How to Do SEO for Landing Pages

Ever wondered if landing pages can be SEO-optimized without being unnecessarily lengthy and tedious?

This article will offer guidance. Watch out for the 10 steps to do SEO for landing pages like a pro.

Can landing pages be SEO-optimized without being unnecessarily lengthy and tedious?

Short answer: Yes.

Most landing pages follow the KISS principle: Keep It Simple and Straightforward.

That’s what brands like Apple use. They go for a few words but emphasize visuals and emotions.

But what if your brand is not as famous as Apple?

You feel you need longer content to rank on search engines. Doing this risks diluting your message or hurting conversions.

The truth is that landing page SEO is not about content length. It is about striking the right balance, optimizing for search engines and conversions.

In this article, you’ll learn 12 practical steps to build SEO-friendly landing pages.

Keep reading to find answers.

Core elements of an SEO landing Page

Let’s break it down:

SEO landing page = search engine optimized page + landing page.

This page is designed to rank on search engine result pages, generate and convert leads.

Is there any mention of word count?

No!

Here is why:

SEO landing pages have never been about word count or lengthy copy. Instead, it uses targeted keywords and well-structured content to match search intent and drive conversions. No fluff, just what’s needed.

SEO landing pages exhibit the typical elements of a landing page:

• Structure
• Copy
• CTA
• Form

Structure

This element focuses on the design of a landing page. And the idea remains to guide prospects through a journey of awareness through interest in sales.

Copy

This element evokes users’ interest in taking action through carefully curated words. The idea is to educate people on a problem and show your product/service as the solution.

CTA

You’ve discussed the problem and solution with your copy. CTA (Call To Action) is the prompt that tells your prospects what to do. It is the answer to the “what now” question. 

Form

This element lets you collect the email addresses of prospects. Then, you can nurture them via email marketing.

Now, we have covered the basics of an SEO landing page. But what about how to optimize landing pages for search engines?

Follow the steps below.

12 steps to optimize SEO landing pages

Note: these steps are to be followed as listed to get the best results.

Here’s a quick preview:

1. Keyword research
2. Satisfy search intent
3. Include E-E-A-T principle
4. Perfect your on-page SEO
5. Add & optimize Images and videos
6. Integrate AI and LLM optimization
7. Optimize page speed and core web vitals
8. Add social share buttons
9. Edit the page for conciseness
10. Publish the landing page on your domain
11. Build backlinks to your landing page
12. Ensure that the page is always live

Keyword research

Like every SEO content type, keyword research is crucial to optimizing landing pages. However, there are a few things to note.

• First, a landing page’s primary aim is to convert visitors.
• In other words, top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) keywords with informational intent are not good enough for landing pages. They educate rather than convert.
• The bottom line is to focus on bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFu) keywords with transactional intent.

So, how can you find these BoFu keywords?

I use either of these two methods:

• Fresh research
• Leverage your competitors

Fresh research

Tool: Semrush

This is the easy choice because you can filter for “transactional” keywords.

For this use case, I’ll use the email management and website development business as an example. Let’s do our keyword research:

• Go to Semrush > Keyword Magic Tool > input your “seed term”
• Change the intent to “transactional” and ensure the search is “phrase match” like this:

• Pick the keyword “MailChimp email list management” as it looks promising and is relatively easy to rank.

Note: You can twerk the filters even better to find more keywords with little to no keyword difficulty.

Leverage your competitors

Frankly, the first method is limited. Plus, the target keywords are somewhat untapped. Hence, the reason for the low search traffic.

If you need a reliable keyword with impressive traffic potential, leverage your competitors.

Here’s how to do it:

Tool: Ahrefs 

This is the best for robust competitor analysis.

• Go to Ahrefs > Site Explorer > input your competitor domain

📌 Don’t know your competitors?

Go to Ahrefs > Site Explorer > input your domain > organic competitors

• Now, check the left tabs. Look for organic search > organic keywords
• Next, click “keyword filters > keyword > all rules > doesn’t contain” to remove branded keywords from your search like this:

• Check through the results. While at it, avoid “resources,” “blogs,” “glossary,” and other blog-related terms, as they are likely blog posts rather than landing pages. Instead, look for pages with features like this:

• Click the keyword drop-down button for complementary terms.

Verdict: Which method is better?

I recommend using the two methods together. That is how you can be assured of impressive keywords for your landing page.

That said, I’ll settle for the keyword “website builder” as it has better metrics.

Satisfy search intent

Targeting transactional keywords for your landing page is good. But you must ask other critical questions to rank high on search engine results pages. Here are the top 3:

• What questions will the page answer?
• What solutions will you offer to readers?
• Does your landing page meet readers’ needs?

The answer to these questions lies in identifying the search intent behind your keyword.

How can you identify search intent?

The easiest method is to check the structure of top-ranking pages.

For a use case, let’s check Mailchimp’s Website Builder page.

The outline roughly looks like this:

• Summary of the features of the website builder.
• Each feature is discussed one after the other, focusing on the benefits for self-starters/small businesses.
• Reviews.
• Comparison with other web builders.
• Link to an educational guide on website building.
• FAQs on website building.
• Closing Call-To-Action.

What can you make out of the outline?

• Your landing page should discuss the core strengths of your offer — the website builder.
• More importantly, streamline your landing page to focus on small businesses or self-starters with little or no budget to build a website.

Pro tip: Add a few elements to help your landing page stand out. For our example, short how-to videos and more customer reviews will suffice.

📌 If you can’t make out the search intent of your competitor’s page by just looking at it. Do this:

Go to Ahrefs > Site Explorer > enter the page URL > organic keywords

The shaded keywords further prove my earlier suggestions — the target audience and what they expect.

Include E-E-A-T principle

Google uses the E-E-A-T principle to judge if your content is reliable and valuable. Here’s how you can use it in your content:

1. Experience
   Share your experience to show you have personal knowledge about the topic. For example, sharing your experience as a writer on the AI writing tools you use.
2. Expertise
   Use insights from professionals in your niche. This helps your readers trust your message.
3. Authoritativeness
   Prove that your website or content is recognized as a trusted source. You can do this by having other reputable sites link to you or by being mentioned by them.
4. Trustworthiness
   Make sure users feel safe and confident in your content. Be honest with your sources. Have secure pages and share real customer reviews.

Also, show that your content is legit by including author bios, links to credible sources, and user testimonials on your landing pages. 

Perfect your on-page SEO

Keyword research and search intent are crucial on-page SEO elements. But other elements are just as vital to optimizing your landing page.

Here are 5 such elements that you should perfect:

• Title tag
• Meta description
• Headings
• Internal links
• URL

Title Tag

The bold blue texts under the URL are called title tags. They are the first thing your reader will see. So, make them as compelling yet short as possible.

As you can see, ensure your target keyword is placed as much as possible at the start of your title tag.

Meta description

This is the short text below the title tag. And like earlier, include your keyword in the meta descriptions. Google (and other search engines) will even bolden it to attract searchers’ attention during a search.

Lastly, and most importantly, ensure your meta description is compelling and straightforward.

Pro tip: My shortcut to writing meta descriptions for landing pages is to answer the “what” and “for whom” questions. Then, I’ll include the client’s brand name. 

Headings

These are marked h1 to h6. But I recommend stopping at h4 to keep your page structure simple.

Ideally, your title tag will be your h1. So, just copy and paste the keyword-optimized text to your h1.

Use h2-h4 to simplify ideas and contexts. More importantly, use them to house secondary keywords. 

Internal links

Internal linking helps search engine bots understand your site, but don’t overdo it on a landing page. I’ll recommend limiting internal links to a max of 3. And also, when you use them, use exact match anchors.

Further reading: What Is Anchor Text in SEO?

Also, combine topic clustering and user navigation. Link to related content on your page to build authority and guide visitors to other useful pages. Doing this will keep them engaged and on your site longer.

URL

Your landing page URL, like all on-page elements, must contain your keyword. More importantly, it should be simple and precise. The best practice is to maintain not more than 2 hyphens (in other words, 3 crawl depths).

Replicate this hack for your page title.

Add & optimize images and videos

Plastering a long block of text might work for a blog post. It won’t be for landing pages. This is because landing pages are short, meaning there is a limit to how many words you can include.

In essence, landing pages “show, tell, and convince” rather than just “tell”.

For example, if you say your product or tool has a feature, you must back that up with a picture, GIF, or short video.

The proof aside, audio-visuals are attention grabbers. It glues users’ attention to your page, increasing your chances of conversion.

Lastly, images and videos come with “alt” tags. You can use these to house keywords and rank for search engine features like image search.

Integrate AI and LLM optimization

AI-driven search tools are the trend now. And so, it is now crucial to optimize your SEO landing pages for both human readers and AI algorithms.

Fact:

A recent Siege Media study showed a 10% increase in homepage traffic when AI Overviews mentions a brand.

How does this happen?

When you optimize for AI and LLM (Large Language Model), your page is more likely to get into the AI overview. Now, AI summaries do not link to you, but your brand still gets introduced to people. And they are likely to search for your brand directly.

Ben Goodey, founder at Spicy Margarita, a SEO consultancy & content production agency, explained this in a LinkedIn post:

My advice: more traffic custom domain converting visitors

Users may come through a traditional search result or an AI-powered summary. Either way, design your landing page to attract attention, engage visitors, and convert.

Optimize page speed and core web vitals

The chances are that your landing page will load slowly if you add too many heavy images and videos. Unfortunately, this might affect your performance on search engine results.

Worse: user experience will reduce once your page starts lagging.

So, what should you do?

• First, run your landing page through Google PageSpeed Insights and Google Search Console

• Alternatively, you can use Ahrefs or the Semrush Site Audit tool
• Follow the recommendations from the tools to optimize your landing page’s speed and core web vitals

Pro tip: Use compression tools to reduce performance-related issues caused by images and videos.

Add social share buttons

While social sharing is said not to be a ranking signal, it remains instrumental to increasing landing page conversion. How?

• Adding social buttons proves that your business/brand is authentic.
• Prospects can check your social media pages to gauge customer feedback and sentiments about your brand.

Beyond the research level, social share buttons increase reach. You can add them to thank-you pages. Or, create auto-generated instant shares with captions like “I’m using [Your Product].”

Either way, users and customers will spread the news of your products.

The result?

Your reach increases and boosts your landing page’s conversion.

Ultimately, social shares will help you scale your reach for free. And if you have the budget, you can consider paid advertising on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Edit the page for conciseness

According to Backlinko, there is arguably a correlation between long-form content and ranking high on search results.

Even at that, don’t worry about such research. They are somewhat skewed towards blog content.

For landing pages, focus on similar landing pages and ask these questions instead: 

• How long (in words) are your competitors’ landing pages for the target keyword?
• How many words do you need to describe the features of your product/service and convince prospects?

Let the answer guide your word count or the length of your page.

Mind you, the idea that long-form content ranks better is not necessarily about the number of words. It is based on the value the content offers.

Pro tip: Use collapsible headers/blocks to hide sections like FAQs to simplify your landing pages. Here is an example:

Publish the landing page on your site

There’s no rule against hosting your landing page on a free, third-party site. You might not have a website yet, but there are several issues with publishing on third-party sites:

• First, third-party hosts landing pages as subdomains.
• That will cut off benefits like domain authority and trust.
• Ultimately, your search engine rankings efforts will be significantly affected.

And say your landing pages perform well despite the issues, you’ll only contribute to another’s domain.

Instead of wasting your effort on someone else’s website, focus on yours. Publish your landing page on your site. Also, make the landing page subdirectories instead of subdomains.

This way, your page will benefit from your site’s overall SEO efforts. In other words, you’ll rank faster.

Build backlinks to your landing page

Creating concise content with relevant keywords isn’t all there is to optimizing landing pages. You still need that upvote (backlinks) from other websites.

But it gets tricky:

• Landing pages are “highly” commercial.
• Hence, getting backlinks for them is competitive and time-consuming.
• In short, not all backlink types are effective for landing pages.

So, what can you do?

1. Target the sources of competitors’ backlinks.
2. Get listed on “best of” articles.
3. Join a podcast.
4. HARO link building.
5. PR link building.

Target the sources of competitors’ backlinks

This link building method is undoubtedly the most effective. The idea is simple: if a website links to a similar landing page, it will likely link to yours.

The only work here is finding qualified sources and avoiding link farms or PBNs.

Good news: I wrote an extensive guide on analyzing competitors’ sites for quality backlinks. Check it out!

Get listed on “best of” articles

“Best of” articles are curated lists of products or services. Here is an example:

The idea is to get featured with similar service providers or SaaS companies on authority directories. Then, you can funnel the organic traffic to your landing page.

Here’s how you will find the said authority directories:

• Go to Ahrefs > Content Explorer > best [enter seed keyword] > in title

Reminder: our seed keyword is “website builder.”

• Add the “only live” and “published: last 2 months” filter
• Lastly, sort the results by page traffic

Use Hunter.io to find the email address of your desired page, send a pitch, and get your backlink.

Join a podcast

Podcasts are the new rave now. Almost everyone has a podcast now. But don’t get on anyone; reach out to the top voices in your niche.

The audience you seek to convert listens to podcasts. In fact, they are paid subscribers.

Beyond the listeners and subscribers, podcasts come with newsletters. By featuring on the former, you’ll get a backlink from the latter. More importantly, you’ll benefit from the reach and SEO efforts of the websites hosting the podcasts.

HARO link building

Like podcast link building, HARO (Help A Reporter Out) involves voicing expert opinions for backlinks. The only difference is those on the receiving end and the platform used.

You’ll work with journalists from reputable media/news sites in HARO. This is how it works:

• Register to be a source on HARO.

Send answers to journalist queries and get backlinks.

Further reading: How to Use HARO for Link Building

PR link building

This technique is similar to HARO in the sense that you’ll be working with journalists. However, it is not always direct like HARO.

So, how do PR backlinks work?

• Host a newsworthy event. This could be an open day or sponsoring a local event in your community.
• Launch targeted outreach to media houses about the newsworthy event for backlinks.

The idea is that getting your content posted on a site will create a ripple effect as other media houses will pick up the story.

Further reading: What Are PR Backlinks?

Ensure that the page is always live

You might create a landing page for seasonal sales like Black Friday, and once the event ends, it may seem useless. So, should you take it down?

Not at all.

Never delete your landing pages — whether they’re for seasonal campaigns, long-term offers, or expired products. Here’s why:

• Deleting a page you’ll likely need again will cost you steps 1 – 9.
• Keeping the page live reduces stress. Plus, you only have to continue from where you stopped.
• Even if the offer is no longer active, the page can still rank and attract traffic.
• In the case of dead projects/expired functions, redirect the pages.

Still unclear on how to optimize your landing page for SEO?

I’ve put together examples of top-performing SEO landing pages to help you see these strategies in action. Check them out below.

3 examples of SEO landing pages

Semrush’s keyword magic tool

This landing page follows all the steps discussed. Everything from the on-page and off-page to FAQs is used. It follows the KISS principle.

Also, the simple how-to infographic fits perfectly into the copy.

However, there are no reviews or testimonials. Nonetheless, it is still a great SEO landing page.

Ahrefs’ backlink checker

This landing page has a lengthy copy, yet it reads smoothly with no fluff. Hence, it is a perfect example if your product or service requires more words to convince and convert prospects.

Also, I love the numbers added to boost credibility.

Lastly, and most importantly, the floating CTA “sign up” is ingenious.

HubSpot’s email signature generator

This landing page has less copy and more hands-on. In fact, you’ll go straight into using the generator.

So, where are the keywords?

In the FAQs and that’s very creative.

This approach also works. But you must get several backlinks to compete with top brands for the same keyword.

Summary: SEO-optimized landing pages are more than lengthy copy

An SEO landing page is never about more words. It is about meeting search intent, having perfect on-page SEO, and high-quality backlinks.

All these little details ensure you not only rank high on search results. They are also instrumental in converting leads. That is the essence of SEO landing pages.

FAQs

How do I choose keywords for my landing page?

There are two ways to choose keywords for a landing page.

1. First, you can start fresh research using tools like Semrush to find transactional keywords around your seed term.
2. Second, explore your competitors’ landing pages. Check what they are ranking for so that you can adopt.

Ultimately, I recommend combining both methods to get effective keywords for your landing page.

How many keywords should I use in a landing page?

Frankly, there is no rule. However, I’ll recommend you stick to one primary keyword.

You can target a few secondary terms in your h2-h4.

How long should an SEO landing page be?

Your SEO landing page should be long enough to convince and convert prospects into customers.

The shortcut is to check the length of your competitors’ landing pages. But even then, don’t focus too much on word count.