Most web designers build their websites with little consideration for developing free search engine traffic. Designers naturally assume that everyone comes to the front door or main page; actually it's much easier to attract traffic to pages with a narrower focus.
The main index page of your website is often too general in focus to rank as well as possible in the search engines so the average webmaster spends much more time and money developing traffic than they did in designing the original website.
I wanted to clear up some misconceptions concerning the use of doorway or lead pages to generate free traffic from the search engines. Used correctly lead pages are acceptable to the search engines and they can actually boost your overall traffic count by 100 to 1,000 percent.
Mini-sites are often successful because they are more specific and highly targeted. Lead pages can be used in the same ways as mini-sites and can even be more successful, even in the Pay-Per-Click search engines.
Lead pages can deliver your visitors to your sales pages and develop free highly targeted traffic, but it used incorrectly they may be considered spam by the search engines and can get your site banned.
Effective Lead Pages
The search engine's first responsibility is to deliver information directly related to a search, not to help promote our websites or help us boost sales. The secret to the effective use of lead pages is to understand how we can best assist the search engines to deliver more relevant search results.
An effective lead page answers the question typed into the search engine as specifically as possible. The process should be considered a two step process. Step one, you give your visitor exactly what they clicked on your page to get, and step two, offer a link to related information to ask for the sale.
It's best to do some research in the search engines before writing the copy. You need to define the question your potential visitor will ask. If they have a problem, you can capitalize on providing a solution. Perhaps there is a common misconception that you can clear up. Consider what makes your product better than other similar products; focus on only one issue per lead page. If there are multiple issues or benefits, create additional
lead pages.
Knock Off The Leaders
A lead page should never be general in focus; the more specific it is to a single issue or concern the more traffic it will attract. Choose the most specific keywords you can. Test the various keywords in the search engines before using them. Take the time to visit the top websites that come up in the search results for your keywords. Your visitors may visit several pages so it's important that your page more specifically address the
single issue better than the other top listings.
Attracting a qualified lead requires a winning title and description because that's all people see in the search results. You will never get the visitor unless you offer the winning title and description first.
What you want to do is deliver specific information in your lead pages not sales hype, if you must use hype, save that for your sales page. Offer a link to your sales page at the bottom of your lead page to direct them to more detailed information.
Targeting Traffic With Lead Pages
Lead pages often attract more traffic than your main pages because a lead page can be more highly targeted. The search engines will be your partners if you understand that their purpose is to provide results relevant to the keywords in the search.
The purpose of a lead page is *NOT* to make a sale its single purpose is to provide specific information in order to deliver a qualified lead to your sales site. Effective lead pages are short; don't try to make them into mini-sites. Less is more, remember you want to be specific; don't try to tell the whole story on your lead page.
It's worth taking the time and investing the effort in every single lead page. One good lead page can drive thousands of highly targeted visitors to your site earning you more income than an expensive advertising campaign, and it's free targeted traffic.
Keyword Density
Search engines evaluate keyword density. If you have 200 words in your lead page and three key word phrases appear in your title, description and in your copy naturally you will get a high keyword density rank, often higher than many of the top listings. The more times you can naturally and effectively use a keyword phrase in your copy the higher keyword density you'll achieve.
Three to five percent keyword density is considered great for any page, more may be seen as keyword spamming and actually lower you're ranking. If you include a graphic use the most important keyword phrase in the graphic's alt="tag".
Write 2 to 5 short paragraphs, just enough to address ONE specific benefit or issue. If you can identify and use 2 or three keyword phrases designed to address an identified desire in your market you will achieve good ranking. Don't try to do everything in one lead page, make separate lead pages for each issue you can identify. Rather than making 10 and stopping, make one or two a week as you identify new issues in your market.
Link Popularity
Search engines give higher rankings to pages that link to other popular pages. It's usually a good idea to include a link bar on your lead pages, usually at the bottom, offering high quality links to your most important related pages. The search engines will spider these links and your whole website's link popularity score will raise over time.
It's best if any offsite links add value to your lead page. Choose popular affiliate links to related products where you will earn a commission. Your visitors will often click on one of your other links rather than leaving right away if your lead page delivered good information but wasn't exactly what they wanted.
Affiliate Programs
If you promote affiliate programs you will do a lot better promoting your own lead pages than you will promoting a supplied affiliate website. In fact, I don't even bother submitting affiliate websites. The search engines are not interested in delivering traffic to hundreds or thousands of identical
webpages.
Build your lead pages to address the individual benefits your affiliate product offers and you will generate a lot more traffic to your affiliate pages.
Summing Up
Don't try to deliver all your traffic to your websites front door, develop your own targeted pages addressing single issues and have those pages lead them to your sales pages after delivering whatever they were searching for in the first place. Lead pages often sell better than your main website in the Pay-Per-Click search engines as well.
People search for specific information; give them what they want before asking anything from them.
Quality counts more than quantity, a few well researched and thought out lead pages can deliver much more traffic than an expensive advertising campaign.