Google is constantly updating its algorithm. This year alone, they announced 12 important updates.
But, of course, that doesn’t include the hundreds of minor updates Google has made to its search engine.
Could these updates affect the performance of your landing pages? Absoutely.
Adapting to these constant changes goes beyond just optimizing your content for SERPs.
On December 15th, I hosted a sponsored webinar presented by Mordy Oberstein, Communications Manager at Semrush.
Oberstein showed how to improve your landing page SEO and increase conversions with a set of data-driven tips you can put into practice today.
Want more details, data and advice on Oberstein’s presentation? Here’s a quick recap of the webinar.
How landing pages and SEO have changed
People are now more tech-savvy and skeptical, as has been observed with the increase in data privacy and security research in recent years.
Likewise, Google is becoming increasingly aware and skeptical of the content that comes out.
People and search engines are looking for a good experience with real information.
However, ranking your landing pages isn’t just about the information on a single page.
It’s important to think about how your landing pages reflect and connect to your website, overall.
[See The Data: Site Rankings Vs. Page Rankings] Get instant access to this webinar →
The ability to rank landing pages depends on the whole site
It’s not just about landing pages. John Mueller has explained on several occasions how quality applies to the whole site.
It is clear that Google wants to make sure that you and your visitors have a great site experience.
The Problem with Landing Pages: Lack of Information and Best Practices for a Full Site
As a marketer, it’s natural to look at landing pages from a conversion perspective.
Additionally, many still believe that landing pages are standalone entities or orphan pages, that they are not part of a larger site.
That’s why the things you usually do, or wouldn’t do on your blog or product pages, you’re happy to do on landing pages.
It’s time to change that mindset.
[Solve Your Landing Page Problems] Get instant access to this webinar →
The future of landing pages: informative, data-driven, consistent
Remember, users aren’t looking for conversions. They come to landing pages for information.
Information leads to conversions.
If your users don’t get this information first, they won’t be converted.
Focus more on user information rather than selling.
In addition to proactively answering questions from your users, brand consistency and SEO best practices will become more important.
Landing pages are part of a bigger site. It is essential to think about transferring all the expertise, authority and trust of your website to your landing pages.
How to make a landing page informative
Google can tell when you are trying to sell instead of telling visitors – it will affect your rankings.
If you are using product reviews, make sure there is no pressure to sell something.
If you want to get more newsletter signups, let them know – be sure to let visitors know what kind of content they’ll get when they sign up.
[Make Your Landing Pages More Informative Now] Get instant access to this webinar →
How Branding and SEO Work Together
Brand marketing and site perception are part of SEO – it’s the mindset you need to adopt if you want to rank higher on landing pages.
Make sure the ads don’t overshadow your authoritative content, and make sure your branded content matches your user’s needs and intent.
Find user intent and embed it on your landing page
When creating useful and informative content for your landing pages, Semrush recommends starting with empathy. Then start your keyword research.
To create informative content that connects with your user and helps them decide to convert, include:
- Where do your users come from?
- What must happen to them?
- What content will be useful to them?
- Would they trust this article?
- Would they buy these products?
Build that into the perception of your landing page, but don’t stop there.
See how your site is perceived because your content is your brand, including landing pages.
[How Does Perception Affect Landing Page Rankings?] Get instant access to the full webinar →
Find out: Why is Google ranking one page over another?
Friendliness is going to be a big differentiator here. The future of optimization is experience and usability.
- How digestible is the information for the user?
- Are you giving information in the best possible way?
- Is it formatted in a way that makes sense to the user?
The more small business sites I see, the fewer technical SEO issues I see, and the more the issues lie in the content (outdated, duplicated across multiple sites, incorrect, low quality, etc.). CMSs tend to do most of the technical stuff right (or “fair enough”) these days.
– 🐄 John 🐄 (@JohnMu) February 15, 2021
More data-driven tips and information for better landing page rankings
Semrush has learned valuable lessons about landing page SEO by analyzing over 20,000 landing page URLs and home page ranking models.
[Find Out What The Data Revealed] Get instant access to the entire webinar →
Key points to remember
- Don’t orphan your landing pages. Connect them with the rest of your site as much as possible.
- Offer useful and specific content, not just “sales content”. Google increasingly understands intention.
- When creating content for landing pages, focus on empathy before keywords.
- Understand how visitors and Google perceive your site and its content.
- Don’t go too far in pushing the conversion.
- Usability will differentiate your content.
[Slides] Best Practices and Tips for Landing Page SEO Success
Here is the presentation:
Join us for our next webinar!
How We Built Over 600 Links In 30 Days And You Can Too
Learn how to optimize your landing pages and make better use of the traffic you are already getting. Join our next webinar on Wednesday, December 15 at 2 p.m. ET, and learn how to rank higher on Google’s SERPs.
Image credits
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita / Search Engine Journal
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