How to Optimize a WordPress Landing Page for Organic Traffic?

WordPress is home to more than 40% of the sites on the internet. If you are already familiar with the platform, you know – WordPress landing page optimization can be a challenge (if not a pain) sometimes. Whether you’re using a template or writing custom code, there are many technical aspects you should know about your WordPress page. 

On the other hand, you probably designed your landing page thinking “I need to generate as many leads and sales as possible.” But that’s only going to remain a dream in your head unless you figure out the effective ways to achieve this goal. So, how to drive traffic to your landing page? That’s exactly the question we’ll answer in today’s blog.

Things to Consider When Optimizing a WordPress Landing Page

Maybe you have come across the stats that having over 40 landing pages increases conversion rates by over 500%. That’s great news, but do you know what’s even more important than just the number of pages? Yep! Nailing your WordPress landing page optimization, and this starts with you paying closer attention to details like:

• Landing page vs. website potential. A good WordPress landing page is a must, but using only that alone might be a bad call. Essentially, a landing page alone is a one-page website. Sure, a landing page is perfect for selling a particular product/service. But using a landing page alone leaves you with very limited functionality compared to a regular website with a home page, resources section, several landing pages, etc. 

For one, it is harder to optimize a one-page website for SEO, which means you get fewer target keywords you can rank for. This affects a lot of things, including how much content you can create, which makes it more complicated to generate organic traffic. It is also nearly impossible to build a sales funnel with a landing page alone, which means lower conversion rates and less revenue. 

Plus, it is harder to do link building because you only have one page to link to. And not every webmaster wants to link to a sales page. With that said, you can still do link-building and even set up autopilot for backlinking but you just have to get very smart about your strategy. Still, all this doesn’t mean that landing pages aren’t effective. Not at all. But driving organic traffic to them is much harder compared to a website.

• Considering WordPress-native specifics that every website owner has to keep in mind. How technically savvy are you? If you have no issues with that, this might not be a problem for you. Still, for most people, it can get old fast. Almost every useful feature in WP needs a special plug-in that has to be updated regularly.

But before you start panicking, remember that plug-ins are the beauty of WordPress. They are there to simplify your life, not complicate it. So, make sure you watch tutorials and check reviews for every single plug-in you want to use. Besides, remember that plug-ins can cause loading issues, so flooding your WP landing page with tons of them might not be the best idea.

• Finding the sweet spot between SEO- and sales-focused copy. You need to find a balance between a copy that sells and triggers emotion and a copy that helps you rank better in search engines. Sometimes, we end up being so focused on search rankings and end up writing for machines instead of people. This won’t do at all. 

Isn’t it true that people tend to return to sites where they get real answers and solutions to their issues? Ironically, by focusing on the right copy that people can resonate with, you increase engagement and user experience. What else do you expect? You end with better search rankings and higher organic traffic.  

7 Ideas to Grow Organic Traffic for a WordPress Landing Page

The good news is that with the right steps, you can make your landing pages appealing to your target audience. It’s not even complicated. You only need to know what to do, how to do it, and what tools to use. Here are some of the few ideas you can try out right away to grow your traffic:

#1 Ensure Your Technical SEO and Security Are in Place

Some sources estimate that about 4.7 million WordPress sites are hacked every year. Since WP pages make up almost half of the entire internet, they are naturally going to have a pretty big target on their back. That’s why before you start optimizing your landing page for higher organic traffic, you have to make sure that all your basics are covered.

The first thing you need is to choose a reliable hosting provider. Then, make sure to get an SSL certificate. Otherwise, you will expose your website visitors to cyber threats and get a ‘not secure’ label from Google, which will do no good for your rankings. After these are covered, you should also take care of your page speed (you can check it here), your indexing issue (check them in your GSC), and your sitemap (for WP, you can check it in Yoast SEO).

Like almost everything else in WP, you will need to install the right plug-ins both for security and for technical SEO. You can use Yoast, for example, to fix your meta maps, breadcrumbs, etc. You also need to compress your images as well as check for and get rid of duplicate content. Whatever you do, keep the number of your plug-ins and widgets to a minimum.

#2 Optimize Your Visuals for Better Performance

What makes a WordPress landing page memorable? Right, quality pictures. Still, you have to optimize them, or else they will slow down your loading speed and cause a host of other issues that will affect your SEO.

It starts with choosing the right image formats for your landing page. It’s better to use JPEG and PNG for pictures and graphics respectively. You can use plug-ins like Imagify to reduce the media file size without sacrificing quality. You will also need to use lazy loading so they don’t impact your page load times.

#3 Create Copy That Sells Not Only to Prospects but Also Search Engines

Doing SEO for landing pages can be very rewarding, especially if you get the copyright. This can be the key to winning the hearts and trust of your target audience. Besides, you have a chance to convince the search engine that you are better than your competition. So, how do you pull it off? 

• Do keyword research to find the true needs of your target audience;
• Keep search intent in mind when drafting your copy;
• Make sure that your topics align with what people want to see (aka their search intent);
• Remember that even the most complex and boring topics can come alive if you know how to infuse a bit of storytelling in your copy; 
• Keep your texts simple, well-structured, and short;
• Add images and videos to enhance the meaning and compliment your writing;
• Note that alt tags for images are a necessity (plus make sure the name of the file you upload is also optimized;
• Use meta titles, tags, descriptions, and links (both internal and external). This will simplify the work of Google crawlers, and they will pay you back with better positions in SERPs.
• Don’t try to over-optimize your content just for the sake of improving your rankings. The best practice is to use the right keywords in the right context without sacrificing the value of your copy.

#4 Review and Adjust Your Meta Title, Meta Description, and URL

Since you already know that search engines need your meta title and meta description to understand your copy better, you want to ensure that you formulate it right (and with the right keywords). How? Use a good SEO plug-in to add a brief summary that sums up your page. Make sure it’s clear, descriptive, and really captures the content. Some of the plug-ins even generate these for you. Still, you will probably have to tweak it to make it more specific and human. 

Chances are that Google will even generate a different snippet for you if it’s not satisfied with your HTML meta description. Yet, it’s better you do this yourself. Don’t just leave it to the hands of machines. They might probably miss some nuances captured in your topic that readers might find interesting:

• Keep the meta title less than 60 characters and the description not more than 120-140 characters;
• Include a target keyword and a CTA;
• Adding one keyword is more than enough, don’t try to stuff everything in your meta title and meta description.

As for the URLs, you have to make sure they make sense, align with your topic, and include a keyword. Remember that formatting your links correctly will make navigation easier and improve your SEO performance. How should it look?

✅ Do this: www.website.com/how-to-format-links

❌ Instead of this: www.website.com/blog1659475394

#5 Make Your Landing Page Mobile-Friendly

It’s no news that people do more than half of all internet searches on their phones. Predictable, isn’t it? The landing pages that are able to generate organic traffic more than their competitors are those that key into all that mobile traffic. Apart from traffic, you can also improve user experience and get higher conversions. What should you do?

• Your ability to create mobile-friendly landing pages starts with choosing a responsive theme. So, have this in mind when building your site for the first time.
• Some files, like images, videos, PDFs, documents, fonts, etc., can be too heavy for mobiles so reduce file size.
• Use only or mostly mobile-optimized plug-ins so you don’t bloat your pages.
• Minify your code, i.e., remove any unnecessary code, spaces, or characters, or use plug-ins like Hummingbird to do this.
• All embedded content should be responsive.
• Avoid too many pop-ups.

#6 Build Links for Getting Organic Traffic

Link building is important for driving traffic to your landing page. Still, getting many quality backlinks can be notoriously difficult. You will need to come up with a good strategy so that you don’t end up throwing your efforts into the wind. How can you do that? 

• Quality links come from quality sites, so make sure you focus on relevant pages with medium/high DR ratings. 
• Still, don’t use only high-DR/DA sites, as it doesn’t seem natural and you might be flagged for link manipulation. So, diversify your link sources (with fewer lower-quality links of course).
• Use natural anchor tags and a balanced mix of branded and non-branded keyword-based anchor text.

#7 Utilize the Magic of WordPress SEO Plug-Ins

Despite the probability that many plugins can affect your site load speed, they actually come with many benefits. They make it easier to get things done by extending the functionalities beyond just posting content. You can optimize your WordPress website for SEO, improve your page security, enhance your visuals, get AI-based tips for better performance, etc. It is kind of hard to think of being a marketer or being on the platform without using a plug-in or two occasionally. 

Since search engine optimization is crucial for improving the effectiveness of your landing pages and generating organic traffic, you should definitely try a variety of SEO plug-ins. We’ve already mentioned a couple of them along the way. But you can do your research and find something that matches your needs. Just make sure you choose lightweight and powerful plug-ins. Plus, check their reviews, ratings, and when the last updates were rolled out before you pick one.

Additional Ideas to Make the Most of Your WordPress Landing Page Once It’s Live

Want even more ideas for your WordPress landing page optimization? We’ve got you covered. Try experimenting with the following tactics:

• A/B testing. You’ll need to try out different content styles, images, CTAs, etc. to figure out which one your audience resonates with the most. 
• Traffic sources. It’s a good idea to trace your traffic sources so you can optimize them even more. The general rule of thumb is to focus on the most efficient sources, instead of trying to breeze some life into traffic sources that aren’t showing good stats.
• Proper analytics. You can use Google Analytics or any other SEO tool of your choice to monitor how people interact with your landing pages. 
• Frequent maintenance and updates. Look, we don’t hide it: you’ll run into a lot of troubles, like having your Elementor stuck on the loading screen, or your WP not updating. If you have a regular maintenance routine, you’ll be able to avoid most issues and quickly spot the inevitable when it happens.

Conclusion

Landing page optimization best practices can seem like a lot of work at first. But hang in there, it gets easier with more practice. You want to start with one tactic (best practice) at a time. And start integrating additional strategies one by one. All these add up to the best experience for your landing page and help you attract even more organic traffic.