If you’re pushing all of your search traffic (PPC or natural) into your home page, you may be missing out on conversions.

When a user gets to a page that they’ve found on a search engine, always remember that they got there (usually) by a specific keyword phrase.  You can greatly increase your chances of converting that visitor into a buyer by showing them a landing page with those same keywords.

One thing that I’m continually telling my clients is that you can truly only optimize a page well for 1-2 keyword phrases.  It is also important to note here that an optimized page doesn’t ONLY rank well, but it must convert well too.  If not, is it really optimized?  Maybe our industry should change its name to Search Engine Conversion Optimization…  SECO has a good ring to it too…

So, if a page can really only be SECOed for 1-2 keyword phrases and you’re buying 15,000 keywords that you’re pushing into your home page, it stands to reason that you may be experiencing more fall-out than necessary.  If I go into a store looking for sandals but all I see when I walk in the front door is hiking boots, I may, and a certain percentage of all people may, turn around before we find the sandals by the back door.  The great thing about the interweb is that we can have as many doors as we want.  And if someone wants sandals, or cruises or all inclusive or whatever, we can lead them through that door.

I’ve seen a couple of general studies that have shown around a 40% increase in conversions after implementing keyword targeted landing pages.  In my experience, travel sites can see conversions increase in that same ballpark.  I’ve personally seen it increase conversions by 30-35%.

Landing pages should have your targeted keyword at the top of the page and have a consistent theme throughout the page.  If the keyword is “New York Hotels,” don’t show a picture of a couple relaxing on a tropical beach – instead show the Manhattan skyline so that visitors know immediately that they’ve found the right place.  If you have a booking form on that page (which you should if you can), have the form pre-populated with the city name or itinerary, or package or whatever (you’ll be surprised how many more form submissions this simple little change will garner).

The other advantages of keyword landing pages are that if you create them for your PPC campaign, they usually rank well in the natural results too!  Make sure to include them in your site map and in your Google Sitemaps XML file.  Having well optimized keyword landing pages may help bring the minimum CPCs down in your Google AdWords account as well.

Now go make 15,000 new pages!