To fully understand the relationship between your landing page and your sites SEO capacity you need to know what your landing page should be doing in relation to the rest of your site. A landing page is a term used for the page within your sites structure where traffic will “land” when they access your URL. This is may be your home page or any other page relevant to the search criteria used by the visitor. So your landing page may be your home page but the home page may not necessarily be your landing page.

For instance if your business sells garden tools and your site features hand tools and power tools the page describing your power tool range will ideally serve as the landing page for some one who has entered “ride on lawnmowers” as a search criteria.

This is a quick diversion that cuts out the amount of navigation necessary to reach the part of your site that the visitor needs to be in. This is a simplistic explanation but illustrates the function of a landing page and the relationship between the landing page and, for instance, your home page well.

This “short cut” can be very valuable in the conversion rate your site shows. Your conversion rate is the relationship between the total number of people who visit your site and that number which actually go on to use your service or convert from potential custom to actual sales.

It goes without saying then that for the landing page to be successful and reach its full conversion potential it needs to be SEO rich. The content of that particular landing page has to be optimised to draw as much gardening power tool queries relating to your product range as possible.

In other words if your site structure justifies having separate pages structured as landing zones for traffic they have to be optimized for relevant search engine criteria. They will then not only serve their intended purpose effectively but will positively influence your sites overall ranking.

The whole purpose of SEO is to make your web site as visible as is possible to search engines and if your landing pages are to be the targets for search activity the have to be a fundamental part of your broader SEO strategy. And if your landing page SEO content is effective your conversion rate should be positively affected as you will have less non-related search hits on the page.

So the question “Does a landing page affect search engine optimization?” deserves a resounding yes response. As a matter of fact you should be paying very close attention to the quality of your landing page’s SEO structure as they serve an extremely important role in the overall success of your site.