Holiday season is coming up, and with it the busiest time of year for a lot of web-based businesses. For many, it represents a golden opportunity to push sales and generate some last minute revenue before the end of the year. For others, holiday sales represent a vital part of their annual business. Regardless of which you are, there’s a lot to gain by making sure that your website is performing at its best.
The first point of contact between your site and your customers is your landing pages, and we all know the value of making a good first impression. Because of that, getting your landing pages revised and optimized is vital to ensuring your success online.
Clean Up Your Existing Content
Before you add anything to your page it's important to go through and look at what you're working with. It's best to start with this because it gives you the opportunity to remove outdated information, and to make sure that everything that's left is relevant to the message that you want to convey.
Make your Heading Clear and Informative
The first thing that people will see when they reach your landing page is your heading. It’s important to use the heading for its true purpose, which is to introduce the content on the page. A common mistake that we make as businesses is to try to close a sale before a visitor has even become a lead. Headings like “30% OFF EVERYTHING” or “SPECIAL OFFER, CLICK HERE” make you look desperate, but worse, they don’t tell readers what they’re going to find on your page.
A good heading informs readers about what’s on the page while also being engaging and drawing readers in.
Make sure It’s Going Somewhere
There are a lot of good ways to write a landing page, but there’s one element that all good ones share.The content on any landing page should introduce a problem and lead to a solution: your product.
Not framing your content in this way will leave customers wondering why they read you page in the first place. What’s the point of a problem with no solution, and why would someone buy a product to fix an unspecified problem?
Make The Page Scannable
Most of the people reading this right now won’t be absorbing every word. Readers on the web scan content, and if you want to sell things to them your content needs to be scannable as well. Format and divide your content into sections and headings that combine to make a short, informative piece of content all on their own.
Revise and Remove Fluff
Readers won’t be willing to read through a long piece of content to get to the good parts. In most cases readers will give you a few seconds up to a few minutes to make your case. That means you don’t have time for fluff.
To maximize the amount of information you communicate to your readers you’ll need to revise and condense your content until there’s not extra information on your page.
Get Mobile Ready
The vast majority of online purchases today are being conducted of mobile devices. That means you need to make your landing pages mobile-friendly to ensure to avoid losing potential conversions to poor formatting.
Consider Something Special for the Holidays
Holiday events can show consumers that you’re an active participant in your community, and that you’re not just a faceless corporation. Sit down by yourself or call a meeting and figure out what your options are. There are a lot of good ways to help you drive sales during the holidays. A few include…
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a holiday sale
- a holiday event
- a humanitarian event (for example: donating a portion of holiday profits to a holiday-related charity)
Set an Alarm!
Nothing screams outdated like clicking into a website in March and still seeing Santa’s Reindeer promoting your holiday special. Make sure that your landing page is revised again and ready for spring as soon as the holidays are over.
Keeping your landing pages optimized and up to date is one of the most important ways to communicate to your consumers that you’re well organized and on top of your business. Take the time and get ready for the Holidays!