In our ever-digital world, we all know that having a website is important and, just as you think you’ve nailed your online strategy, you come face to face with another piece of jargon. But fear not, because as your web design and SEO experts – we’re here to reveal everything there is to know about SEO and landing pages.
What Are SEO Landing Pages?
Before we outline what an SEO landing page is, let’s look at basic landing pages.
In short, a landing page is a specific web page that is created with the main purpose of converting visitors into leads. Typically, a landing page has one goal – to motivate a visitor to carry out a specific action, such as filling in a form, subscribing to an email newsletter or buying something. Lots of businesses use landing pages in their PPC advertising strategy, directing individuals to specific landing pages when they click the ad.
On the other hand, an SEO landing page is a type of web page that has been created with the aim of increasing your brand’s ranking on Google. SEO stands for search engine optimisation, which describes the process of optimising your website and pages to appear high for specific search engine terms.
For example, if you offer web design services in Liverpool, an SEO landing page will be written and optimised so that it appears high on search engines when someone searches for phrases linked to ‘web design in Liverpool’.
It’s not just about packing your website with keywords and phrases. Google also ranks your web content on readability, originality and user experience, so it’s important that you’re creating a well-rounded, informative and engaging page. In other words, your page needs to be actually useful to the search term you’re trying to rank for – that way, you can expect the best levels of engagement and performance.
Identify Target Keywords and User Intent
Before you get started with creating SEO landing pages, you need to spend some time carrying out keyword research.
There are a few different ways you can do this. For starters, consider which phrases your ideal customer would search for in order to find your services. As the aim of your SEO landing page is to convert traffic into leads and customers, you need to ensure you’re using the keywords and phrases that they, too, are using.
It’s important to remember that just because someone is searching for ‘dog walking in Liverpool’, it doesn’t mean they are ready to buy. This is where user intent comes into play. There are what’s known as transactional keywords, which are types of keywords that web users use which show they are ready to convert.
So, for example, it might be ‘dog walking in Liverpool near me’ or ‘book dog walking in Liverpool’. If someone is searching for these transactional keywords, they are highly likely to convert, so it pays to do some research into relevant transactional keywords.
There are also what’s known as semantic keywords. These are phrases that you don’t necessarily want to rank for, but they support your primary keyword. So if your primary keyword is ‘dog walking Liverpool’, a semantic keyword might be ‘dog grooming’. Semantic keywords are another way to help your landing page to rank and target relevant visitors.
To recap, if your primary keyword is ‘dog walking in Liverpool’, secondary keywords might be ‘dog walking services Liverpool’ or ‘dog walking experts Liverpool’. Semantic keywords might be ‘dog leads’, ‘dog groomers’ or ‘doggy day care Liverpool’.
Landing Page Structure for SEO
Once you’ve got a list of keywords, you need to consider the structure of your landing page. After all, if you want your landing page to be successful, you need to offer exactly what a potential customer expects and wants to see. If not, they may leave, and this will do nothing for your conversions and ranking.
Start off by considering what you would want to see if you were searching for your services. Then have a look at how competitor pages are structured when you search for relevant keywords. While you shouldn’t copy these pages, it can be useful to see how successful landing pages look.
As well as containing SEO keywords, SEO landing pages also need to be structured in a way so that search engine bots can analyse and rank them. This is called on-page SEO and includes headers, subheadings, meta tags, and calls to action (CTA). Below, we offer some best practice advice:
- Title tags – The title of your SEO landing page is the first thing that web users will see on the search engine results page. So, make it short to grab attention and use your keyword to help with ranking and awareness. For best results, your keyword should be at the start of your page title.
- Meta description – On the search engine results page, before you click a link to visit a website, you’ll see a short description. This is known as the meta description. Written well, it can convince users to visit your site. Again, be sure to use your keyword and write a short description of what someone can expect from your site.
- Headings and subheadings – Your SEO landing page should contain headings and subheadings to grab attention and break up big chunks of text. Your main header should include the keyword that matches your page title, and other subheadings can contain other keywords. This not only helps users to understand what your page is about and make it easier to digest, but bots will be able to analyse and rank your page too.
- CTAs – If you want your website visitors to perform a certain action, then tell them. This is where calls to action come in, and they need to be obvious and clear. Use phrases like learn more, buy now or sign up.
These aren’t the only SEO tactics for your landing page. Internal linking, images and videos, and alt text to describe your visual content are all ways you can improve your on-page SEO and rank higher on search engines. One of the most important things to remember when designing your landing page is that it needs to work for your target audience. If not, they’ll only leave, meaning your efforts will have been wasted.
Create Relevant and Compelling Content
Search engine bots continuously trawl the internet and rank pages that they deem to be providing engaging, informative and educational content. Creating this is easier said than done, though. One of the most important things to remember is to use your keywords in a natural and logical manner.
While it’s important to include your chosen keywords for on-page optimisation, you also need to write in a way that makes sense to humans. Search engine bots can also pick up keyword stuffing and may push your landing page further down the search engine results page. Consider whether you can combine keywords and increase the word count so that you don’t have to pack several keywords into a couple of paragraphs.
On the topic of length, the longer your content, the better it is likely to perform on search engines. Any content you do write, however, must be original, as search engine bots may deduct search engine ranking from landing pages that have duplicate content.
As mentioned above, it’s also just as important to optimise your content for the user experience. Not only is this favoured by search engine bots, but an easy-to-navigate and simple-to-read web page is more likely to result in web users staying on your page and engaging with your brand.
For this reason, try breaking up big chunks of content with bullet points and communicate in a personal way.
Mobile Optimisation and Page Speed
The best landing pages are the ones that load quickly and also work on mobile. This is because studies show that most SEO landing pages receive higher amounts of mobile traffic compared to desktop traffic. So if your landing page isn’t optimised for mobile, your web visitors will only search for a competitor who has done this.
Best practice for mobile optimisation means creating landing pages that don’t require horizontal scrolling as well as content that looks good and is easy to read at various resolutions.
Your mobile landing page should also contain the same information as the desktop variation, and you should consider not using pop-up features, as these can irritate mobile users and make it hard to navigate your site.
Ensuring that your SEO landing page is optimised for speed will also please search engine bots and web visitors alike. To improve page speed, compress all images to reduce their size. This can be done with software online. Plus, you can also use caching plugins further to speed up the load time of your site and aid mobile optimisation.
Track and Analyse Landing Page Performance
Of course, to really determine user engagement, search engine rankings and the success of your SEO landing pages, you need to be tracking and analysing your pages and their performance using tools like Google Analytics.
Performance tracking tools can be used to measure how high you are ranking for certain keywords, how you compare against your competitors, which websites are ranking well for certain keywords and which keywords you have increased or dropped in position.
As well as this, these tools can analyse how many visitors are clicking on your site, how long they are staying on your page and whether they are converting. This information provides you with a complete overview of your SEO landing pages and easily identifies areas for improvement.
When it comes to SEO landing pages, this is just the start. At Maxweb Solutions, we can take care of all the hard work though with our bespoke SEO solutions. We also offer website design and development services. To find out more about us and get started, call us at 0151 652 4777.
Posted on Friday, July 7th, 2023 in SEO.
