Have you ever thought about landing page success? Are you looking blankly at the screen right now? Well it’s time to start thinking about it. A successful landing page is the key to a successful website, and a successful website is the key to a successful business. It’s time for you to take a good look at your free website and make sure you are meeting everything on this checklist – that’s right, all of them!

First – how do you know if your landing page is successful? You need to think about what your business website is for. If you are trying to get people to buy a product and they are buying it then you know it is working, same goes for things like software downloads. But what if you aren’t actually selling something? Perhaps your website is just there to give people more information about your business, or about you. You can check to see if your landing page is successful by using a site analytics program such as Google Analytics. Check out your bounce rate. This is the percentage of people who left your website without going beyond the landing page – single page visits. A low bounce rate is good, it means people are going beyond your landing page. Good for you! A high bounce rate means that people are bounding straight from your landing page.

Got a high bounce rate? It’s time to get on to that checklist –

1. Brevity – don’t overwhelm people with words. You only have a few seconds to grab their attention – there are other websites that they could be visiting. Long pre-ambles will put them off.

2. Big headline – make it clear what you do using a big headline. It needn’t be words – a good image in your website banner can be just as good.

3. Above the Fold – all of your most crucial information should be above the fold. This means that it should be visible when people land – they should not have to scroll to get to it.

4. Fast Load – you free website needs to load quickly for all internet browsers. This means optimizing your images and testing your website out in as many different browsers as you can. If you are using a web page background image make sure it is of a low resolution!

5. Address the Reader – Use copy that says "you" and "your" rather than "we" or "our." This sort of direct address helps to engage your business web page visitor and makes them feel like they’re being spoken to.

6. Content Accuracy – Make sure your spelling and grammar are correct. Anything less could give a terrible impression of your website and your business.

7. Good Use of Images and Color – Your colors should be balanced and complement one another – your web page background color should contrast well with your text. Your colors shouldn’t make your visitors’ eyes hurt! Images should definitely be used but should be appropriate and relevant to your free website.

8. Clear Navigation – This will help your visitor to know where it is that they should go next. If your visitor is unable to get to where they want to go they are going to leave.

9. Control Where Your Visitor Looks – think about the way people read. In Western countries they read from left to right. Have the logo in the left hand corner, follow it with the banner and below that have your key information. In cultures that read from right to left reverse.

10. Include a Call to Action – people need to be told what to do, how they can take the next step. A simple Call to Action using urgent, direct language will help with your conversion and bounce rates.

Go through that check list and make sure that you are ticking all those boxes and you should do just fine.