As far as business websites go, there’s no page more important than the landing page. After all, the landing page is the first point-of-contact between the website and the web user. If the landing page fails to make a good impression, it will likely fail to convert sales.
There are two aspects to good landing page design. One of these is the visual aspect. The other is the SEO friendly aspect.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is needed in order to help a landing page rank for specific keywords on Google and other search engines. It’s vital in exposing your website to the masses. For this reason, you need to prioritize it.
So, how do you utilize SEO when building a landing page? There’s quite a bit involved, all of which we’re going to discuss in this article. Without further ado, here are the top tips and tricks for building an SEO friendly landing page!
Get the Keywords Right
When it comes to SEO, keywords are hugely important. It’s the keywords that search engines use to determine what a page is about. Without them, search engines won’t understand the reason for the page, and won’t know what searches to rank the page for.
For this reason, when creating your landing page, it’s of utmost importance that you get the keywords right. They should describe your website as accurately as possible, but still be popularly searched on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other such search engines.
To find keywords, it’s wise to use a keyword research tool. These tools assist in finding the most searched-for keywords on the web, ultimately helping you to target specific types of web traffic.
Once you’ve found a suitable keyword and/or keywords, you need to place it/them throughout the content of your landing page. Your primary keyword should appear– at the very least — at the beginning and end of your page. However, you should also make an effort to include it in a header.
Make sure not to overstuff keywords into your content. If you stuff keywords unnaturally, your website will actually be penalized by Google and other such search engines, vastly reducing your search ranking.
Make Use of Headers
When creating a landing page, you need to make use of headers in your written content. Headers serve two purposes: 1. They break up content and make it more visually appealing, and 2. They help search engines understand the purpose of your website.
The most important header is the H1 header (the header at the top of your page). Why? Because, when scanning pages, search engines prioritize H1 headers, and so will take the content contained within them more seriously than the content contained within other types of headers.
For this reason, your H1 header should include your primary keyword. So, if your primary keyword is “plumber in Texarkana”, your H1 header should include the phrase “plumber in Texarkana”.
Your other headers carry SEO value as well, but not as much as the H1 header. In these alternative headers, you’re advised to work in secondary keywords.
Build Links
If you really want your landing page to rank in search engines, you’re going to have to build links. Linking to pages on your own website, linking to pages on external websites, and having links built to your landing page will vastly improve its standing with search engines.
The most challenging aspect of this is getting other sites to link to your site. After all, you can’t just take over another website and force links to your landing page.
So, what do you do? Well, you have two general options: 1. Provide undeniably great value, or 2. Network with other webmasters so that they’ll link to your landing page. Until your web brand is firmly established, you’ll likely have to pursue option number two.
Fortunately, there are a number of ways to get links from other webmasters.
You could offer to write a guest post on another website and then link back to your landing page. You could forge a friendship with another webmaster, and then exchange backlinks as a favor to one another. You could even leave comments on forums with links back to your landing page.
The more you get your website name out there, the greater chance you have at landing backlinks. So, you should start networking as soon as possible.
Optimize Speed
Another aspect of websites that search engines consider when giving out rankings is page speed. The faster your website operates, the higher ranking it will get. Therefore, you need to do everything you can to improve the speed of your landing page.
There are a number of things that can be done to increase page speed. For one, you should keep the use of video to a minimum, usually using no more than a single video on your landing page.
In addition, you should use a fast design theme. Some themes are designed to load faster than others.
It’s also wise to keep plugins to a minimum. The more plugins that have to load on your landing page, the longer it will take to load completely.
Carefully Fashion the Title Tag
It’s not just the landing page itself that you have to optimize for SEO, but the title tag that’s attached to the landing page. The title tag is the descriptive section that shows up in search engines, and the content contained within it is just as important as the content contained on the landing page it’s attached to.
When creating a title tag, be sure to use your primary keyword. In addition, make sure to keep the title under 70 characters. Search engines are looking for short but descriptive snippets to determine what your page is all about. They will have trouble reading long, rambling ones.
Need Help Making Your Landing Page SEO Friendly?
If you’ve never built a landing page before, you’re probably still clueless as to how you can make it SEO friendly. Fortunately, you don’t need to build your landing page on your own. You can hire a digital marketing agency to do it for you.
Interested in utilizing the services of a digital marketing agency? WSI is the agency for you. Serving businesses in over 80 different countries, we’ll have no problem meeting your needs.
Contact us today to discuss your landing page!
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