We all like to focus on the big ticket pages like the homepage, blog, and news page. However, you may be neglecting some important pages on your website that can do a lot to convert visitors to customers and keep websites visitors hanging around when they are lost. Here are three pages you should take a look at to make sure they are effective:
1. Landing Pages
As unbounce notes, landing pages are "marketing glue" (see the infographic here). Basically, all of your marketing channels, posts and messages need to point people somewhere. Those are landing pages. For example, if you are promoting a holiday event and push messages out through email, social, blogs, and direct mail, whichever page you want people to visit needs to be optimized. For starters, focus on messaging, strip away links that pull people away from the main goal, and offer a way for people to take action - sign up, register and pay, request more information, etc.
SEE ALSO: 25 Ways to Improve Your Website Today
Are you giving your landing pages enough attention?
2. Thank You Pages
After a visitor downloads something on your website or a customer registers for a class, you probably direct them to some sort of thank you page. These pages are good opportunities to improve customer service, increase marketing reach, and lead the people to a take another action. Here's how:
- Add social sharing buttons: Allow your customers to share that they've signed up for your class or event through Facebook and Twitter. This will increase the viral reach within each person's own network.
- Improve details: Be sure your details of the class, event, or download are visible. Could you add an option to add the event to your calendar?
- Add follow-up calls to action: Since you know exactly what the person just signed up for, you can target them in direct ways. If they signed up for yoga, for example, maybe they'd be interested in other similar offerings.
Do your thank you pages include these three elements?
3. Error Pages
Sometimes you take down old web pages or move them to new addresses. Or, other people send out a link to your website that is incorrect. Either way, your website has old links floating around in Google, emails and social networks. It's not your fault. You know when you get this page below?
That is happening to visitors click on old or broken links to your website unless you have a custom 404 error page. Technical jargon aside, you have an opportunity to build a custom page that will be displayed when this error occurs. That way, you can keep visitors who are looking specifically for your site from clicking back and losing hope. Here are things to keep in mind when building a custom error page:
- Address the error: "Sorry, that page does not exist..."
- Explain the mishap: "This link is broken, but we have others..."
- Allow for communication: "Email us to report the issue (or) Let us know what you were looking for by email us..."
- Supply popular options by posting links to your homepage, blog, registration site, or other things they may be looking for
Do you have a custom error page?By optimizing these three unique types of pages on your website, you'll work toward accomplishing three internet goals. You'll 1. improve conversion rates, 2.increase reach, and 3. retain visitors who are lost.
.png)
.png)
