What Makes an SEO-Friendly Landing Page?
What Makes an SEO-Friendly Landing Page?
What are SEO landing pages?
Search engine-friendly landing pages are specifically designed for search engines.
They are equipped with characteristics that make them particularly appealing to the algorithms that determine whether an internet page is beneficial to users.
Since most marketing campaigns are quite small, many marketers believe that optimizing landing pages is not important.
They're partly right. Many promotions are finite. They have a brief duration and (inevitably) nearly always come to an end. But there's a major problem with this assumption.
Many people close their campaigns early and mistakenly believe that they'll be short-term, when in reality, they're long-term.
If you're only running a single campaign for a couple of days or even weeks, the number of visitors you'll get by optimizing your website to be search-friendly isn't that big.
However, if you're running promotions for just a few days or weeks each year, you may be missing out on significant searches (more on this later).
The main determining factor in whether or not you are awarded this is the quality of your site to the search engines. How appealing is your website in the eyes of Google's algorithm?
Google's constantly evolving algorithm
Like a chef who protects his recipe for the infamous ‘secret sauce’, the world's largest search engine has kept the specifics of its algorithm close to its chest.
Google has learned more about what makes websites useful to users through the years. They've introduced numerous algorithm changes, including the major ones named after animals such as ‘Hummingbird,’ ‘Panda,’ and ‘Penguin.’
They're far from being warm, fuzzy, and adorable as they sound.
Google's updates have earned the reputation of giving SEOs a lot of headaches and even removing whole networks of websites from the SERPs.
Back in the day, it was much simpler to be highly ranked on Google. It was commonplace for people to use ‘black hat’ tactics such as keyword-stuffing, link farms, and even sly redirects to climb up the ranks of the search results.
Today, many websites that were benefited by techniques are thrown to the last pages, and anyone who uses these techniques now is at risk of being block listed by Google – an unsettling reminder that cheaters are never successful.
It's important to concentrate on gaining visitors to your website in the correct way – by creating an effective landing page to attract people looking at what you have to provide.
How do you create an SEO-friendly landing page?
When you are creating your new landing pages, you should consider the following suggestions and best practices to use as SEO-friendly landing pages templates.
Create a custom URL to publish your content.
In most cases, when you build an online page with an application for managing content, it is possible to publish the page to an ‘underdrain’ owned by the provider.
At first, the ease of letting us manage your hosting could be appealing. However, it's not a great option for SEO because search engines require your domain's URL, not in a standard ‘page demo.’
You're not only at risk of creating confusion for your customers by confusing your brand's consistency with a sloppy design, but you also do not benefit from the online authority that your website has gained over the time it's been up and running.
If you upload your landing page on your domain, you benefit from a slight boost in rankings when people are searching for your site's keywords.
Find your keywords
This is crucial.
This is the section in which you select the words you want for search engines to rank your website.
The process of researching keywords can be a lengthy and drawn-out process. As with all things, the more you research, the more prepared you'll be.
The version that is abridged looks like this:
Make a list of terms that are relevant to your website and business, then try to find out the combinations of these words (called long-tail keywords) people might enter into Google.
Long-tail keywords are more straightforward to rank for than shorter ones and have a better ROI.
Use your keywords carefully for your page's landing.
After you've identified your desired keywords, you'll need to place them on your landing page strategically.
Here's how to place the keywords if you're looking to stand out on search engine results:
Meta Description: This is the summary of the web page that you will see under the title in the SERPs. Please make use of it to give the user what they're likely to see when they click.
Header tags: The tags are organized hierarchically in HTML titles, starting from H1 and ending at H6. If you're planning to include subheadings beneath that H1, you should use H2s. If you're planning on having subheadings that fall under your H2s, utilize H3s and so and so on.
Images names for files: Always provide your images with descriptive names for your files. Because Google cannot physically view your images, it can base its search results on the written description you provide for those images in the file's name. A title for your image that includes your keywords can help improve the ranking (separate words using dashes, not underscores).
Copy: Your keywords must be sprinkled throughout your content but in a controlled way. If you use them in excess, this tactic is called ‘keyword stuffing,’ and Google could punish you.
Don't be concerned about the size of your webpage.
We've been told about how search engines prefer longer content over short. However, when it comes to landing pages, this isn’t necessarily the case.
Most of the time, landing pages are designed to be concise and clear. What is the best way to accomplish this when designing landing pages to aid in SEO? Is there a middle ground that we could reach?
Although data has shown that content with long length ranks high in search engines, there’s no conclusive evidence that merely increasing the word count can boost the SERP ranking.
What matters most is the quality of the content created, which should provide adequate information to validate the credibility of your product while influencing audiences.
Create backlinks that are secure to your site
Inviting people to link to your site is the best method of increasing organic search engine rankings.
Why?
If someone enjoys your content enough to add a link to it from their site, they are vouching for your site.
How do you accomplish gain more backlinks?
There are numerous methods; however, a combination of high-quality content with targeted outreach is a well-tested method for building links.
The first step is to create unique content. Use data, results, or case studies and other studies if you'd like, but don't directly copy them. The more unique, thorough, and relevant your content is, the more valuable it is likely to be, and therefore better received by audiences.
Second: Find influencers in your field. Make use of referrals and perform social media analysis to locate the contact details of those who might find your content pertinent.
Looking for support with your SEO/content strategy? Contact EWM today to discover how we can elevate your brand to the next level.