As I was getting ready to start building out a few landing pages for some newsletter advertising I decided to Google landing page best practices. As expected, lots of both organic and paid options came up. I noticed Marketo had an ad out there, so I clicked on it. I’ve seen their stuff before and was very impressed, so I thought I’d start here with my landing page inquiry. After a few clicks I got to an eBook – “Building Effective Landing Pages”. This eBook had some great tips that were B2B Lead worthy so I wanted to share and give Marketo a shout out too. You can get this great eBook as well as others at http://www.marketo.com/b2b-marketing-resources/best-practices.php.  For now, here’s a few tips that really stood out:

1. Focus on a single call to action, such as a download or a demo. Distractions kill conversions.
This is really important; offering too much information muddies the waters. You want your call-to-action to stand out. Remember we are not trying to complete a sale via an email program. We are educating our prospects and highlighting pain points in bite size chunks. Warming leads up to better qualify them for Sales.

2. Content – Give it to them straight.

• Make it clear and to the point, but give your prospect a reason to give you his information.
• Setup the problem
• Talk about the solution (your offer)
• Deliver the goods (such as a white paper, video demo or webinar registration)
• And use bullet points - they are easier to read

Emails seem to be most effective when they are 2-3 short paragraphs with a link to a landing page/offer as close to the top as possible. Remember a lot of people view emails in a preview pane. This may be your only opportunity to present your message, so make sure you get straight to the point.

3. Call to Action – Forms – Remember not to ask too many questions up front.
You don’t need everything they first time a prospect engages with you. Remember you are building a relationship. Collect more information as the prospect continues on the journey with you.

4. Confirmation/ Thank Yous - It’s just plain good manners to say thank you. Do you have something else they might be interested in? Make another offer.
I think this might be one of the most important tips on the list. Saying Thank You never goes out of style. And, I agree with Marketo, put another offer out there, see if they bite. Taking you up on a second offer could be a sign of a cold lead moving to warm.

5. Page URLs - The name of the page, along with the rest of the URL path, is weighed fairly heavily. You can use 1024 characters, so you don’t have to be stingy. And use dashes between words, not underscores – search engines like that better.
Marketo example: www.marketo.com/building-effective-landing-pages.html
Don’t forget your Google juice with every landing page you build. Remember to use your PPC keywords here too.

Again, thanks to Marketo for the list of landing page tips. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the list at Marketo’s B2B Marketing Best Practices.