BWS-04 Website Landing Pages
About this guide
Once you properly set up and structure your website (BWS-03), it's important you take some time to create effective landing pages. A landing page is the first impression a visitor will have of your website so it's crucial to get right. You have a very short time to send the right message to a visitor or they'll hit 'back' and check out somebody else's website. This guide will explain what landing pages are, why they are important and how to set them up properly. Examples of effective landing pages are included so you can see how they work in practice.
What is a Landing Page
The first page you see when you visit a website is a landing page. Quite often this will be the homepage. Your website's homepage is your biggest landing page but it's not the only one. While a lot of people will land on your homepage, quite a few people will land on different pages depending on what link they clicked on to get to your website.
As an example let's say you have a page on your website called 'Guitar lessons in Smallville' that contains specific information about your location. Now if somebody does a Google search for 'guitar lessons in Smallville', it's likely that this page will show up in the results (to find out why, read through BWS-02). If that person clicks that link in the search results, they will land on that page. They may not even see your homepage at all. So for a lot of people, the landing page they see will not be your homepage.
Why are Landing Pages Important
When a new visitor sees your website for the first time, you have about 3 seconds to make a good first impression. The key questions a visitor will ask themselves are: