SEO – Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Optimization – is a set of techniques used so that Google and other search engines understand that your content is relevant to people who are searching for certain keywords.
Surely you have already read in this blog about various SEO techniques, such as keyword strategy, writing articles for SEO, and Link Building.
But could it be that these optimization techniques can be used in
a Conversion Page (Landing Page) ?
The answer is: yes, without a doubt! But there are specific details that you should pay attention to.
Therefore, to help you apply SEO techniques to your Landing Page and generate more Leads through the organic search channel, we have prepared this guide with optimization tips and examples.
But first, you have to ask:
What do you gain by applying SEO to your Landing Pages?
The two most important metrics to analyze in a Landing Page are traffic and conversion.
This means that to generate Leads, you need to attract interested people to your Landing Page and, after they arrive, demonstrate the benefit of the offer to convince them to leave their personal data in exchange for the material offered.
There are several channels to promote your Landing Page and attract interested parties, but search engines stand out for a very clear reason: they offer qualified traffic at the right time when the person is looking for that information.
Optimizing your Landing Page – and not a page of your website or blog – to be among the first results of Google, means that the visitor will take fewer steps to convert and become a Lead. Optimizing a blog post may be slightly easier, but directly offering rich content can greatly increase your conversion rate!
Let's see an example. Let's imagine for a moment that you have a Landing Page with the term Digital Marketing Tips, which has an average of 1000 monthly searches.
The average click-through rate for the first position on Google is over 30%, and for the second position, it reaches a little over 15%:
Advanced Web Ranking study with click rates on Google results in pages.
This means that Landing Page has the potential to generate 300 monthly organic visits. If the page conversion rate was 40%, that would be 120 more leads per month. 1440 Leads per year!
Now imagine that those 300 visitors went to a blog article and, at the end of the article, you had a Call-to-Action to the Landing Page. In the best case, with a 5% click-through rate in the CTA, that would be 15 visitors to the Landing Page and only 6 Leads.
In a year, the difference would be that the Landing Page in the first position generated almost 1400 more Leads.
visitors | Leads | |
| Blog Article | 300 | 6 |
Landing Page | 300 | 120 |
When is landing page optimization for search engines a good idea?
There are several cases indicated to applying SEO to your Landing Page.
If the Landing Page is going to be on the air for a long time, it is recommended that you take advantage of the effects of Google's positioning to attract traffic with Long Tail Keywords .
Pages that are published for more than 3 months already have the potential to appear in search results and therefore deserve special attention from SEO.
Even if the keyword you decided to focus on is not Long Tail, the idea is to use the search volume per month to gain recurring and organic lead generation .
For Bottom of the Funnel Landing Pages (for example, budget requests or discount coupons) it is also highly recommended to optimize since the visitor will probably reach an advanced phase of the Purchase Process.
Another interesting possibility appears if you already have a blog article among the first positions. In this case, why not also optimize your Landing Page to have two results in the top ten? That increases your chances of attracting qualified visitors!
And so, do you want to start optimizing?
Take a look at our landing page SEO tips and best practices:
Tip 1: Choose your keyword well
It all starts with the choice of the main keyword, related to your offer, and that depends on the stage of the Purchase Process, which is the focus of your Landing Page.
To attract visitors in the early stages you can add terms like:
- Tips
- Guide
- Learn
- how/how to
If the objective is to attract visitors who are considering a solution and ready to decide, the suggestion is to have in your keyword terms such as:
- Comprar
- Precio
- Discount
- the best choice of
- Comparison
Monitoring the keyword defined for the Landing Page
The idea is to avoid very generic keywords (head-tail) because the competition for first places is usually more difficult. For generic terms, well-rounded and explanatory articles on the blog continue to be the best option.
Tip 2: Create a good snippet
Snippets and snippets are two good translations that explain what a snippet is.
The idea of the snippet is to present an objective fragment of the content of each result on the search results page
Example: snippet from this article.
The three main elements of a snippet are:
- Title (Page Title)
- URL
- Meta Description
Not all snippet elements are factors that help your page rank. However, they play an important role in the click-through rate your page will receive. A good snippet should be both engaging and objective about the content the visitor will find on the page .
Landing Page snippet configuration in RD Station.
Title (Page Title)
Although it is not an obligation, it is highly recommended that you use the keyword in the title, preferably at the beginning. In addition to helping your page gain relevance to search, it's also a way to be explicit about the content on your landing page.
Another important point is that after 60 characters, the titles are cut off and ellipses are placed in the snippet. Keeping them below that limit ensures that they are fully seen by the public, which can increase your click-through rate to the results page.
URL
Using the keyword in a URL is also an important ranking factor.
And just like the title, the URL also has a size limit: being below 76 characters prevents the ellipsis and that can impact the click-through rate.
Meta Description
The Meta Description, contrary to the previous elements, is not a positioning factor. Theoretically, using the keyword in it doesn't help Google prioritize your page.
But on the other hand, the use of the keyword continues to be recommended, mainly because Google highlights it in bold. This stimulates the click of the users, in addition to guaranteeing them that the page has the content that they are looking for.
Again, we suggest that this description is under 156 characters.
Tip 3: Work your content in the context of the Landing Page
In your Landing Page content, it is important to use the keyword mainly in the header and at least once in the content. The recommended frequency is 1-3 occurrences of the keyword (or a variation thereof) for every 100 words of content.
But don't abandon the focus on conversion! The content must respond to the search performed by the user. Is your Landing Page offering something that confirms to your visitor that what they are looking for will be found in your offer?
For this reason, when in doubt about the use of the keyword or fluid content that makes sense, always choose the latter. The user experience is before everything
Optimization of a Landing Page in RD Station
Finally, maybe you have seen research on the importance of long content to have a good ranking in Google: 700, 1000, 2000 words. For Landing Pages, it is not recommended to apply those criteria since it can harm your conversion rate!
There are so many criteria that help a page to rank that you can even leave this aside and still have satisfactory results.
Tip 4: Give special attention to images
It is essential to use the main image on your Landing Page that has a great conversion capacity. If possible, the focus should be on the benefit that the offer will bring to your visitor.
Spend some time looking for a good image that has a nice color scheme.
In your images, you can not miss the Alternative Texts (Alt Text). In the main image, it is also recommended to use the keyword in the alternative text, as it is a factor that helps in the positioning of your page.
Finally, it is important to take special care with the loading time of the image: the faster, the better. One tip is to use tools like JPEGmini and TinyPNG to compact your images for the web, without losing quality. Pages that take a long time to load tend to be penalized by Google and very large images are great enemies of load time.
Tip 5: Use mobile-friendly templates
In 2015, Google announced that mobile searches surpassed desktop searches in major countries. As one of Google's main premises is to deliver a positive experience for its users, naturally, pages adapted for cell phones and other mobile devices are prioritized.
Therefore, if your focus is SEO, it is essential to use mobile-friendly Landing Page templates (that is, adapted for mobile devices).
A tip is to see your Landing Page in Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool :
Landing Page is validated by the Google tool.
Tip 6: Watch out for the rejection rate!
Google uses the Rejection Rate of the page to define its relevance. If the visitor clicks on a search result and does not find what they were looking for, rejecting the page, Google understands that that page is not relevant to that keyword and lowers its ranking.
That means that investing in the conversion rate of your Landing Page is also investing in SEO. There are several techniques to improve conversion rates, but in general, try to answer the following questions:
- Does the Landing Page make it clear that the rich content will deliver what was promised on the Search Results page?
- Will visitors invest their time and trust in completing my form?
- Is the Landing Page visually pleasing and guides the visitor to the next step, which is to convert?
Just by thinking about these points, it is already possible to improve your conversion and, therefore, decrease your Landing Page's rejection rate, which helps position it better in search engines.
Tip 7: Keep your Landing Page in the air
In the introduction to this article, we recommend optimizing Landing Pages for SEO only when they have already been published for 3 months. After all, Google can take time to index your content.
On the other hand, why take your landing page off the air after the offer expired?
You can take advantage of your temporary landing page URL to promote other rich content of preference or drive your visitors to your website or blog.
For example you advertised a Landing Page with a promotional coupon for Black Friday.
After the event you can change it to a Thank You Page with the same URL address, talking about the success of Black Friday in your business and mentioning even better promotions for the following year.
In this sense, you can maintain the Landing Page with a form for visitors to register to receive next year's offers before anyone else. This is how you continue generating Leads all year long!
This practice keeps search engines indexing your address. In the following year, it may be easier to win visits (and Leads!) through that channel.
Tip 8: conquer links and accumulate authority
In addition to on-page SEO techniques (performed on the page itself), links continue to be one of the main positioning factors in search engines.
When you offer links you give some authority to the pages you are linking to. On the other hand, when you receive, you gain a bit of authority.
Landing Pages can take advantage of this because the idea is that they do not have links to other pages. The only place the visitor needs to click is the conversion button after filling out the form!
With this, Landing Pages have a tendency to accumulate authority.
Start by conquering your own links, including calls-to-action to promote the offer and redirect your website or blog visitors to the Landing Page.
Example of Pop-up with CTA to generate traffic.
Tip 9: Encourage outreach on social media
There is indeed no evidence that the act of sharing a page on social networks is a criterion for positioning in search engines. In fact, Google explicitly denied that this factor is considered.
But disclosing in that channel can indirectly help with the conquest of links and with social proof: the more people approve, share and publicize your Landing Page, the more arguments you have to prove to new visitors that the offer is of quality.
So be sure to include social media outreach buttons on your Thank You Page.
Conclusion
SEO rules for Landing Pages are actually more specific. Some factors can be ignored and others gain even greater importance.
By following the advice in this article, your Landing Pages will certainly become more competitive in the battle for the top positions in search results.
As you become more proficient in SEO techniques, sometimes you can leave out a factor that seems important but isn't relevant to your landing page. No problem: if you're sure of what you're doing, then keep going!
This post was originally written by Raphael Farinazzo in Portuguese and contains adaptations made by the author for the Latin American and Spanish markets.
