Stop leaving money at the door (the truth behind landing pages)
If you have your own business and are selling a product or service online then landing pages are something you’ll be familiar with. Whether you’ve used them yourself or have ‘landed’ on someone else’s, they’re essentially a page people ‘land’ on to sell a sole product or service.
Most landing pages are held by marketing platforms such as Active Campaign, MailerLite, Kartra, etc) where you can build an email capture block for people to pop their info in and then all sorts of automation occurs after that - you’ll get redirected to payment gateways or added to an email list that then sends you further instructions, etc.
Whilst landing pages can be a good solution some of the time, here’s what you don’t know about them. Let’s start with:
Why people recommend landing pages:
You get a dedicated page to what you’re selling, without distraction.
You’ve got a product or service that you want to sell, sell, sell and once you’ve captured your audience’s attention enough for them to click on the link, you don’t want them distracted by wandering around your website, checking out other products or services you may offer, you want them to just focus on this one.
They often link directly to your mail sign ups so all your software is in the same place.
You didn’t choose a career as a techie and you don’t want to spend valuable time learning how to fiddle with and automate multiple bits of software. Using one of the marketing platforms allows you to create the landing page, set a form to capture the email info, add it to an email list and automate the emails/information sent to the clients. You can even connect payment gateways then and there and handle everything in one place - what’s not to like?
Why landing pages on marketing platforms are a bad idea:
Google can’t find you!
This is the major one - marketing platforms use their own URLs which aren’t associated with your domain. Take for instance this: our website address (URL) is simplysites.co.uk but if you want to join our mailing list (we use MailerLite) you need this address: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/q9z0y2
This means that Google can’t index the page because they don’t know it is associated with our Simply Sites domain and therefore, if someone types in ‘Simply Sites Newsletter’, Google won’t show any results.
Going back to that product you want to Sell, Sell, Sell, you will have to bring all the leads to your landing page by paying for ads in places like Facebook, Instagram and the like, and hustling on Social Media timelines to get an audience. This is not a good use of your time or money.
People can’t see the rest of your services.
Yes, you want to sell this one product or service more than anything else you’ve got going on but what if someone’s just not ready to buy it. Or it’s not quite the right service for them? Rather than have them head off to your competitors, you’re going to want them to check out the other products and services you do offer.
They won’t be able to check them out if they don’t know about them.
Landing pages are designed to showcase one product or service only. There’s no room for ‘and I also have this that you might be interested in’.
The styling is limited.
Landing pages are templates so you’re going to have to make your content fit the template, rather than have something built to fit your brilliant content. Round peg and square hole springs to mind here.
Ok, so now we know the perceived pros and the cons, here’s what you should do instead:
Get a website.
If you’re just selling one product or service you can get a website professionally built, SEO optimised and mobile responsive for less than £300. Check out our one pagers: StudioSo and Hey Gorgeous!
You’ll be able to have your very own web address (URL), all your styling and branding will be just that - yours, and it’s the best way to have a super stylish presence, showing your audience that you mean business.
All our Simply Sites websites are designed to grow with your business so when you’re ready to introduce new products or services, the website will be ready to grow with you.
Connect your website to mailing software.
Lots of mailing software is free for email lists of under 2k subscribers and they’re a handy way of organising who’s shown interest in what product/service and a great way to keep in touch with people.
If people aren’t quite ready to buy from you but are ready to pop their email details in to keep in touch, then a weekly email dropping into their inbox can help them build trust and choose you when they’re ready.
Mailing software also helps keep you compliant with the GDPR regulations, with a nifty unsubscribe link in the footer.
Automate your processes.
The busier you become, the easier it is to drop the ball on things and busy = good as it also = growth, but dropping the ball isn’t great and is going to have you feeling like you’re chasing your tail.
There are all sorts of processes you can automate on your website - whether you have people purchase through the website and redirect to a thank you page with links for the next steps (this is how our Simply Sites buying process works), or whether you have a certain page open when they click a button, or more information pop up in a modal, the choices are limitless.
You can also use automation outside of your website, with your mailing software - for example when you join our mailing list, you get an automated email saying ‘welcome to our world of websites’ and more information about us.
The more you have automated, the less likely you are to drop the ball and the more time you’ll have available to do other things, besides your work.
Use your website to promote other products and services.
Whether you have more than one product or service, or you have a business partnership you’d like to promote, you can do all of this from your website. If you link to an external website, it helps with your SEO (Google ranking) and if you link to something internally on your website - say another product or service, it also helps with your Google ranking. In a nutshell, Google likes links. Not just any links though, proper ones which relate to your business.
Let's wrap up.
Landing pages may feel like a quick, easy and free solution but they end up costing you money as you’re promoting someone else’s platform, they only focus on one service/product and you don’t have full autonomy over the styling and design. A website is a much better solution, not least because you can promote everything and run all sorts from the same URL.
Websites grow with your business. Landing pages do not and if you’re reading this blog, I’m pretty sure you’re wanting your business to grow.
If you’re looking for a website for your small business and would like help choosing the right Simply Site for you, book a free, no-obligation call with us and we’ll help match the right website to your business.
