup Birdbox Sweetcron Theme

Place the Birdbox theme in: /system/application/views/themes/birdbox.

Make any changes to the following -

Contact.php: add your email/contact form/photo, Single.php:add the Discussion Form and Sidebar.php: Place adverts on the site.

After uploading, go to admin/ (section) and change the display feeds setting from ‘9′ to ‘10′.

Add your twitter feed only, it’ll be something like:
http://twitter.com/USERNAME

That’s it!

How did you get on?

My suggestion is to create a sub-domain and place your Twitter website there, if you already display “Tweets” on your site you can always link to your Twitter site which keeps an archive.

Best Blogs Asia.