Summary: Landing page optimization techniques begin with common sense, good writing, and search engine optimization, and go on to include more sophisticated techniques that help you experiment with content and track metrics to determine the best possible outcome.

Attract and Engage Visitors

Creating a successful website goes beyond creating great content that people want to read, or offering useful products people want to buy. The Webmaster must pay attention to optimization techniques designed to bring more people in, keep them at the site longer, and keep them coming back. Following are some tips for landing page optimization that are used by some of the most successful Webmasters.

1. Get 'em in. The Web is a crowded place, and even great websites often go unnoticed. Getting visitors to your website in the first place can be done through a process of search engine optimization, which takes the most common keywords and key phrases that relate to your website, and ensures that those keywords are used in headlines, within the text, and in the keyword header. Although the keyword header is not visible to human visitors, it is visible to the search engine—and that's what helps boost your site in the rankings.
2. Well written content. The text on your landing page is vital. Not only should it be search-engine-optimized, it must be professionally written by a writer with marketing expertise. The text needs to not only inform the visitor about what you are offering, it must also entertain them. The visitor needs to enjoy staying on the site, and enjoy reading what you have to offer.
3. Continuous experimentation. Use landing page optimization tools that offer A/B or multivariate tracking, so you can constantly experiment with your landing page content. Small changes in your layout or in the text can translate into a big difference in traffic, and these tools help you track those differences—and easily determine what works best.
4. Behavioral targeting. Your optimization tools will give you the ability to know exactly what people are doing on your website, what they are looking at, and what they are missing. Based on the behavior of your visitors, you can enhance their online experience for subsequent visits by immediately greeting them by name, and showing them products or information that, based on their previous visit, you know that they are likely to appreciate.
5. Multiple calls to action. Just like a salesperson that works in a brick-and-mortar retail shop, a Web site also has to "close the deal." The call to action needs to be immediate and exciting, and repeated on multiple pages to make it easier and more appealing for the visitor to take the desired action.
6. Don't forget about the "encore page". After you issue the "call to action", the visitor should get a "thank you" page, to acknowledge in a friendly manner that you have received the visitor's order. But don't stop there. That acknowledgement page can be a jumping off point to more activity, including cross-sell or up-sell, or at least, a return to your main site.