Landing pages perform important functions. They provide an entry point for visitors who are coming to a website from other locations, like ads or social media. They encourage visitors to take specific actions to engage with a business. They can generate leads, conversions, and profits. They give visitors valuable information they can use to make decisions.
Landing pages also happen to be very good for a company’s search engine optimization efforts. Carefully crafted landing pages can make a website look very appealing to search engines. There are several reasons for this powerful SEO impact. Here is a look at some of the reasons that landing pages are important for SEO.
Landing pages add valuable content to a website.
Content is central to SEO success. It provides a place where keywords can reside, and it gives search engines information they can use to determine the value of each page and of the website as a whole. As a result, the more content a website has, the more likely it is to perform well in the search results.
Landing pages contribute to the SEO strength of a website by providing more content to that website. Every time a business creates a landing page, it creates content that search engines can use to understand and rank the website.
In addition, every landing page typically uses a different keyword. Generally, adding many different keywords to a webpage takes away from its SEO strength. Businesses can use multiple keywords by crafting multiple landing pages that each uses one of these keywords.
As a result, when crafted correctly, landing pages allow businesses to expand the number of keywords for which they can rank. That can spell good news for their SEO efforts.
Landing pages create links.
Links are an important element in search engine optimization. Internal links (links within the website) tell search engines how pages relate to each other and which topics relate to each page. The more links that direct to a page, the more SEO strength that page has.
Landing pages provide a place where businesses can add links. You can, for example, link to other places on the website (such as blogs) that deal with the same topic as the landing page. You can link to the products that the landing page discusses. You can create links that send consumers to other, relevant areas of the website.
Creating these links adds to the SEO strength, not just of the landing page but of the website as a whole. The more landing pages you use, with appropriate links, the more chance you have of seeing your web pages rank favorably in the search results.
Landing pages encourage visitors to stay on the website.
Search engine optimization can be influenced by how long visitors stay on a webpage. For example, if many visitors leave, or bounce, quickly off a webpage, the search engines will rank that page lower. The search engine will assume that many people are leaving the page quickly because it does not deliver valuable and relevant information.
Pages that can encourage visitors to stay on the website, on the other hand, strengthen the overall search engine optimization impact of the site. Carefully crafted landing pages can encourage visitors to stay on the website and engage with the business.
As visitors stay on the landing page, search engines see that the page, and the website as a whole, is relevant and engaging for visitors. As a result, the search engines are more likely to rank the website favorably in the search results.
How can businesses incorporate SEO into their landing pages?
Since landing pages are important to a website’s search engine optimization efforts, it is important that they incorporate SEO in the right ways. The good news is that many SEO best practices for web pages apply to landing pages as well. For example, the following steps for good SEO can be applied successfully to landing pages:
- Keyword research and incorporation
- Incorporation of keywords into metadata, title tags, URLs, and more
- High-quality content
- Optimized images
- Optimized page load speeds
- Best practices for earning backlinks
In addition, there are some landing page-specific steps that businesses can take to improve the SEO performance of their landing pages. Here are some of the most important of these steps:
Keep landing pages up.
Businesses sometimes remove landing pages under the assumption that they will become irrelevant. However, it can often benefit businesses to keep their landing pages up all year round. Keeping landing pages up can contribute to their SEO strength because the website does not lose the content, keywords, links, and other factors that make that webpage beneficial to the SEO strength of the website as a whole.
Create strong calls to action.
Calls to action are the secret weapon of landing pages. They deliver a powerful way to encourage customers to take a desired action. They also happen to be good for SEO, because they encourage visitors to stay on the website. The longer people stay on the website, the more favorably it will be viewed by the search engines and the more SEO strength it has.
Landing pages can add to the SEO strength of your website. Because they deliver content, keywords, and links, and by encouraging visitors to stay on your website, they allow your site to rank more favorably in the search results. Follow SEO best practices and don’t forget to keep landing pages up and create strong calls to action.