Common Landing Page Mistakes Which Can Harm Your SEO

Posted on the 12 February 2016 by Andykinsey @andykinsey

A landing page is created in order to accomplish certain marketing or sales campaign. Landing pages are often the target of your link building (and SEO) or PPC campaigns, this means that optimizing for conversions is very important.

But have you wondered if your landing page is not being properly optimized for the search engines? Despite having a landing page that is complete in all senses, you are still not getting the desired results. This is because the people are not landing on your landing page. There can be a plethora of reasons but the most common Landing page mistakes that affect your SEO efforts drastically are explained below:

  1. Headline is the first impression: We all know that the first impression plays an important role, yet we are mastered at the art of spoiling it. You need to understand that you are writing for both the SEO algorithms and your target audience. The quality of the headline matters a lot. Take yourself as an example, you always read the posts or articles whose headlines are of your interest.
    Therefore, a headline must be a thoughtful one that grabs attention of the people and also gives you better SEO. Use the keywords that are relevant to your business goals in the headlines. But, having just a good headline would not help either. That being said let’s move on to the next point.
  2. Too much complex designs: The landing page is created for specific service/product. WordPress is the majorly adopted Content Management System for creating Landing Pages. Apparently, it is because it has a number of free Landing Pages themes. However, you need to understand that complex design and themes always confuse the customer.
    You must have a simple and clear design for your landing page. Rather than putting up all the information all at once, break it under different sections. Use very minimal design until and unless you are creating a landing page for designing business only.
  3. Multiple Call to actions: No doubt, more options make people happy. But when you ask to act on multiple things all at once, there are high chances that would end up going for none.
    You should have single call to action on the landing page that describes the purpose of it. It is important to understand the objective of creating the landing page and it should be dedicated to only that specific objective.
  4. Credibility: If you have chosen a landing page theme and want to customize it yourself, you should keep all the elements in the sync. Every element should relate to one another. Use the font style as per the landing page. Using too many colors for font is never a good idea. Use a relevant color scheme and a pattern to highlight the important information.
  5. Not everybody reads till the end: It is the audience you want to reach out. So, you must do all the tasks by putting yourself in their shoes. Think as a normal person who is surfing on the internet. You should not wait for the visitor to read the entire post in order to understand what you are trying to say. Make your points very clear in the beginning. A majority of the audience only scans your content. Therefore, make sure you keep clear enough for your audience.
  6. Too many links: The visitor who has landed on your page would not want to hop around on other links. Instead of giving too many links on your page, provide all the information on your page itself. Not only the links break the flow, also the users get annoyed of opening too many links.
  7. Visual Distractions: The advertisements in between the ongoing information can affect your visitor drastically. Believe me it is the most annoying thing you can do. If you want to display ads, make sure they are placed in such manner that they don’t hinder your landing page.
  8. Asking personal information: The landing page with the subscription forms should ask minimal information and offer something in return. No visitor would like to give his personal information in the first go. The studies show that a person is comfortable in sharing his email address over mobile number. Therefore, you can ask for an email address and name at the maximum.
  9. Message Mismatch: Do not trick your visitor to your landing page. Authentic information is must to get the visitor on your landing page. This may affect your reputation badly in the long run. Therefore, the information that you use to get the users on your landing page must match with the information provided on the landing page.

Search Engine Optimization trends keep on changing but nothing can beat the authenticity. Follow the rules and write your heart out. The conversions will escalate like never before. Remember the absolute rule that says, “Content is the king”. Therefore, do not compromise with the quality of content anywhere and with the above explained points your landing page will get you the best results.

Author: Denise is pursuing Master’s degree in psychology. Also he works for Essay-On-Time part time to share his knowledge with online readers.