An Internet Strategist Will Carefully Study Your Landing Pages

Photo Credit: Hamed Saber

This is the third article in an eight-part series which describes the role of an internet strategist in improving the website operations of a company or organization.

A landing page is a specific page on your website designed to be the place where a website visitor “lands” after clicking on a link on an external website (a banner ad or pay-per-click advertisement, for example) or typing in a web page address they have learned of elsewhere. The goal of a landing page is to persuade a visitor to perform a certain action (make a purchase, fill out a form, request further information, etc.).

It is vitally important to develop landing pages which provide continuity between the messaging which leads the visitor to the website (the messaging contained in your promotional vehicle) and the call to action the visitor encounters when arriving at the website. For example, if one of your objectives is to sell romantic comedies from your online DVD store, you might send a promotional email blast to your mailing list which advertises a sale price on the newest date movie on DVD. But if clicking on the image of the romantic comedy DVD in the email blast brings people to the home page of your website (which features a variety of movie genres — comedies, dramas, documentaries, science fiction, etc. — and which doesn’t mention the sale), the person who clicked on the offer in your email blast will be confused. There won’t be continuity between the message contained in the promotional email blast and the message reflected on the landing page (in this case, the home page). Instead, the offer in the promotional email blast of a discounted price on the newest date movie on DVD should lead the person who clicks on the offer to a landing page which: 1) presents only the DVD which is on sale; and, 2) which has only one goal — to persuade the visitor to purchase the DVD.

In addition to evaluating the continuity between your promotional vehicle (email blast, pay-per-click advertisement, etc.) and its corresponding landing page, your internet strategist will evaluate three important aspects of your landing page:

1. its initial appearance;
2. its copy; and,
3. its usability.

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An Internet Strategist Will Examine The Sources Of Traffic To Your Website

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This is the second article in an eight-part series which describes the role of an internet strategist in improving the website operations of a company or organization.

Website traffic comes from many different sources. After documenting your goals and objectives for your online operations, your internet strategist will turn to examining where traffic to your website comes from. There is much discussion in web circles about the path to purchase or the path to conversion (in website terms, a “conversion” is basically whatever you want the website visitor to do — it may be a product purchase, it may be filling out a form, etc., etc.). What many do not realize is that the path to conversion actually begins outside your website. An internet strategist examines where your website traffic comes from and determines which sources lead to the highest volume and most qualified traffic.

Here is a list of possible sources of website traffic (in no particular order):

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An Internet Strategist Will Review Your Goals For Your Internet Operations

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This is the first article in an eight-part series which describes the role of an internet strategist in improving the website operations of a company or organization.

Too many organizations only have one goal for their online efforts — to have a website up and running. After all, it’s the thing to do, right? Everyone else is doing it (including our competitors), and we can’t be left behind, can we? When a company approaches their website with this attitude, no thought is given to what the website might actually accomplish. As long as the website is up and includes basic information about the company, management is satisfied.

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What Does An Internet Strategist Do

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An internet strategist evaluates the effectiveness of a company’s or organization’s efforts in the realm of the internet and digital media. To accomplish this, the internet strategist reviews every facet of a customer’s or website visitor’s interaction with a company or organization in the digital realm and makes recommendations for improved effectiveness.

The following series of articles details examples of how an internet strategist might fulfill the aforementioned role with regard to each “touch point” along a customer’s path:

1. An internet strategist will review your goals for your internet operation and suggest possible additional objectives.
2. An internet strategist will examine the sources of traffic to your website and formulate plans to increase that traffic.
3. An internet strategist will carefully study your landing pages and make recommendations for improvement.
4. An internet strategist will assess the overall design of your website and propose revisions where appropriate.
5. An internet strategist will appraise the content and copywriting of your website.
6. An internet strategist will scrutinize the search and navigation features of your website.
7. An internet strategist will analyze your call to action (purchase, lead generation, etc.) and the vehicles through which a website visitor can respond to your call to action (shopping cart, contact form, etc.).
8. An internet strategist will evaluate your system for monitoring website visitors’ interaction with your website and other digital media as well as your system for tracking responses to specific calls to action.

A New Blog About Internet Strategy

Welcome to FrankNJohnson.com!

I have been an internet strategist for eight years, first for E-mu Systems, Inc. and then for the Multi-Channel Commerce division of Imaginova Corporation (telescope.com, livesciencestore.com, and starrynightstore.com). I also provide internet strategy consulting services for businesses and organizations.

I’m starting this blog as a way of memorializing various thoughts regarding internet marketing. While I have my own thoughts, I hope even more that the comments sections of articles will become a vehicle through which we all (including me!) can learn from each other. So please feel free to add your thoughts to mine, to disagree with me, to answer my questions, to mention additional resources, etc.