Blogosphere buzz surrounding Google’s recent algorithmic changes to the way in which in evaluates landing pages for index inclusion and minimum bidding for keywords has propelled many site designers into a mindset revolving around updating, optimizing, and even totally revamping landing page content.
If you’re going the organic route with your SEO, then the quality of your landing page and subsequent content pages will make or break you in short order. Or maybe you just want a premium price for that magic keyword; but if Google isn’t impressed with the quality of your landing page, then expect to feel the burn in your pocketbook.
Copyblogger has an outstanding article encompassing many aspects of the content monster, but four points that the piece made regarding landing page content were of particular merit for this discussion. Here’s what the writer had to say (with some of my comments mixed in as well):
Retention: Keeping a reader from hitting the back button is crucial to just about every aspect of successful cornerstone content. You can’t score a reader, customer, or link if the benefit of the resource is not quickly communicated.
Hit ’em hard, and hit ’em fast. The attention span of the average Internet user is somewhere around nine seconds, which is probably a generous estimate in actuality. You better be like Jerry McGuire and get me at “hello” or else it’s going to be a quick “goodbye” as I click the back button on my browser.
Bookmarks: When presented with a beneficial, if somewhat overwhelming, piece of content, the first impulse is often to bookmark the page for a return visit. When that book marking occurs at a social site like Delicious, it can lead to long-term traffic. And when a whole bunch of those bookmarks happen in a short period of time, you can enjoy a viral effect that leads to more bookmarks and lots of links due to being highlighted on the Delicious popular and home pages. Landing pages help you score the bookmark.
Social media is tricky, because the masses are often fickle. But if you can create a landing page that will generate any kind of a viral buzz, then you’ve won at least half of the inbound link battle.
Links: Likewise, a visiting blogger or webmaster might be instantly impressed with your work, and link to you based on the benefits and scope communicated by the landing page itself. The quicker you can impress a potential link source, the easier you’re making it for them to follow through.
I talked at length yesterday about links, so I won’t regurgitate the discussion here. Long story short, generating incoming links is what it’s all about, and a quality landing page can go a long way in the quest for linkage.
Optimization: To the extent modifying on-page copy can boost your ranking after attracting links, a landing page is a key benefit. It’s a lot easier to meaningfully tweak a landing page than your 5,000 word opus.
A good landing page is like a table of contents for your site. It’s going to let people know what you’re about, and what you have to offer, without inundating the reader with an avalanche of content right away. You don’t want to cause information overload. With that being said, a tightly wound landing page is going to be a heck of a lot easier to update in the long run.
So there you have it; yet more insight into developing quality landing page content. Keep striving for high quality scores and low minimum bids, and always remember than a landing page is always a work in progress.
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Joe is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
