Analyze Your Website in 3 Acts: Home Page, Content Page & Landing Page

Landing pages, home pages, content pages, and contact pages on a website are not the same thing. What then is the difference, and why should you care?

If getting leads from your site is critical to growing your asset management or asset advisory business, you should care, and more than just a little bit.

Each page type – home, landing, content, and contact – requires a unique and differentiated strategy and storyboard.

Act I: The Home Page

The home page sets the stage for the rest of the site. It’s here that you begin your story. Another analogy: think of your home page as the front door of your home. (Is that why they call it a home page?) And another: think first impressions.

The objective of your home page is to connect, to show that you know how and why you can help your visitor solve a problem. Another objective is to show why and how you are different, distinct, and overall awesome. Your home page should also seek to connect emotionally. According to Oli Gardner, co-founder of Unbounce, a pioneer in landing page creation, “Your hero shot should sell the hell out of your product – make it clear and dominant on your page.”

But connect quickly. Kissmetrics reports that you've got less than eight seconds before a prospect decides to click to open the curtains to your content pages, or to bounce away, typically never to return.

What’s more, the home page needs to be about your prospect clients, not about you.

Act II: The Content Pages

Content pages are the second act. They should show prospects differentiating information about your firm, your team, style, strategy, performance, and personality.

Content pages should also have informative offers - like white papers or eBooks - that prospects would like more of, and would be happy to provide in return for their contact information.

Your blog, if you have one, is also a critical content page. And don’t forget keywords: If you’d like to rank high in Google search for “Gaithersburg financial advisor,” or Minneapolis RIA,” or “rules based alternative investment manager” to name a few, the content pages are the place to be properly SEO’d.

Act III: The Landing Page

A landing page is where prospects land when they click on your buttons asking for the complimentary white paper, eBook, or investors guide. The goal for the landing page is to convert lookers to leads. But don’t tell anyone about landing pages, and their cousins, the call to action and the thank you page – they are the secret sauces to getting leads, mixed metaphors or not.

A landing page is like a one-page advertisement for your offer. You don’t want prospects looking around at other showy things; you only want them to fill out the form. This means no navigation buttons to your website, no links to other pages, nothing other than brief text and a compelling visual on your offer. And don’t be shy about having more than one landing page on your site. According to HubSpot, more landing pages means more conversion opportunities. Firms that increased from 10 to 40 or more landing pages saw a 55% increase in leads.

Asking for a phone number can be a conversion killer, however.

A quick tip: don’t use the word “submit” as the text in the clicking button. For some, the word “Submit has a negative connotation. Try “Click Here,” “Go,” “Grab Your Book,” or “Download Now” instead.

The landing page is the resolution to your story.

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Encore: The Contact Page

Well, perhaps not an encore, for the contact page is often the least productive of the lead generation pages. Of course your site should have a contact page, but a contact page, where everyone includes their name, email address, physical address, and perhaps a map, will not in and of itself be a primary lead tool.