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You’ve heard of search engine optimization (SEO), but you probably haven’t spent much time thinking about landing page optimization (LPO). Landing page optimization focuses on, you guessed it, landing pages. A landing page can be defined as any page that you see after clicking on a display ad, paid search ad (PPC/SEM), organic search result, or even an inter-site call to action (CTA). Often, we see well planned paid search or display advertising campaigns, with good creative, but the landing page is an afterthought in many marketers’ minds. This is probably the most common mistake made when planning an online marketing strategy.

It doesn’t matter how many prospects you can attract with great display advertising or a search campaign, if you can’t convert that prospect once your have their (very short) attention. The most important reason to focus on your landing page optimization strategy is because a little added focus can often have immediate impact on your online conversion funnel metrics and company revenue.

For illustrative purposes, let’s say your site conversion rate is 0.5% of all visitors. This means that 0.5% of all website visitors have either purchased an item, or submitted their lead information, depending on your business model. What if you could increase this number to just 0.7%? That doesn’t sound like much, but you just increased your online sales or lead generation by 40%, if traffic remains constant! This is exactly what landing page optimization focuses on. Results like this are often within reach to accomplish. This is especially true if you employ an iterative process of A/B and multivariate testing to your landing pages.

A recent study, conducted by Marketing Sherpa in February 2011, on landing page optimization ROI, concluded that 87% of companies could see a direct impact on their annual revenue from landing page optimization efforts. This poll was based on 2,673 respondents.

So, how do you get started? What are some best practices for building a LPO program? Some of my future blog posts will focus on how to conduct a landing page optimization study and design process. Let me know what kind of questions you’d like to see addressed in those blog posts, in the comments below. I’d be happy to hear your questions or suggestions.