How to Optimise a Landing Page for SEO
The one page type where two objectives pull against each other. A page built purely to convert is frequently too thin to be found. A page built to be found frequently buries the thing it wanted somebody to do. Resolving that is the actual skill.
One Page, One Job
A landing page exists to produce a single action. Not to inform, not to cover a subject, not to serve several audiences. That constraint is what distinguishes it from every other page type. It governs everything else about it.
What the single job means. An outcome, named.
An enquiry, a booking, a call, a form completed. One of those, decided before the page is built, with everything on the page either serving it or removed.
How it differs from a service page. Scope.
A service page describes something you do and may be read by somebody comparing suppliers. A landing page is aimed at one action for one audience, which is narrower and more constrained.
How it differs from a guide. No conversion pressure.
A guide can succeed by answering a question and letting somebody leave better informed. A landing page that does that has failed, because informing was never its purpose.
What that constraint produces. Discipline and a problem.
Everything unnecessary comes off, which is why landing pages convert. It also strips out the substance that would make the page findable, which is block two.
What that means for the reader. They arrived deliberately.
Somebody reaching a landing page is usually further along than a general visitor, having searched for something specific. Treating them as needing persuasion from the beginning wastes the position they arrived in.
Where they come from. Frequently advertising.
Many landing pages were built for paid campaigns, where being found was irrelevant because traffic was purchased. Repurposing one for search is where the tension usually surfaces.
The Tension Between Converting And Ranking
A page built purely to convert is frequently too thin to be found. A page built to be found frequently buries the action under substance nobody asked for. Both failures are common and they pull in opposite directions.
Why a converting page struggles to rank. Nothing to assess.
A headline, three benefits and a form is an excellent conversion device and almost nothing to judge. It answers no question, so there is little reason to show it to somebody searching.
Why a findable page struggles to convert. The action disappears.
Adding the substance that makes a page worth showing pushes the action down and gives the reader other things to do. The page becomes informative and stops asking.
Why this is genuinely a tension. Both objectives are real.
This is not a case where one approach is simply correct. A business needs the page to be found and needs it to produce enquiries. Optimising for either damages the other.
Why it does not arise elsewhere. Different pressures.
A guide has no conversion requirement. A product page has a specification supplying substance automatically. A service page sells without being built around one action. This type has both pressures and no natural resolution.
What resolving it requires. Sequence rather than compromise.
Splitting the difference produces a page that is mediocre at both. The workable answer is deciding what comes first and what sits below it, which is block three.
How We Resolve It
Selling material at the top, supporting substance below it. Somebody ready to act never scrolls past the first screen. Somebody assessing the page finds enough to judge it. Neither audience is asked to tolerate the other's content.
What sits above. The proposition and the action.
What this is, who it is for and what to do next, in the space somebody sees on arrival. That part is written for the reader who has already decided.
What sits below. The substance.
What the service involves, what it costs or what drives the cost, who it suits and who it does not, then the questions people actually ask. That is the material that makes the page worth showing.
Why that order rather than the reverse. Nobody scrolls to buy.
A reader ready to act will not read four sections first. A reader assessing will scroll. Putting the action first serves the decided reader without costing the undecided one anything.
How data appears. As proof, briefly.
Where we cite something from our own research, it appears as a short statement supporting a point rather than as analysis. A landing page is not the place for a study. Treating it as one is how the substance turns into bulk.
Why we are describing this. It is checkable.
You can look at our own trade pages and see whether they do what this block claims. That is more useful than asserting a structure works. It is the only reason this block is here.
Do Not Build A Doorway Page
A set of near-identical landing pages differing only by place name is a doorway page. That is a defined category in published guidance rather than something we happen to dislike, so it is treated accordingly.
What the pattern is. One page, many towns.
A template with a place name substituted, produced across dozens or hundreds of locations. Same copy, same structure, same claims, different town in the heading.
Why businesses build them. It looks like coverage.
Each page appears to target a local search, while generating them is nearly free. The logic is sound if the only consideration is how many pages exist.
Why it is a policy matter. It is named.
Pages created to funnel visitors towards the same destination without adding value are covered explicitly in published guidance. This is not a grey area. Our risky practices material covers what follows.
What the substitution reveals. Nothing was written.
If a page works with any town name inserted, it contains nothing about any town. That is the test. It is one anybody can apply to their own pages in a minute.
What it costs beyond the policy risk. The reader.
Somebody in a specific place reading a page that could describe anywhere learns nothing about whether you serve them. Even where these pages are found, they persuade nobody.
What Makes A Location Page Legitimate
Genuine local information, real detail about your coverage there, plus something on each page that exists nowhere else on the site. The test is whether somebody in that place would find it worth reading.
Genuine local information. Specific to there.
The areas you actually cover, how long you take to reach them, where you are based relative to them, local conditions that affect the work. Facts rather than the place name repeated.
Real coverage detail. Including limits.
Which parts of a town you serve and which you do not, whether there is a travel charge, what your response time genuinely is. Stating limits is what makes the rest believable.
Something unique to that page. The hardest requirement.
Work you have done there, conditions particular to that area, a case you can describe. This is what stops the page being a template. It is why sensible location pages are few rather than many.
The practical consequence. Fewer pages.
A business that can genuinely write this for six places should have six pages. One that cannot should not have sixty. The constraint is a feature rather than a limitation.
The reader test. Would somebody there value it.
Not whether it targets a search. Whether a person in that town reading it learns something useful. If the answer is no, the page has no purpose beyond appearing.
The Action Has To Be Obvious
A page with three competing actions has none. On a page type defined by having one job, offering several requests is the failure that most directly contradicts the purpose.
What obvious means. Unmissable and singular.
One thing to do, visible without scrolling, stated in words describing what happens. Not a choice between options, which converts the reader into somebody making a decision about the page.
What three actions produce. Hesitation.
Call, email, book, download, subscribe. Each is reasonable and together they ask the reader to choose a channel before choosing you, which is an obstacle nobody intended.
Where the extras come from. Committee.
Different people wanting different outcomes on the same page. Each addition is defensible individually and the aggregate is a page asking for five things.
Repeating it is not the same as adding. One action, several places.
The same request appearing again further down is helpful, because somebody who scrolled should not have to scroll back. That is repetition rather than competition.
What this is not. Conversion advice.
How to word or design a request is a separate discipline. The point here is structural: a page with one job should ask for one thing, which is a decision rather than a technique.
Speed Matters More Here
A landing page frequently carries the heaviest design on a site: large images, video, animation and tracking. That costs more on this page type than on any other, because of who is arriving.
Why these pages are heavy. They are designed.
Landing pages get visual attention that ordinary pages do not, so they accumulate imagery and effects. Each addition is a design decision with a performance consequence nobody weighed.
Why it costs more here. The visitor is deciding.
Somebody arriving at a guide will tolerate a wait to get an answer. Somebody arriving at a page asking them to enquire has no investment yet, so leaving costs them nothing.
What usually causes it. Images.
Photographs at far larger dimensions than the page displays, which is the commonest cause of slowness anywhere and concentrated on pages built to look impressive.
The second cause. Tracking.
Landing pages accumulate measurement because they are the pages people measure. Each script is a request the page waits for before finishing.
Where this is covered properly. The technical material.
Our technical guides own performance, including why images account for more than servers do. The full series is on the on page SEO guide. Service pages covers the type most trade businesses need first.
Insert any town
name. Does the page
still work?
If it does, the page contains nothing about any town. That is the doorway test and anybody can apply it to their own pages in a minute. It is a defined category in published guidance rather than a matter of taste.
How we build one:
If you can genuinely write six location pages, you should not have sixty.
Every guide.
One practice.
What a page says about itself, headings, keywords, search intent, images, page types, user behaviour, credibility and how to review an existing site.
