A Step By Step Method For Writing Landing Pages

Some of the feedback I’ve been getting regarding the writing of landing pages is that a bit more guidance is needed when it comes to what to actually include.  It’s all well and good to give you the permission (should you need it!) to act like a twitterpated peacock, but if you don’t know some of the basic components of a landing page then you’ll find it difficult to get started.  To help you on your way, I want to provide you with a very basic method for creating your landing page:

1. First up you need to add a new page on your blog. I’ve called mine @amypalko as that’s the username I claim for use on all my social network profiles, but you could also call it Follow Me or Social Media Page, or really whatever you decide as long as you ensure it indicates to your blog visitors what the new page is all about.
2. Next, add the photo which you use as your avatar on social media profiles.  This will help promote brand consistency and will also help to familiarise your potential followers with your social media image.
3. Provide a brief biography.  It shouldn’t be of the same length or depth that you provide in your About You page, but just linking to your About You page isn’t sufficient either.  Your potential follower has already clicked through once, and you should give them the information they expected on the first click, rather than asking them to click again.
4. Explain why it is that you use social media – What is it about Twitter/FaceBook/Flickr etc. that appeals to you? Do you use it for personal or professional purposes or a bit of both? What kind of content do you share?
5. Show where else you can be found on the net including any blogs that you write (along with a basic description), social media profiles, video clips, interviews etc.

OPTIONAL. Ask your followers on Twitter to tweet why they follow you & share it on your landing page.  Frequently, other people’s words are more effective in promoting our positives than we are, which is why recommendations are so valued.  If your landing page is more geared towards a social media site such as Flickr or LinkedIn, why not share some excerpts from the recommendations your contacts have written for you there.

Despite giving you this basic structure of a landing page, I want to encourage you to get creative with it.  Perhaps start off with following the method & then see where it takes you.  A few examples that you may want to check out for inspiration include Laura Fitton, Darren Rowse, & Nikki Pilkington, who have all created landing pages for Twitter that have some of the elements I’ve recommended here, but have also mixed things up a little.

Now, if you missed my earlier posts on the Landing Pages Writing Project, you can find them here: Landing Tweets: Group Writing Project Announcement and The Peacock Guide to Landing Pages.   At the end of the month, I’ll be asking all of those who have created a landing page to share a link to it & I’ll be writing a post listing all participants in the first week of June.  So you have 2 weeks left to have a go at it & if you have any questions or need some more advice, don’t hesitate to get in touch either on the blog or on twitter.

In the meantime, do you have any advice for those writing a landing page?  Have you come across difficulties writing your own?  How did you resolve those difficulties?  What did you choose to include in yours, and do you agree with the basic method I’ve provided here?  Your comments, as always, are very much appreciated!