Landing Pages for SEO reasons? *Worried*

[john@kapoo]

Hey all. Can I just start with - I am pretty damn clueless when it comes to Landing Pages!

So, here is my headache for this week:

Our client is a Thames catamaran cruise company, so the keywords currently being used are specific to this client and its niche. However, a co-worker of mine wants to implement landing pages which will use less niche specific keywords, say for example, "London Sightseeing", "London Tours" etc... Which will then have a Call To Action on for a couple of cruise products.

So, although the copy will differ to that of the actual product pages, they are in fact, just going to take them to those niche product pages anyway. My colleague also wants these implemented so they are on the sitemap and shown in the footer.

I'm really not convinced by use of Landing Pages in this manner. For PPC campaigns, I can totally understand, but in this particular situation, I'm sure we should be looking at the actual site layout and how we can SEO it differently, than go down this Landing Pages route.

Hope this makes sense... I just woke up in a SEO cold sweat and launched myself on to these forums, as I know I can get some good advice here... And hopefully some good advice before I get in to work... I don't want to spend another day at work keyword researching for possible landing pages, when I could spend the first hour of the day more constructively telling my colleague that this is all a bad idea.

However, if I'm wrong, please let me know. But seriously, I have alarm bells ringing in my head. :)

Thanks
John

[incrediblehelp]

Some threads that might help you:

PPC Landing Page Ingredients - Jaan’s Search Marketing Blog - Toledo, Ohio (http://www.jaankanellis.com/ppc-landing-page-ingredients/)

http://www.webproworld.com/google-adwords-discussion-forum/57734-famous-landing-page.html

http://www.webproworld.com/search-engine-optimization-forum/30550-landing-pages.html

http://www.webproworld.com/google-adwords-discussion-forum/61104-landing-page-problem.html

[Matteo]

Creating Niche keyword landing pages for your product is an EXCELLENT Idea

Having a page optimized for each keyword possiblity will bring you more and more customers and the pages will be indexed by the search companies are individual content as long as you are not duplicating your verbage and you rename your pictures.

This is a win win situation.

In the Marketing Sense you are reaching people who want to reach you, not by black hat SEO but by casting a wider net of key phrases.

In a SEO Sense it gives you more content, more pages. More links More.

It gives your customers what they are looking for, increases your traffic and gives you an SEO boost.

Absolutely seek those niche keywords

[Dinghus]

You should be doing landing pages for specific keywords and phrases. Especially those nice long tail search phrases that can bring you in some nicely targeted traffic.

[Zombie Master]

Your site should have many doors... and many windows.

[chrisJumbo]

We have found that articles provide a good way to do this. You could write articles about the various items of interest, making them key word rich.

First post the article on your site and give it some time to get indexed. Then submit it to a few article sites.

The article on your site acts as the landing page, provides some useful and specific information, and then clear "calls-to-action" for how your sight can help them best accomplish what you were describing in the article.

Posting it on other sites provides some backlinks and other traffic from those that like to visit the particular article site.

We initially had one article page (we only had a few articles), but going forward we are dedicating a single page to each article.

Good luck.
cd :O)

[webreporter]

A site cannot have too many pages or content. As long, that is, as the content is not redundant, spammy or plagiaristic. Your colleague is right on with all the suggestions and should begin work as soon as possible!

[colincartwright]

OK, I am confused. I have always wanted to know what a landing page is? When someone visits your site, they 'land' usually on the index page and you can have only one of those on a website (in a wesites root directory I mean, not sub folers). Also, as goggle indexes pages and not sites, isn't every page in your site almost a potential landing page?

I would really love someone to explain this to me chapter and verse, cos so far as I can see, you would have to have 10 seperate domain names, with 10 main index pages, all of which pointed to an eleventh main page of another site if you wanted 10 landing pages? Am I right? If so, why not just re-design your other main pages and SEO them properly???

[kayd]

hi colin,

you are correct in that every page in your site is a landing page

you might be thinking of the older name for this strategy 'doorway pages' which historically were not implemented well and did and still do get sites banned (BMW)

Landing pages (keyword target pages, information pages, seo page, etc) if implemented well is a perfectl legitimate strategy. The OP would not use different domains, the pages would sit on the one domain (preferable at the root) and they are built and written to target a specific phrase. 'london sightseeing', 'sightseeing in london', 'things to do in london', 'cruises from london', etc.

Of course all pages in your site should be optimised for a specific phrase or set of keywords but in competitive markets it is necessary to create more content for your site to reach a wider audience.

Those links incrediblehelp provided should help you understand more.

[dogznbonz]

landing pages are being a bit overused here. I can tell you based on years of experience that relevant content is what you need. Call it landing pages if you like, but you really need to be thinking of it in terms of educational content for you visitors. If it can't help the visitor then don't publish it.

Here are the factors that are going to affect your website the most:

Relevant content
Longevity (most looked over fact)
Relevant back links
ConsistencySearch engines are becoming very wise to seo tricks and strategies, so the best idea is to spend 1 to 2 hours a day pouring your heart out into your project with the goal of giving great information to your visitors and you will win. This works great for me and my clients.

[Duncan Pollock]

No way, jose!
If Google teaches us anything about effective PPC, it's that the landing page should be what the visitor is expecting. This also applies with generic searches.
Thus, if someone is interested in sightseeing, they are simply going to end disappointed/frustrated if they reach a pitch for a cruise along the Thames/wherever.
Sure, you can design a series of PPC ads and direct each of them to a tailor made landing page, but I'd question whether the ROI would be anything to get excited about.
Cruises are cruises are cruises, and your site should focus on this and not try to tease people into it with some less than obvious keyword phrase.
With all due respect, the idea of several landing pages is another example of someone (with insufficient knowledge and experience) coming up with a magic answer. There isn't one. SEO is rooted in relevant content not some sideways slithering!

Duncan

[Zombie Master]

I feel there is a distinct difference between landing pages and doorway pages.

We have a site that provides car rentals worldwide and hotel bookings. Two of our pages address these needs and are landing pages. On each, the visitor gets the service he or she needs without additional searching.

When someone wants one or the other, they want it on the page where they land.

Doorway pages are normally considered black hat techniques to attract visitors through misuse of keyword phrases and should not be confused with landing pages.

[JBullet]

Does anyone know if it's possible for a google search to take a user to a specific part of a page where an anchor tag is located? If so, how is it done?