Landing pages
How to tell whether a landing page is working
A page can attract plenty of visits and still leave people unsure what to do. Another can get fewer visits but send the right people towards an enquiry. To judge a landing page, follow what visitors came for and what they did next.
Name the page's job
A landing page is the first page in a visit. That could be your homepage, a service page or an article. Its job depends on the visitor. A service page might need to answer a price question and make contacting you easy. An article might need to resolve a problem and point to a related guide. Write down the intended next step before examining the figures.
Choose one action you can actually observe: an onward visit to a relevant page, a contact-button click or a submitted form confirmed on a thank-you page. These are different levels of evidence. A telephone click shows intent, but cannot tell you whether the call connected. A form-button click does not prove the form was submitted.
Check who arrives and why
Look at entrances to the page over a useful period, then separate major sources. A visitor arriving from a detailed search may expect a direct answer. Someone arriving from a social post may have much less context. If your analytics shows a surge from one source, do not compare the combined result with a quieter period as though the audience stayed the same.
For organic search, open Google Search Console's Performance report, filter to the page and inspect its queries. Google's Performance report documentation explains that clicks count clicks through from Google results, while impressions count appearances in results. Neither tells you whether the visitor found the page useful. If the queries mostly ask a different question from the one your page answers, clarify the page's promise or create a more suitable page. Our guide to impressions without clicks covers the earlier step, when people are seeing the result but not visiting.
Follow the next step, not just the exit
Suppose 120 visits start on a service page. Twenty visitors open the contact page and eight click the phone link. That tells you more than the visit count alone. Check which page people visit next, which useful links they click and where visits end. An exit after reading opening hours may be perfectly sensible; an exit before a promised price explanation may deserve a closer look.
Read these signals in context. A page-to-page journey shows movement within the measured visit, not a person's intention. Scroll depth can help locate a buried answer, but a shallow visit may still be successful if the action sits near the top. On your phone, try to complete the visitor's likely task yourself. Is the answer visible, is the next step clear, and does the link work?
Make one change that follows from the evidence
If relevant search visitors reach the page but few move to the next useful step, compare the search promise with the first screen. For example, a page shown for “website maintenance pricing” should not make the price explanation hard to find. Move the answer or contact route closer to where that visitor needs it. Keep supporting detail for people who want it.
Note the change date and compare similar periods, sources and device mixes. Look for more relevant onward visits or confirmed enquiries, not simply more page views or deeper scrolling. With a few dozen visits, treat any apparent improvement as a clue to keep checking, not proof that the edit caused it. If you cannot observe the desired outcome, fix that measurement before judging the page.
See what follows the first page
TrafficWisp is in private beta. It brings entrance sources, anonymous page journeys and tracked interactions into one view so you can investigate the next useful step.
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