The Pages Have Landed
What is a landing page? Landing pages are FPA's on steroids. They can
be niche specific, they can cover many niches, they can be single page
or multipage. They can be graphically oriented or they can be mostly text.
These can be used in several ways. They can be a "collection point"
that many of your other pages feed into. Properly optimized they can be
a source of traffic on their own. Most outgoing links on them will go
straight to sponsors or more niche specific hubs and pages. Just about
every word, pic and link on these are advertising.
You can basically duplicate these and make em part of a surfer trap with
a zillion consoles or make them surfer friendly and limit yourself to
one console or none.
There is a great deal of creativity that can be used with these pages.
Because these are one pagers they will have both primary and secondary
keywords on the same page in greater numbers than other types of hubs
and pages.
Let's outline a "review" sort of site. Use member area screen
shots when possible to lend some credibility to your review.
| Zone
1 - mixed use |
| Zone
3 - optional links/adverts |
Zone
2 - seo/content |
Zone
4-optional adverts/links |
| Zone
5 - adverts - optional links |
Zone 1. This is a mixed use zone. Logo and primary search
terms in the form of an H1 tag should be in here. Use a style sheet to
rewrite the H1 tag so it matches your site. Keep it brief - it's a title
that will summarize for the engines what your site is about. Do NOT repeat
the title you used for the site in the meta tag.
You may also put some advertising in here - try to be creative - and
the use of a rotator of some sort is HIGHLY recommended. This is a very
important zone - it is what the engines will see first. Any java that
is used here needs to be an external file so the search engines can find
what they need without the script lines getting in the way.
Welcoming text is optional - if you use it place it right after Zone
1 and above the content. Remember the spiders read from top to bottom
and left to right. Some engines read a lot of text, others don't - so
you might want to use a welcome text block that describes the site and
uses all your primary keywords to be sure the spiders get an idea about
what this page has on it. You can go into more detail later on the page.
Zone 2. This is where you will place your niched "reviews"
or other content. Whenever possible design each area so it can use a title
for the niche and use an H2 tag for that title. You'll probably have a
lot of secondary keywords in the text of these individual areas.
This does double duty - it's a combination of sales text and search engine
optimization. It will probably take you longer to write this than it will
to do anything else on this site. Use your keywords, all the primary's
need to be in here somewhere and the secondaries also. Do not worry about
density. Don't spam it - but make it readable to the surfer - it is a
sales tool also.
If at all possible use H2 tags for major paragraph headings that contain
primary keywords. Think of the site as an outline - main title = H1, major
subtopics = H2 The niche titles are usually H2. Don't forget alt tags
on your pics. And remember to name your pics with keywords as file names.
Zone 3 - This is another double duty area - outgoing
links to other hubs and advertising can be placed here. If you make this
a vertical zone and include advertising it is strongly suggested that
a scrolling button or text link arrangement is used or a vertical banner
rotator. Vertical skyscraper ads can work very well here.
This zone may be combined with Zone 4 depending on your site layout.
This zone does not need to be on the left hand side - it can be on the
right, or it can be horizontal between content "layers". In
other words do a site review and then toss in some links to something
else - a hub, an AVS, a text link to a sponsor, whatever you want - under
that site review and before the next one.
You can also use horizontal scrolling marquees effectively in this area.
It's a good idea to mix up the advertising a bit. Have a review or two,
then some text linking, a few more reviews, then a marquee, I"m sure
you get the idea.
If you use images for links - be SURE to include keywords in the alt
tags. Try to avoid a "bare" text link. In other words include
some keyword in a brief description under each text link. Whenever possible
the text link should be a primary or secondary keyword. It should also
be an H3 tag.
Zone 4 - This is an optional advertising and/or linking
area. Follow the suggestions for linking/advertising in Zone 3.
Zone 5 - This is a good area for banner exchanges, email
collection boxes, "free" offers, etc. It's also a good place
to put a closing sales paragraph that sums up your site. It can be very
similar to the welcome text but should absolutely not be an exact duplicate
of it. Make it primary keyword intense.
You don't have any need for an entry page on these.
You COULD make these multi page sites. To do this merely break them into
a general category for the opening page, and then do a niche page using
niches like ethnic, lesbian, mature, etc. If you do a multi page site
be sure to include a site map in zone 5.
You have total creative control on this - especially the middle area
of the site. You could do a series of table ads rather than a site review.
You could even do a TGP 2 sort of layout.
Done well these pages can get their own traffic from the engines, and
they make an ideal spot to send surfers who aren't interested in what
you have on a free site.
