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How Landing Page Can Increase your Blog Traffic

How Landing Page Can Increase your Blog Traffic

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It still continues to surprise me how a lot of people still DO NOT use a landing page for their blog. A landing page is just basically a page where you send majority of your new visitors. This is a crucial page because by letting them stay in that page, you’re persuading them to subscribe to your blog and become a loyal reader. Here’s an overview from my Analytics on how my landing page is faring:

You can notice that people who enter my blog through that page are less likely to bounce that quick. Because my best posts are showcased there, they oftentimes continue to read my post rather than just leave away. As of this writing, my blog’s landing page is located at /welcome. In that page you can see that I introduced first what my blog is all about, then presented them the best posts in each category and lastly offered them to subscribe to my RSS.

A lot of well-known bloggers do use a landing page for their blogs and that’s because they know the power of it. If this one is new to you, then let me present the benefits of using one:

  • Lets new readers read on your blog more – The bounce rate of a new user is usually in the range of 70%-100%. If you have a landing page, a new user would stay on your blog more, read more of your stuffs, potentially increasing the chance of that user to become a loyal reader in the future.
  • Increase subscribers – The no.1 point leads to this point. Since using this method I have seen a great jump on my rss subscribers. Consider this, would you subscribe on a blog where you have read the best posts of it, or on a blog where all you’ve read are the recent posts?
  • Increase your expertise – Since your best posts are showcased in your landing page, it gives your expertise and credibility a huge boost. Because of your good content, people will start to have that perception that you are a credible person in your niche, hence would keep them for the long haul.

But how do I do a landing page? Contrary to the belief that only sales pages and static websites can have a landing page, each and every blog should have one. Because of the overcrowded content in the internet, a lot of people have become used to what I call “skimming mentality”, where people just read a bit and then go away.

Landing page is a good tool to keep people on your site longer hence reaping the benefits I mentioned above. Anyways there are two ways on how you can your landing page and I would discuss both of them right now.

Traditional Landing Page

The traditional landing page involves creating a dedicated page showcasing the best stuffs in your blog (you can look at mine to see the pattern).  In that page usually contains the ff; a short description of your blog, why people need to subscribe to your blog, your best posts, and another for them to subscribe.

You can actually even alter and just use your creativity depending on what you are offering to the market. For example, I have a free eBook I am giving away so I would definitely add that to my landing page. You can name that page depending on your taste, just make sure the name is something relevant to accommodating new readers (mine’s title is /welcome).

Home Page as a Landing Page

The evolution of blog’s home pages from the standard chronological layout type from the magazine-style has also its reason. That is to make the blog more enticing to readers. Unlike the old layouts, magazine-style themes showcase more than just the recent posts. It gives emphasis to a lot of things, making good use of every space without looking too much cluttered.

Using a magazine-style template automatically makes use of the home page as a landing page itself.  We’ve seen big blogs like John Chow, Problogger and many more switch to that layout. Because of that, readers would not just focus on the recent post but most likely they will focus on the blog as a whole.

Conclusion

Using a landing page for your blog is imperative. As I’ve said, it continues to amaze me how a lot of bloggers still don’t do it. Thus far, I don’t see any disadvantages of having one and if you don’t have one right now, I highly suggest you to do your one now.

I would be interested to see your own blog’s landing page and would like to hear your thoughts about it.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. I see your point, but at the same time I would say that it’s not ideal for everyone.

    I am planning to make a page which could be classed as a landing page, but at the same time I think it’s important to get the visitors looking at your content. OK, if you are building a list then it would be great to have an opt-in form on a landing page, but otherwise I’m not sure whether it’s essential to be honest.

    Still, I’ll give my ‘semi-landing page’ a try and let you know how it goes 😀
    .-= Simon | Teenius´s last blog ..Why You Should Take A Holiday From Blogging =-.

    Melvin Reply:
    March 2nd, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    Hmmm. I think that’s a unique idea. In each and every of my blog (lols I only have 2), I have just used the standard welcome page as a landing page and it has worked and is working well. But again that doesn’t mean that’s the only one that will work well.

    Anyway I am looking at your homepage and I think that page is already sort of a good landing page for readers. 😉

  3. I saw your point about landing page. Now, how would you direct some of your potential visitors to the landing page once you make it? In your own case, you did mention that you use landing page to retain readers from bouncing back from your blog the moment they land there. but one thing is still missing that you did not talk about in this post.

    So, I want to know how you direct your readers to the landing page! Did you lead your reader from your other pages to your landing page? Or do you specifically structure your blog to redirect any new reader or existing reader to your landing page? In another development, do you specifically promote your landing page separately online? I want to know that…

    Not that I had never use landing pages before in some of my marketing techniques to get more subscribers, but I’m curious to know more about how you use it in order to get that number in your blog. Need more expansion on that…
    .-= Justice@How to get rich fast´s last blog ..5 Keys To Targeted Internet Marketing =-.

    Melvin Reply:
    March 2nd, 2010 at 8:01 pm

    Superb question!

    I redirect them in MANY ways. One of which is through forum signatures. I usually structure a good anchor text which will lead them to my welcome page and since Im quite a forum lurker (and kinda a reputed one), I see a good result from it.

    Next one is through guest posting. Instead of just linking to my blog’s home page, I do direct them to the landing page. Do bare in mind that most, if not all, readers of that certain blog is considered as a new visitor to my blog. So it gives them a good hindsight of what to expect in my blog and whether it is for them or not.

    Lastly is through this blog itself. Read the announcement at the uppermost part of this blog, you’ll notice that its linked to the landing page. I occassionally link to that page in some of the posts in this blog.

    The sky is really the limit. The key of landing page is converting new visitors to loyal readers.

  4. i have heard of Landing pages before but never paid attention to it….but your post and the stats have forced me to think about it….i need more details about it….to be honest, please tell me how to start??
    .-= IndianCashMaker´s last blog ..Is There Anything Like IDEAL POSTING SCHEDULE? =-.

    Melvin Reply:
    March 2nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    I believe I have laid out everything needed in the post. Where part specifically do you need help with? you can view my landing page @ https://www.melvinblog.com/welcome/ to have a look on how its done.

  8. Whether you want to call it a “landing” page, home page or visitor page – I don’t see the difference. People will stay if the content is sufficiently compelling to their interests. Inclusion or lack thereof a “landing” page won’t matter.

    Ivan Walsh Reply:
    April 24th, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    Hey Penton,
    For me, a landing page is usually a specific page you’ve optimized, e.g. when launching a new product, and part of a marketing campaign, e.g. a PPC campaign.

  9. Interesting that magazine theme can act as landing page in great way. I think i need to consider use it.
    .-= Dana @ Blogging Update´s last blog ..How To Overcome Blogging’s Writer Block =-.

    Melvin Reply:
    March 6th, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    Yep. Magazine theme lets new visitors pick what post is enticing to them and whats not. This is good because they dont need to scroll down a lot (if its the usual homepage), just to find what interests them.

  12. I loved this article. Very good work!

    Frankly speaking I direct my viewers from Social Media sites to the most popular post on my site. They tend to read some related articles also after that thus reducing the bounce rate.
    .-= Rohit Sane´s last blog ..LG Cookie pep: The Complete Review =-.

    Melvin Reply:
    March 14th, 2010 at 12:29 am

    actually that is a landing page already. as long as you can make them stay in your blog for long (for the good reasons of course) then you’re doing a great job already

  17. Not sure if I go for a landing page for my blog. Ideally, all the search traffic and direct traffic lands on individual posts and home page respectively. The only other source that can use the landing page probably is banner clicks. In my opinion, if the home page serves that purpose (with best post, offers, services etc) you may not need a landing page 😀
    .-= Ajith Edassery´s last blog ..PayPal India conforms to Government regulations =-.

  19. A landing page does sound interesting and your explanation does make sense. I haven’t set up a landing page yet but I’m considering it now.

  25. Hey Melvin
    I came across your article on Alvin’s blog and followed you over here…
    I’m glad I did..!!
    I’ve downloaded your ebook “Blog Marketing for Fame” …read it and completely agree that
    the first place a visitor should come to is your landing page.

    I’ve thought this for some time now and I’m soon to implement it on my blog…

    So..watch this space…lol

    The ebook was a great read and I think I might just take a leaf ( maybe more than a leaf )
    from it and produce my own book in a similar fashion…
    Hope you don’t mind…lol

    Consider it a compliment…!!

    Speak soon.

    M.
    .-= Malcolm T mcKinnell´s last blog ..“New beginnings…create your first Website…!! =-.

  26. I did not take landing page very important as well, but after reading your post, I think I have to create a landing page for all my blogs as well. Thank for the information, it educative.

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