(photo by Joella Marano)
Type casting is very dangerous for an actor.
But for business, a typecast can be extremely profitable.
Take for instance Rupert Grint of Harry Potter fame who turned 23 today.
I must have been about his age now when Rupert first became recognised as Ronald Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise. To me, he’s always going to be the scared little red headed boy he played.
But can you picture him in a WAR ACTION FILM?
Someone clearly saw his potential, he’ll be acting in one soon. Hopefully he’ll break out of the type-cast he’s been so comfortably in for most of his career.
A Landing Page is Not a Landing Page?
Several years back when I got into the web business circle, I had a friend was trying to be everything to everyone. His business specialised in AdWords, SEO, social media, network marketing, info marketing and more.
It made for a very confusing landing page experience.
Let me back up for a second here…
I know when I talk about landing pages you probably think of the Eben Pagan style headline with optin box that subscribes people to some sort of promotional email newsletter.
But a landing page doesn’t necessarily look like that.
A landing page is simply the first page a visitor sees when they “land on” your website from a search or 3rd party website.
It could be your homepage, your facebook page, or even your YouTube video. It’s the first contact someone has with your business.
Ronald Weasley is Rupert’s Landing Page
In a way, Ronald Weasley was Rupert’s landing page for all his future roles.
That first impression should always tell whatever is most important about you.
Rupert showed he could play Ronald Weasley brilliantly – when a director needs someone to play a a similar timid character, they come to Rupert.
But my friend with the multiple identities was like an actor playing 5 different characters in the same movie.
How could anyone bond with such a business?
Impossible!
His landing pages had long headlines promising information about a number of different things…without being specifically about one thing.
Landing Pages Answer Questions
Today’s web savvy customer asks specific questions in search engines…then they click the closest promise of an answer.
So here’s what you should do to write compelling headlines for any content you put out to be found:
Questions usually begin with the words who, why, when, what, where,
how, or is.
Here are some common first words you can use to answer these
questions…
- Who: a person’s name
- Why: ”because…”
- When: ”at…” ( specific time )
- What: an imperative verb eg, “download”, “watch”, “start”. A noun eg, “traffic”, “a webpage”, “facebook”.
- Where: a location description
- How: ”by…” followed by a state of being -ing verb eg, “doing”, “having”, ”taking”
- Is: ”yes” or “no”
Want an example?
Suppose someone searches for:
“Where can i get more traffic”
Suppose they click your website and the first words they see are:
“From Facebook, you can get all the traffic you need using this strange method.”
Pretty simple right?
Try it!
Remember only give ONE answer per page. Every page is a landing page for the rest of your website.
Learn more about creating pages that compel customers to respond – Be sure to attend the Internet Business Academy here…
~jim
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One Response to By Answering Questions – You Can Have Compelling Landing Pages!
I love the parallels drawn between Ron Weasley and the landing page. The concept actually became very clear to me as I internalized this article.
P.S. I love the Harry Potter books and movies!