The heart of any business is its process for converting prospects into leads, and then developing those leads into customers. Web-based marketing has produced a variety of tools for attracting and qualifying leads, but the natural focus of these efforts has always been a company’s website. And one of a website’s most useful features is the landing page.

Landing pages are a critical part of both inbound and outbound marketing strategies, because they can transform what a business website can do. Rather than a simple promotional tool showcasing information about a company, its products and services, a website can actually convert prospects into leads. Even better, a well-designed landing page can provide those leads with something they will value as well.

Basically, a landing page is what it sounds like, the page on which visitors who found a website through a custom link or online search will “land.” The page is dedicated to one particular aspect of a company’s business, with information tailored to the keywords that prompted the search engine to find it in the first place. As with any other page, providing high-quality, useful content will help the landing page become a trusted destination for web search traffic, and help to establish a company as an authority in its field.

What makes landing pages useful as a tool for lead conversion, however, is the call to action. Here, the page presents visitor with an offer — a newsletter, webinar, ebook, or some other resource related to whatever subject the landing page is designed to address. This not only creates value for the visitor, but it provides an opportunity to start a conversation: In exchange for the resource, visitors are asked to provide contact information, such as an email address, that allows the company to reach them again.

Ideally, a strong landing page will provide visitors with enough information up front so that casual visitors won’t feel tricked and leave in search of a more forthcoming site. At the same time, the call to action should carry the promise of even more useful information, once the landing page has established the company’s authority. Signing up for the company’s resource should be a simple, straightforward process that allows both the business and the prospect to get what they need with minimal hassle.

Once prospects have responded to a call to action, the company doesn’t just have the basic contact information they need to start pursuing them as leads. Because a landing page is designed to focus on a specific topic, and each one can host a different call to action tailored for a slightly different audience, the company can determine what specific part of its business appealed to each one of the leads who responded. That knowledge can help the sales team build a strategy that stands a better chance of appealing to the lead by providing information about product and service opportunities that could actually interest them.

Two of the most valuable advantages of online marketing are the way a website can make the lead conversion process almost automatic while providing a tremendous amount of data available for a company’s sales team. The strength of a website’s landing pages will help to determine how many of its visitors become leads, and how qualified those leads can be when the sales team begins their work. Actually making the sale may still require the personal touch of a traditional sales pitch, but well-designed landing pages can deliver better leads and more resources than was ever possible before.

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