Opportunity: Create the ultimate landing page

As the first online impression of your business, your company's landing page is equally as important as giving customers a warm welcome as they enter your presentable premises. Fat Media, a specialist in digital marketing for the hospitality and catering sector, explains how you can make the most of your landing pages. Fat Media’s digital account director, David O’Keefe said: “If you want your website to drive sales, bookings and engagement then it’s vital to look at your landing pages. Landing pages which are easy to use and give the visitor what they are looking for will pay major dividends. “When looking at your landing page, firstly don’t be surprised that every visitor to your website doesn’t land on the homepage first. They could have followed a link from pretty much anywhere which takes them to different areas of your website. “With that in mind, each page needs to be optimised for its purpose and also provide easy access to other areas on the website, it shouldn’t be cluttered and confusing. Ultimately when a user lands on the website, you want them to convert whether that’s through a booking, purchase, visit to your premises or an enquiry. Information architecture – putting what matters first “Information is ultimately what makes a website but a vital factor is the order it is presented in and putting what matters first to the user. Front end the website with relevant information and what is useful and beneficial to visitors. A great example would be if it’s a menu page, make sure the menu view or download element is the first thing on the page. Secondary information such as how to book a table or directions should be further down the page and tertiary information which includes similar or related content such as news articles or special offers can also be linked to further down. “Priority content on the website is also key to help converting leads. A good tactic is to feature this content on a ‘Sticky header.’ A sticky header is basically a header that remains in view at the top of the browser rather than moving out of view as you scroll down the website. We’ve used this tactic for our client the Daffodil Hotel and Spa. “For the hotel, we used the sticky header to prioritise top content such as the online booking system, that way no matter what page a user is scrolling down to, if they want to then book it’s an easy navigation process, promoting visitors to convert to becoming customers! Keep it clean “There’s nothing worse than a crowded landing page, each website we look after, we ensure to keep it clean to ensure it’s as easy as possible for the user. We also separate content on to different pages that way there isn’t an information overload plus there are also benefits for how you rank and appear in searches on the internet. The more information you have on different pages allows the website to appear under more search terms. “We also advise a simple navigation bar, again, we have one of these on the Daffodil Hotel website. The navigation bar allows users to find the relevant pages in a given section with ease. From these simple changes to the Daffodil website, we’ve seen more traction on the website, a 38% increase in direct bookings, whilst overall visitors are up by 20%. Knowing where to start “Of course, when planning the website, you need to know what pages are the most important and this can be done with help from Google Analytics. Analytics has the tools to show which pages visitors are entering your site on, and should be prioritised. “Within Google Analytics, you can also use see which pages are most popular with users but also which have the highest bounce rate, basically which pages users are leaving without finding what they need. The aim is for your visitors to turn to customers so by tracking the bounce rate you can identify and improve pages that aren’t working, making sure the website is doing its job. “Finally, one more thing to start with is event tracking. This provides the information as to what call to action buttons are most used on the website. For example, if certain buttons further down the page are receiving more traction than one placed higher on the page, move them around, after all, the user’s feedback and action is what we are looking for. “By getting your website working better and really thinking about making those landing pages deliver the content visitors want, you can really create a website which will engage and convert online users to new online bookings.” by David O’Keefe, digital account director at Fat Media