Landing Page SEO Optimization for Long-term Lead Conversions

It’s no secret that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the holy grail of making web pages rank.

Did you know that the same principle can be applied for optimizing your landing pages as well?

But landing pages are meant to direct your visitors toward a specific call to action sans distractions. And SEO optimization typically involves adding more content, visual elements, and links. How do you then optimize it without hurting the clean design of a landing page? And why is it important?

In this blog, we explore the what, why, and how of landing page SEO optimization to the point of actionable insights.

What is Landing Page SEO Optimization?

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Landing page SEO optimization simply means enhancing each element on the page to make it more-friendly from the search engine’s perspective. This, in turn, drives more organic traffic to your page and boosts lead generation. Optimizing a landing page doesn’t necessarily mean designing from scratch.

You can simply tweak different elements and HTML markups to make the existing content more SEO-friendly. This also means that your landing pages are no longer designed on a pure hunch but are backed by anecdotal and data evidence. For instance, you can leverage data on user behavior on your landing pages to understand what’s working and what’s not. Then, use SEO techniques to perfect a live page. Choosing the right SEO services partner could do a landing page analysis and they can provide a better solution for landing page design.

Doing so brings you a whole host of benefits, such as:

• Higher lead conversions: If your landing page addresses your target audience’s needs, they are not only more likely to visit the page but also follow through on the CTA.
• Better Metrics: You can integrate metrics and analytics to gain insights into which parts of your marketing campaigns are working and which are not.
• Reduced PPC costs: When your landing page generates more clicks organically, you automatically spend less on Pay-per-Click advertising campaigns.
• Brand Credibility: By incorporating elements such as awards, recognitions, and testimonials in your SEO optimization, you can build upon your brand credibility and reputation.
• Targeted outreach: By using specific long-tail keywords, you can reach out to an exclusive pool of highly targeted audiences.

8 Best Practices for Landing Page SEO Optimization

The hallmark of an effective landing page is that it appeals to your audience, delivers on their expectations, and compels them to act. Here are 8 best practices that will help you leverage SEO optimization to create such effective landing pages consistently:

1. Audit Your Landing Pages

Unless you’re creating a new landing page, the first step toward SEO optimization is to understand what’s not working. For that, an audit of your landing pages is a sound strategy. The insights on specific problems that are contributing to low conversions will give you clarity on exactly what needs to be changed. This saves you the trouble of overhauling the entire page.

Heat maps are a great tool for assessing the health of a current landing page. In addition to this, you can also use confetti maps, scroll maps, list reports and overlay reports to gain valuable information. And use it as the foundation of your SEO optimisation strategy.

2. Optimize your URL

The next order of business is to optimize the URL of your landing page. The rules that are followed to create SEO-friendly URLs for any other web page apply here too:

• Start by creating a short title with a focused KW. The rule of thumb here is to limit it to 60 characters, as that’s the length displayed in search results.
• Do not stuff your URL with keywords. It will confuse the search engines and users alike.
• Use lowercase characters.
• Make the URL crisp by removing prepositions, numbers, and conjunctions
• Separate words with a – sign. This part of the process is generally automated but it helps to double-check.
• Don’t leave any white spaces.
• Let the URL convey what the page is about.  

3. Add an SSL Certificate

In a time when malware attacks and data theft are rampant, users are wary of clicking on websites and links that seem to lack credibility. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate assures them that it is safe to visit your landing page.

Besides, search engines, especially Google, use https as one of the key determining factors in their ranking algorithms. So, using an SSL certificate gives your ranking a competitive edge too.

4. Prioritize Keyword Research

Now comes one of the most crucial and tricky parts of your landing page SEO optimization process – keyword research. The first step is to use your preferred keyword research tool to find the ones that are related to your niche or the content you intend to create for your landing page.

Any research tool will show you keywords that are already ranking high on search engines, especially Google, right at the top of the list. Run a search with these top keywords, and you’ll find that authority websites in your niche are already ranking on page 1 for these. Trying to compete with them is a losing battle.

Instead, you should look for low volume, low competition, long-tail keywords, that are related to your content. Yes, these keywords have lower volume but these are also your best bet for ranking right at the top on page 1 rather than lurking somewhere on page 2 or 10 for a highly competitive alternative.

Since you’re ranking right at the top for a low volume keyword, people using it as a search query are more likely to click on your link. The result? Consistent quality lead generation.

Another alternative is to study your web analytics results for keywords for which you’re already ranking and incorporate those in your landing page content.

5. On-page SEO for all HTML Markups

Once you’ve found the keywords you’d like to target, you have to optimize your content for them without making it look unnaturally stuffed. This can be achieved through the following on-page SEO practices for your landing pages:

• Adding the focus keyword to your URL.
• Adding the keyword to your title tag. Every page on the web has a title tag, which is the title that reflects in search engine results. It’s vital to include your focus keyword – or at least a close variation of it – in this title tag to help search engines and users understand what your page is about.
• Set up a meta description that is crisp, keyword-optimized, and works as an ad copy for your landing page.
• Similarly, the keyword or its variation should be added to other tags such as H1 (the page heading), H2, H3, H4, and so on – which are also different formats for sub-headings used in the content.
• You also need to optimize your images for SEO. For this, the image title, which reflects as the image URL, must be related to the content on the page. In addition to this, the ALT text and caption must contain the keywords or their variations.

6. Create rich snippets using structured data

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By structuring the data on your landing page, you can convert your listing on search engines into rich snippets. These are more detailed as compared to a regular search result and give users clearer insight into what you have to offer.

You can run a page through Google’s structured data testing tool to see if it qualifies for the rich snippets format. If not, enhance the different HTML markups with additional elements such as video previews, price, star ratings, product category, or reviews to make your search results appear in the rich snippets format.

You can also use a Schema plugin to perform this task for you.

7. Build links

Link building is an integral part of the optimization process, referred to as off-page SEO. Once you’re done creating an SEO-friendly landing page, you must promote it on the web to acquire high-quality backlinks. This is trickier than on-page SEO since here you rely on a third-party to vouch for your credibility.

Adding options of social media sharing or allowing the offers on your landing pages to be embedded in other websites are two popular ways of building quality links.

8. Leverage 301 redirects

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When you change the content of a landing page or overhaul it extensively, you may lose existing backlinks. This, in turn, interferes with your SEO optimization, and ultimately, your lead conversions.

You can avert this by simply using a 301 redirect whenever you create a new landing page for the same set of services/products or CTA. This way any ranking that you’ve gained will not be lost.

To use 301 redirects, you can add the ‘Redirect 301 OLD URL NEW URL’ command to your CMS with the help of a plugin or directly to the “.htaccess” file.

The Takeaway

With these simple guidelines and help of the Professional SEO Company, you can transform the ranking as well as the CTR for your landing pages. This, in turn, gives you more leads as well as conversions. In short, SEO optimized landing pages prove to be a double whammy in terms of traffic creation and conversions.

At Email Uplers, we follow the best landing page design and optimization strategies to ensure that your campaigns are impeccable. Visit this link to learn more about what’s in store for you!