Do Splash Pages Still Work?

I saw a question in the Associate Programs Forum about the effectiveness of landing pages, or as they are sometimes called, splash pages. The writer was wondering if they work anymore.

Here is my take on that. One school of thought is drive traffic to a landing page which is nothing more than a capture page. On that page you give away a free report or something of value in exchange for your visitors name and email address.

After they give you their info you email them a link to download the free report. In the meantime you redirect them to your blog which you use to add fresh, relevant content. Your blog follows all of the good practices of SEO and you update it constantly.

Your blog is your website. And this is where you create search engine friendly content that brings you visitors and repeat visitors.

I personally like this theory. Your landing page is a funnel for your blog. It creates leads to build your mailing list and then your blog keeps them coming back for more.

The flip side to this is John Reese has a new report of his own out which I say you should read about the "Rebirth Of Internet Marketing". John is talking about the only websites that will survive in the future are authority sites.

No more one page sales letters or Adsense only pages. They do not convert as well as a content rich website that gives away free information and makes the visitors trip to your site enjoyable and worth coming back again.

This makes sense as well. My Team-Schuman.com website has always been about fresh relevant content and giving away free information. The only thing I see now is if you use a landing page it should not be a sales letter, but rather a lead capture page that trades info and redirects to your blog.

If you do not use a splash page at the very least put a sign up form on all of your blog posts and continue to build your list which will always be a part of your overall marketing strategy.

The emphasis is going away from websites and towards blogs anyway. They are easier to maintain and they are great for getting traffic if you use social marketing and article marketing.

So a landing page can still work, but only if you are not using it to sell, but rather to give away information freely. And then use your blog to do your selling.