Should You Create a Landing Page?

A landing page is the page that you link to whenever you publish a web based advert for your product (like in Google Adwords for example). For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the page where you as the seller want your potential customer to be re-directed to after clicking the link on your affiliate partner's website. The same goes for any information and articles that you produce related to your product, as this is the perfect place to put direct keyword rich links directing to your landing page.

Landing pages are not that much different from the other web pages on a website. Some web marketers will often use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their product or service. However, some of these web marketers could be making a mistake…

You could follow what most on-line sellers do by directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. However, if you want to achieve something more from your on-line business and increase your profits, it is much better to create a special landing page for your web based adverts. Why is this? Below I have listed the main reasons why you need to use landing pages for your product or service.

Note: Be well advised that it's so much better to create a great well written landing page that explains the benefits the customer will get from purchasing your product, than a quick and messy one that could put potential customers off your site forever!

Benefit no. 1: It is the best way you can earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let you the merchant pay the affiliate in a pay per click (PPC) basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit details of your product/service in the form of an advert. The program owner would then distribute your advert to various affiliates who would then place your advert on their websites. Whenever your advert is clicked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affiliate for his service. Note: There are alternative programs to PPC, such a Clickbank, but I'll stick to PPC for these examples.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions, which is when a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger your expense would be on PPC programs. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won't get any conversion if you have posted an advert on your affiliate's site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It's just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product and what benefits they will gain from buying it?

It is therefore important to create a landing page for your product or service because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Benefit no. 2: Standard web pages may not be enough to make a sale.

Many people make the mistake of making their website's homepage as the landing page for their product or service. Homepages are often designed to serve many type of users and will normally contain a lot of links to other pages and other websites. In this sense, your site is an authority on a certain subject where you can publish information and articles on various topics related to your site subject. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, be sure that you don't have your landing page automatically displayed to everyone on the homepage, especially since many visitors will not be really interested the your product or service your landing page promotes.

For this reason, I would add a landing page as a separate page on your site. If you sell multiple products then create multiple landing pages. You can link to an individual landing page from your homepage and also link directly to the page from your affiliate adverts.

When creating a landing page you have to ensure that an interested customer is directed into that page. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the content you placed on your advert. It is also important that the landing page can entice your visitor to take action. You goal should be a least to generate a lead for your potential customers.

Summing it all up

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program to save on the cost of advertising expenses in order to gain more profit. However, if you get into an affiliate marketing program to sell your product or service without actually creating a landing page, you'll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. If you don't have a landing page for your product or service, look at creating one now. Most importantly, remember that it isn't enough for you just to create a landing page - it should be a great landing page that will entice your customers to take action and buy!

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