Your landing page is extremely important in your campaign. It is the first thing the user’s see when clicking on your ad, banner, or email. If you are a PPC marketer, you must have a decent landing page rather than a redirect. If you don’t, forget about advertising with Adwords! Instead of writing about what you should do with your landing page, here are eight things you shouldn’t do!

1.  Get rid of all that flashy cheesy stuff. Too much flashing with bright neon colors are a major turn off for the consumer. Think of yourself as the consumer, if you saw an ad flashing repeatedly, you would probably get annoyed with it and quickly hit the back button.
2. No music! Most people have a really specific taste in the music they listen to. Who wants to hear stupid elevator music that plays without their consent? No one. Unless you are promoting a band/music group, shy away from music that plays automatically.
3. Never put something on the landing page that is not promised in the offer. Putting “free shipping” on your landing page, when the user has to spend $500 for the shipping to be free is mis-leading. You are loosing trust from the user.
4. Don’t tell people what to do on your landing page, and don’t allow to much introductory text. “Hi, welcome to x.com, click here to and it will bring you here…click here and it will take you there…blah blah blah. Allow the user to explore for themselves.
5. Not showing what your site really does can be deadly. Stay on topic, and don’t use too much industry specific talk that the average internet user would not understand.
6. Not allowing the user to see where they have been on your site. Although it may seem old-school, use colored links that show the user has already clicked there. Without this basic function, the user could suffer from some serious navigational confusion and get lost in your site.
7. Making a homepage link, on the homepage. Never have a link that points to the current page. If the user clicks that link they are wasting time and again become confused.
8. Using generic stock photos is ugly and the consumer will catch on. I’m no graphic artist either, but finding someone to make you a custom photo or banner is simple and cheap. Your landing pages are going to make you tons of money in the future, so it doesn’t hurt to invest a little in their beginning.

There you have it. Eight things you shouldn’t do when creating a landing page. Follow these tips and your CTR should go up.

Like this post? Then Subscribe to Bernard Griffiths’ Blog.

Popularity: 2% [?]