Using ClickTracks - Part 3: Evaluating Critical Pages

Landing Pages

It's important to know the exact pages of your site that the various search engines link to for each of your major keywords and phrases. These are called "landing pages", and are the first pages that visitors see when they click on search results.

Landing pages are critical for initial impressions and credibility, especially for people who are not familiar with your business. It's also important to ensure that these pages fulfill the visitors' expectations based on their search terms.

Use the ClickTracks "Create Labels" tool, and select "used a certain search engine query" combined with the keyword or phrase as your criteria to track people who came to your site with that search.

Now you can investigate:

What are the Top Entry Pages (i.e. "Landing Pages") for this search term:

• Is the search term included in the page content? Often, visitors will be looking for their keywords to confirm that they're in the right place. If your page doesn't seem relevant to them, they'll leave.

Combine the landing page information with Top Exit Pages or Short Visits for this term for clues as to whether your landing page is sufficiently engaging.

Does the Landing Page drive visitors into the rest of your site:

• If you do have relevant content on the page, but visitors still leave, could there be other reasons for their lack of engagement?

Landing pages are also those that you link to in your e-mail marketing messages - and again, are the first thing that the reader sees when they click through from one of your campaigns.

Often, site owners assume that every visitor sees their home page, which is the primary means of navigation. Your landing pages are the first that visitors will see, so they need to act as mini-home pages too.

Use this information about what visitors are seeking when they arrive at your site and what their expectations may be to direct them to other pages that will meet their needs.