What is landing Page?
Usually means the first page someone lands on when they go to a website. It’s often the same thing as a “splash page” which has very little information on it, and tells people “No, it wasn’t good enough to type in our url… we want you to do a little song and dance first. ‘Click Here To Enter’!”
http://www.hospitalityadventures.com/ is an example I just found via google. They are considered a Bad Idea most of the time. Imagine if you couldn’t enter a store without someone standing in the way asking you “Are you sure you want to enter? Ring this little bell if you want to enter”.
Where do you find these people? Jeez. We know the web developer is a pro, just look at the meta data:
<meta name=“GENERATOR” content=“Microsoft FrontPage 4.0”>
<meta name=“ProgId” content=“FrontPage.Editor.Document”>
cheers,
gary
Stomme you’re just too kind. I usually refer queries of this type to:
[COLOR=“Red”][SIZE=“7”]The most amazing resource in the world!![/SIZE][/COLOR]
Oh, sorry JJ, you meant Let Me Google That For You? : ) awesome page.
But it doesn’t necessarily also state how nasty evil awful the things are (though I suppose it depends on the website).
Someone on some blog somewhere 
called LMGTFY a perfect example of passive-aggression. I agree completely, and use it regularly. Makes a nice change from my usual straightforward aggression.
I think the same argument could be made for splash pages. “Are you really sure you want to visit us? You don’t have to, you know, there are other pages on the Internet, but if you really want to visit us, you can just click that blue link thingy there and I guess we’ll share our content with you … but only if you really want to … I’ll just go stand in the corner and not think about how condescending you are to deign to pay us a visit…”
lol, yes… except I couldn’t even be bothered to Google it for them.
Interesting that you see them as a bad thing though, for me a landing page is simply the page the traffic lands on, wherever it’s coming from. The form that landing page takes can vary considerably but always I try to design them to best convert the specific type of traffic they’ll be receiving. Are you talking about sales letter pages?
I don’t like splash pages though, or intro pages. A link saying ‘skip intro’ might as well say, ‘this is rubbish don’t even bother looking at it’.
Are you talking about sales letter pages?
I do mean landing page as splash/intro page. For too many sites, they are the same thing.
Ah right. Clearly there’s still some confusion in the industry about what ‘landing page’ actually means. I think that the definition has evolved considerably over the last 18 months and now anyone in webdesign should be thinking about landing page design when they build a website.
Every homepage I ever build has been constructed to make best use of the type of traffic it will receive and that to me is landing page design.
Could you post an example/link of the kind of landing you are talking about?
(rather than me hunting through google links about splash/intro-as-landing pages?)
*edit actually it’s looking like Wikipedia is more modern than most of those links, may have my answer already.
Sure, I’ll use my own site. The homepage has been carefully thought out to achieve a certain goal and that is to present what I do to visitors clearly and simply and then to guide that traffic through the site until eventually they contact me. It’s not random though, I’ve used a reasoned out conversion path, a strong call to action, and nice short strap line (could do with shortening some more though). I’ve tried to create a ‘sales funnel’ which starts on the landing page.
<snip>
Because most traffic enters my site through the home page that’s the most important ‘landing page’ on the whole site. When I’ve got enough data (it’s fairly new) I’ll start looking at improving it’s performance by tweaking the layout or the copy or split testing two versions. Landing page design is a science in it’s own right with some serious psychology and UI study behind it.
<snip>
A landing page is a term used for pages that you would like PPC ads to be directed to or for very targeted keyword terms for organic results.
Landing pages in this sense will have very little navigation in order to get each visitor right into the funnel and lead them through a clear path right to a conversion.
You’ll know you’ve hit a great example of a landing page if you click on a paid search ad in Google and the resulting page has nothing but copy and a clear call to action, such as “Fill out this form and get this” or “sign up for a trial today”, etc.
I always define them separately:
Splash Screen: A visual display which occurs upon visiting the website, usually comprised of Flash, video, audio or just advertising before the content appears.
Landing Page: A central deport page where the whole website rotates around, sometimes designed different to the other pages, it’s all about showcasing the site.
What is a “stress free” website?
I’m very curious. I’m also a little surprised to see that here on Sitepoint there are actually pro designers. And your designs are very good, btw.
It’s intended to imply that the process of getting your website is stress free, I’m pretty good at that, but it hadn’t occured to me that it could be read the way you read it.
Might have to reword it but it has to stay as short as possible, even shorter than it is really.
Hell yeah, there’re tons of really knowledgable posters on Sitepoint, it’s why I keep coming back. And thanks
That’s very much a designers view of landing pages IMO. My view is from a marketing perspective where the landing page is designed to make visitors do something very specific like give their email address, contact me or buy something.
I would class that as a “call to action” rather than a landing page (IMO), Landing pages are usually where someone ends up rather than where they were directed
A landing page must have a call to action, that’s what makes it a landing page, I was right that we were seeing this from different perspectives.
This is from Sitepoint’s own Online Marketing PDF about landing pages:
Focus on One Objective
A landing page should focus on one primary objective—a call to action. Your call to action might be to encourage a visitor to order a specific product, sign up for a newsletter, or create a new user account on your site. You should ensure that
Turn Page Views into Profit
everything on your landing page is focused on encouraging that objective to be met—images, text, even the layout should help encourage the user to act.
Your visitor should find it easy to understand what it is that you want them to do. Your call to action should appear at the top, middle, and end of your landing page and should be clear and concise.
It then goes on to talk about testing and value propositions etc etc
A landing page isn’t simply a page that people land on, it’s a tool for acheving a very specific goal, or it should be if done properly. I would add ‘IMO’ except this isn’t my opinion, it’s a standard understanding of landing page design.
A landing page isn’t a landing page unless it’s tied to a specific advertisement and a specific goal.
If you want to learn about landing page design, testing and optimization, I recommend you sign up for the Marketing Experiments free weekly clinics. Often they run live optimization clinics showing how to run proper split and multivariate tests, how to analyze the statistics and ensure they’re meaningful, and show the before and after results of their tests optimizing landing pages for some of the web’s top retailers.
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/b2b-landing-pages-optimization.html
A landing page isn’t a landing page unless it’s tied to a specific advertisement and a specific goal.
I guess this kinda explains it… why many sites seem to think Click To Enter is a Call To Action, lawlz.
This thread started out with a really simple question but it turned out really well and valuable.