landing pages and conversion issues from an SEO perspective

A landing page is not easily defined, and the reasons for having specific landing pages is not well explained within the SEO (search Engine Optimisation) Industry. 

There are many different aspects to look at when one is dealing with landing pages and conversion issues and the first one is an understanding of your target audience and their behavior patterns.  Then there is also the issue that all web site and blog owners need to keep in mind at all times, which is that we as publishers and authors have no control what so ever over what words, phrases, sentences or hash tags an end user will type into the search box when looking for online information to satisfy his / her information requirements.

It is thus of extreme importance that authors, publishers and site owners take the time to do their research properly and ensure that all the different aspects of preparing your online content are well documented and properly debated at marketing meetings discussing your online content, with a focus on  how you are going to entice your intended target market audience to use specific key words, phrases and hash tags within their efforts to locate your online content when using a search engine of any nature, be it an internal search engine within the walled garden of your own site / blog or online resource or a public search engine like GOOGLE or BING.

So what is a landing page, and why does it need special treatment within the social media?

A landing page is best described as one of the preferred entry points to your online content, so as to facilitate meaningful information flow patterns for your intended target audience.  Each subsection of your web site or blog should have a specified and documented landing page so that your #OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) team, or all those persons who are working on your Off Page Search Engine Optimisation efforts can do their work in a balanced and informed manner..  The documentation for your specified landing pages should be very informative and contain the following information as a bare minimum.  The more information that your Off page Search Engine Optimisation Team (OPSEO) have at their disposal,  the easier it will be for them to optimise their individual efforts to enhance the many different #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) associated with their  individual efforts in all areas where they may have an influence, especially within the context of their semantic footprint and related trust factor areas.

• The purpose of this specific page, along with why it should be considered as a preferred entry point to your online content. 
• the aims and objectives of this specific page within the context of your site and the information flow patterns that you wish to influence from this specific page
• the target market research associated with this page and the rest of the the pages that are below this page, or directly associated with this page,   in the navigation structure of your blog or web site.
• the key word and related copy writing brief and instructions for this page
• The #IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) notes and specifications along with the brief to the IPSEO  (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) team
• any special IPSEO tactics and associated notes so that these may be further exploited where ever possible. here we are talking of things like but not limited to
• author issues connected to REL  = AUTHOR
• publisher issues connected to REL = PUBLISHER
• schema mark up
• java scripts and other special coding
• back ground audio
• social media sharing tactics and commenting structures
• special membership rights or privileges when logged in 
• which area of the conversion process this page will be influencing, and related marketing notes for this portion of the conversion funnel or sales process, focusing on the CTA's (Call To Action) that need to be performed by the information consumer (your intended target audience)

Where an end user,  or information consumer (read your intended target market)  will end up within your pages upon using a search engine depends largely on which of your pages are well optimised in terms of your SEO efforts, and what words, terminology or phrases  were used in the search query.  It thus follows that you as a site owner or publisher need to do some work outside of your online content and within other media, such as on the radio or in the printed media domain through news paper or magazine adverts, to influence your intended target market audience  to use specific words, phrases or #hashtags when looking for your online content

Different areas of your conversion funnel  or sales process will thus need to use different key words, topics and associated terminology to attract the attention of specific groups within your full target market spectrum. Getting the wrong target market group to any specific landing page will lead to a very low conversion rate, and may even lead to a poor bounce rate as these viewers or information consumers may have already completed this step in your conversion process and so return to the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) very quickly.  This has many very serious implications and can cause your entire site some considerable harm, as BOUNCE RATE is a very powerful SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) where a good bounce rate causes your content to raise within the SERP's and a poor BOUNCE RATE causes your page to drop out of the SERP's if not attended to.  If this specific page was well optimised and gets an awful lot of attention from information consumers, where a large percentage return to the SERP (Search Engine Results page) without clicking on a CTA (Call To Acton) this impacts on your SITE WIDE TRUST FACTORS in a very negative manner and CAN CAUSE YOUR WHOLE SITE  some considerable harm

Besides poor SEO related issues,  there are a host of other things that impact on BOUNCE RATE and they all need to be addressed,  the lay out of the page in question along with the images and in page text need to be addressed keeping the intended target market audience, and the purpose of the page in mind at all times.  Your keyword and selected topic of discussion within the page,  play a very critical role in your conversion process, so this needs to be clearly understood, with a focus on why these specific topics and related keywords were selected for this page, and what their significance within the conversion process plays in this set of criteria,  being used within the in page make up selection process and procedures, as defined in your blog / website purpose, aims and objectives.

The purpose, aim and objectives of each landing page needs to be very well defined in the documentation of your online marketing campaign,  so that others who work on either the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) or your OPSEO (Off page Search Engine Optimisation) can use this information in a meaningful manner that expands the SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) connected to each individuals efforts.  These individual SEOVI can be very significant and have large impacts on the publisher and author related trust factors that come along for the ride.

Landing pages play a very significant role in the psychological approach to enticing your intended  target audience to complete any CTA (Call To Action) within all other  pages, and a landing page thus  needs special attention in this area, as a landing page is intended to be a high  traffic volume page, and an introduction to all future pages that your  target audience will experience.  First impressions are very significant, and can make or break a web site, bog or other online resource in terms of viewer experiences.  It is thus also important that you do not get the wrong pre-qualified target market audience in terms of your conversion funnel to visit primary landing pages for any specific set of pages that define a specific area within your conversion funnel.

How you pre-qualify your intended target audience to be the primary target market  for any specific landing  page needs plenty of thought, and lots of co-operation from all persons working on both your IPSEO and OPSEO. The process of pre-qualifying any subsection of your intended target market audience needs to be well documented, and shared with the relevant people, as this will be used to define the topics and related key words used within the IPSEO process of that specific page.  The IPSEO process MUST be well documented and easily accessible to the OPSEO )Off Page Search engine Optimization) team, as they will need this information when writing related social media posts, press releases, radio marketing, and  print media marketing along with  related work  to ensure that the correct terminology and desired SEMANTIC FOOTPRINT is generated  for the page in question, as well as the associated digital entities that will be supporting the page in question in terms of SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)

Conversion rates and associated bounce rate issues need lots of thought and clear understanding of the target market audience and their related online behavior patterns.  These re very complicated issues, and the actual work connected to the SEO and related SEOVI of landing pages needs to be well documented and discussed extensively during marketing meetings discussing your intended target market audience and how you intend to generate conversations, and keep them focused on your intended purpose aims and objectives as defined in the marketing brief, through ongoing conversations in many different areas.

It thus follows that the C-suit team (Chief something Officers) need to have a clear understanding of the purpose, aims and objectives for having an online presence in the first place, and how this is used to ensure better long term customer relationships and higher sales volumes. Once the c-suit team are on board, then things will become an awful lot easier in terms of managing
your SEO from a #FUFISM based perspective.

What impact does SEO have on your conversion issues

During the writing of my book on #FUFISM  the question of the impact of SEO on conversion and marketing funnels and how your two separate SEO teams need to collaborate and co-ordinate their efforts in a manner that best impacts on your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)  came up in a few different areas, so needs to be addressed.

I would like to share this preliminary quote from the book with you and solicit some conversation around these issues so that I may have a deeper understanding of how technical I need to make this small section, which will be about three, perhaps four pages in the book.

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media is the primary driver of your link building campaign and plays a major role in your SEO policy and all marketing strategies, both online and off line.   to read more about FUFISM read here

Start Quote

One of the biggest issues within the SEO INDUSTRY is for the copy writer and associated visual content creators to understand which portion of the sales funnel or conversion funnel that they are working on, when they work on the content of any specific page.

Each visual content creator as well as the copy write, r and every member of your IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) TEAM,  as well as all others who work on your In Page Search Engine Optimisation issues,  need to receive their own individual marketing brief.

You also need to ensure that these individual efforts and related issues,  are  properly documented,  showing purpose, aims and objectives, so that those who will be doing your OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation can properly understand the specific target market and primary CTA or call to action which the public relations team and associated marketing management  have laid out, and documented in their marketing action plan., which they expect the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation), implementation team to follow through with.

If these contributors to either your IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) or OPSEO  (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) for your online content get things wrong you can end up in real trouble real soon as far as your SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) are concerned. The issue is that these have very significant impacts on your bounce rate when a page is opened from the SERP’s or Search Engine Results Page, then closed or not viewed. 

Viewers (your target audience) will quickly close the page in question or go back to the SERP’s, if what they see is not what they are looking for. This action by your intended target audience will result in the search engine giving the page in question a poor bounce rate and associated trust factor signals.  This will soon start to have an impact  on the SERP’s for this particular page, and it will slowly drop out of the SERP’s as soon as the so called QPFS or Query page freshenes score,  starts to wane with age. Remember that a fresh page always has a big boost in the SERP’s due to this QPFS which is a significant SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) that looses value over time on a logarithmic scale.  Many SEO practitioners do not take this into account and very few ever tell this to their client base.

This slow drop in the SERP’s is not serious at first, but as the associated trust factors start to filter through into your page’s semantic foot print over a week or so, this suddenly starts to impact on a wide variety of other issues, such as page rank, site rank as well as many different author and publisher  related SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are connected to trust factor issues, which makes this a very serious site wide issue.

If your web site has other such pages where the bounce rate is unduly high, these issues become ever more important to understand and fix. We will not discuss actual conversion processes or sales funnel techniques here, but this section is just to advise you that these things need to be taken into consideration, and as your specific target market for your SEO varies according the the product, service,  information, or specific online content that you want your intended target market to be exposed to, and what the primary call to action statement within that comment is, needs to be evaluated very closely when doing SEO for any specific online content..

It thus follows that knowing about specific issues associated with conversion rates and sales funnels need to be understood by your marketing team, and also documented in the over all marketing action plan.  This is essential so that one has the tools and the necessary documentation to fix any errors that may creep in and have a negative impact on your total SEO STRATEGY.

Your Social Media marketing team who are the primary OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) drivers need to use the documentation associated with target research and associated point within your marketing / sales funnel to do their job right, as this will give them a deeper understanding of the copy and associated links that they will insert into their social media posts. Here the sequence of events leading up to that specific point in the conversion process must be clearly understood, so as to ensure the highest possible conversion rate for that page in terms of clicks on page so as to have excellent bounce rates.

It must also be noted that pages with higher conversion rates tend to climb higher in the SERP's as the trust factor signals associated with the page in question grow to a favorable bounce rate.

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Leaving your comment here or in a social media post using the hash-tag #FUFISM will be truly appreciated. I use the the mention social media marketing tool to keep track of these issues, and should respond within 24 to 48 hours