Landing Pages are the weapon of choice for affiliate marketers. Marketers who do not employ Landing Pages either do not understand the concept, or they are just plain lazy. Usually, it is the latter. Laziness is often contagious.
 
A Landing Page is more than just a duplicate of your sales page renamed for a PPC campaign. A Landing Page often strips out many elements of "effective design" and focuses on selling the product or service. The main purpose of your Landing Page is to give the visitor two choices: Buy or Leave. Nothing else. Don't distract them with other options. That is why they are there - don't make the mistake of giving them too much to choose from. If you want to get them to subscribe for more information, fine. Then create a "name squeeze" page, but don't confuse yourself. Landing Pages are for one reason and one reason only… to make a sale.
 

Here is a short laundry list of what I do when I create a Landing Page:

Font Face, Color & Size:
There is one thing that most people hate, and that is 4-5 different fonts that clutter up the landscape of the page. Different Fonts for headlines is fine. Different fonts in your body text is not good, it is distracting. Don't do it. Keep to one font in your body text. Testing shows that the best "off line" (print) font is Times New Roman. This is why it is the default font on the internet. Big mistake. Testing shows that Times New Roman is one of the worst fonts online. Why? It causes rapid eye fatigue.
 
The best fonts? Verdana and Arial. Standardize on Verdana as it consistently outperforms every font out there in terms of reducing eye strain and increased readability. Use standard fonts in the  body of the page, if you want an usual font for a headline, create it as a graphic so it will look the same on every computer. You want your message to have the look you intended.
 
The text should be readable. The standard size is "2". Text should always be dark on a light background (black text on a white background is preferred). Landing Pages aren't designed to allow you to show off how "cute" you can be. This is serious stuff, you are selling. Put on your "best face".
 
Make the Links Easy to Find
Now, having a cool CSS file that makes the links change colors, add or remove underlines is fine on your site. Knock yourself out. However, they have no business on your Landing Pages. Why? Because confusing a visitor is not your priority, getting them to buy is. Use standard linking practices to avoid confusion. If a potential customer can't distinguish between text and a link you are going to lose. That's not good.
 
Standard colors are:

• Unvisited Link - Underline in Blue
• Active Link (when the mouse "hovers" over the link - Red
• Visited Link - Purple

I recommend not messing around with the visited link, just have the standard unvisited and hover  so the visitor has some interactivity and the link will "catch" their eye. I have done a ton of testing and the standard linking practices always have better conversion ratios.
 
Color Scheme
The colors you choose should match the product or service you are selling. Soothing yellows, greens and blues are best for skin care. Pick your color carefully as they will either bring the visitor in deeper into the sales process or turn them away. A site for men shouldn't have pink as the primary color… or secondary color for that matter.
 
Not sure the colors to use? Look at the competition, as it is a great place to start. And if you still aren't sure, test.
 
White Space
White space has been referred to as "negative space" by many designers and thus, avoided. All of those designers should lose their jobs. This is not high school art class. You are selling here, remember? White space is good. White space is your friend. When I look at a Landing Page with effective use of white space, I see perfection. Without white space, text becomes unreadable, and the graphics and other important elements become "washed out" and the message is lost.
 
White space is more than just a background "color" - it is a part of your conversion design.  This also leads into another area, page backgrounds. Don't use them. Over the years I have seen floral designs on iPod sites, vacation pictures as backgrounds, and even a woman and her cat as the background …. and these were ALL landing pages.
 
Page Width and Page Height
Have you heard the term "above the fold"? I am sure you have. It comes from the newspaper industry and referred to ads and information that was above the folded area. Testing found that 86% of the people who picked up a newspaper at an airport, train station, office waiting room, never "flipped" the paper over … they just looked "above the fold" only. The same is true online. Did you know that of the people who don't scroll down that 6% of them don't because they don't know how? Yes, you read that right. They don't know how.
 
If your landing pages scrolls vertically on a 1024×768 resolution you need to redo it. And if you are forcing a visitor to scroll HORIZONTALLY, you are guilty of one of the worst web design mistakes of all time. The scroll bar is your enemy. All of your important information, including your Call to Action must be above the fold. Period.
 
Page Theme
A Landing Page is geared to sell a particular product or service. So, if I am doing a search for left-handed golf clubs or a Hawaiian vacation, I am expecting to see a page about those topics. Don't be lazy. Deliver what I want, and I will be more likely to buy. Don't dump me on a cookie tracked version of your home page either. The content needs to match my search. If not, I will most likely leave. Stress Benefits, Not Features - Very few people care about features, most care about benefits. Stress the benefits of the product or service and you will increase your conversions.
 
Call To Action
A no brainer, right? Wrong. Too many sites fail to have an effective Call to Action. This is typical of most new and non-experienced sales people. They fail to ask for the order. They just assume that the prospects understands. Newsflash: They don't. Explain what you want them to do in easy to understand language, or an effective graphic. A "Buy Now" is a Call to Action, and often a very effective one.
 
That's it - we know you'll be able to put these simple, but tested and proven landing page strategies to work in your own business, whether you're an affiliate or marketing your own products.