If you’re anything like me, when someone starts talking about Landing Pages your eyes glaze over and you start thinking about the laundry you forgot to take out of the washer from three days ago or you wonder if you left the oven on. You know. Important stuff takes over your brain.
Seriously, though. What in the world is a Landing Page?
They are so frequently referred to when you talk to a website person that I was kind of afraid to ask. I felt like that kid in math class where everyone understands exactly how 4=2x solves as 2 and I was left scratching my head wondering. Do I raise my hand to ask the question? Am I the dumb kid in the room?
Since I have looked at hundreds of golf course websites, I can feel quite comfortable that I have found my tribe.
That’s right.
The people who know absolutely NOTHING about Landing Pages. Thanks, Golf Course Operators.
It’s time to fix that! I’m raising my hand and giving you a big fat explanation of why you need to have a landing page for your golf course.
Landing Page Basics
The first order of business is to answer the question of what exactly is a Landing Page.
In pretty basic terms, it’s a one page website. Rather than clicking on links that take you to multiple pages and provides you an overwhelm of information the way a website might do, a Landing Page has a single purpose. There are two types of Landing Pages. One type is a Landing Page that is designed to sell a product or service. The second type is designed to create a customer or lead.
You might create a Landing Page for a tournament you’re hosting. It would have a specific address that you’d send your golfer to view ie. www.demogolfcourse.com/tournament and there would only be information about the tournament on that page. Nothing about anything else taking place on the course. It’s single purpose is to sign up golfers for the tournament.
The Why
I have a funny feeling that I haven’t made a very good case for why you need to spend a little time and convert some of your current webpages into Landing Pages. Let’s take a little closer look at the advantages in the subtle change of design.
Landing Pages are specific to your goal. Think of a Landing Page as something that helps with the Squirrel Syndrome.
If you are advertising for your golf outing, then you want a specific page they visit. That page should be about the Tournament and nothing else. When the golfer goes to find out more information about the tournament, they will have a different message if they go visit www.demogolfcourse.com. Your website will have lots of “squirrels” to distract them from the goal.
If they visit www.demogolfcourse.com/tournament, then the sole purpose of that site is to attract and sign up golfers for the tournament. It has a very specific goal, making it easier to achieve the desired result without all of those distracting “squirrels.”
You also need to build trust with your golfer.
I get it. I do this all of the time. My family’s golf course has been in business for almost 45 years. I often assume that everyone within a 30 mile radius knows about our golf course. Duh. I know about it. Why don’t they?
Same goes for your golf outing, new hire, online store, whatever it is you’re selling, you need to build some trust. Surprisingly, not everyone knows about you.
That’s the purpose of the Landing Page. It’s to help you convert browsers into buyers. It changes someone who is browsing for golf tournaments into someone who is playing in yours.
POTENTIAL GOALS FOR LANDING PAGES
- You want sign ups for a golf tournament
- You want to hire new staff
- You want new golfers on your email list
- You have a sale in your online store
- Your Members need a different message in your sales copy
- The Golfer enters a contest
- Membership Drive
- Event Page for Community Awareness
- Attract potential Brides
Let’s take a look at how your should design your Landing Page, so that it converts and helps you reach your goals.
The Template
When you’re creating a Landing Page, it shouldn’t look like your website. It should look like your brand where there are the same fonts and colors used, but the overall appearance should be distinguishable and specific to the Landing Page.
Let’s build out a Landing Page for a golf tournament, so you can see the nuts and bolts of a good landing page.
Here’s a basic outline of a Landing Page:
- Call Out to Your Audience
- Attention: All Local Golfers
- Attention: Junior Golfers
- Looking for Pro Shop Staff
- Headline
- Name of Golf Outing
- Declare You’re Hiring
- Receive 20% Off
- Membership Drive
- Sub-headline (optional)
- Use this if your headline needs some additional information for explanation.
- Introduction
- This is a paragraph or two that explains your overall goal.
- Share some information about the charity your golf outing is supporting.
- Explain what type of job is available.
- Offer ideas on the contest you’re holding.
- Prove Your Golf Course/Tournament is Best
- This is where you build some social proof
- “Brag” a little on the thing that separates you from other courses
- Explain why should they play in your golf tournament, apply for a job, or sign up for a lesson
- Write Bulleted Benefits
- This is where you can condense the important information into a list
- Provide Testimonials
- This is important as it helps to build credibility. Ask your golfers to provide a testimonial
- Reveal and Review Details
- Review the key elements of your overall goal.
- Four Person Scramble, Date, Shotgun Time, Registration
- Positions available for hire
- Reveal Price
- If you’re selling something, this is where you reveal the price.
- By the time the price is revealed, your golfer should have already made up his mind to purchase
- Introduce Scarcity
- We live in a last minute society, so you need to provide something that forces a decision.
- Price goes up in two days, limited number of positions available, while supplies last, etc.
- Call to Action
- This will be different depending on the goal of your Landing Page
- You might want them to Sign Up Now, Download this Coupon, Submit their Information
- Include P.S.
- This section is for the skimmers.
- People primarily read the bolded areas and then move on. Here’s your last chance to concisely explain your Landing Page’s goal.
- Write FAQ’s
- Here are where you take away their potential concerns.
- Do you get asked the same question constantly? This is where those questions get answered.
- Remove all doubt that your golf course is the only option for your potential customer.
- Last Call to Action
- The final section of your Landing Page should be one last Call to Action button where you get them to sign up, submit, download, etc.
Most Important Part
The best part of a Landing Page is that it gives you something specific to market. If you are running Facebook ads for a golf tournament, you don’t want that ad to be directed to your website.
You want that ad to go directly to the information about that golf outing. You will see a much higher conversion rate when you have one goal. One task you want your golfer complete.
If you’re ready to start adding some landing pages to your site, then I suggest you head over to this website for inspiration! It’s like a pinterest board for landing pages. You’ll see all the different options you have available. Right at your finger tips!
Psssst…
If you don’t have a creative bone in your body, then check out Leadpages. They specialize in creating Landing Pages that convert visitors into paying customers.
If you’ve taken my website building course, then you have also heard me talk about Thrive Themes. If you use one of their themes, they also have a Landing Page builder. Make sure you check it out for inspiration!
I can’t wait to hear which type of Landing Page you create first!
