Putting landing pages to work effectively on your site can be a great benefit to you, especially if you are targeting search engine traffic, and who isn't? While landing pages aren't any different from other content on your site, they are typically more defined, and typically act as though they are a single part of your site - you don't really want visitors going away from this page until they convert into a sale, a visitor to another site, or have accomplished what you wanted them to. It's that simple when you break it down.

However, there are a few basics to working with landing pages that can make all the difference. Many of these tips hold true for other areas that you work on when you build your site(s) to generate profit. You have to continually test to see what works, so the advice below is simply a basis that you should modify and tweak as you work on each site/project.

1. Provide something useful to your visitors. This may be as little as answering one of their questions or giving away a few chapters of an e-book for free. They don't want to see a blank page.
2. Tell your visitors what they should be doing. Often, this is placed in a video, but you come off as a scam extremely quickly when you have it automatically play, pop-up, or in a format that isn't integrated into the site well. 
3. Headlines and transitions throughout the page should be clear and definitive. They need to flow. Don't overdo the amount of headlines or text – balance everything out.
4. Following up from number three, use bullets and other forms of separation to ensure that the page is easy to read.
5. Write like a book, but much shorter. The introduction should grab the person's attention, the middle should include the meat of what the article is about, and the ends should tie everything together. If you can't do all this within a "screen length," you'll have to work on writing condensed, more effective copy.
6. Look at what your competition is doing to ensure that you are in line with what visitors are expecting when they visit your site.
7. Choose a hosting company or services that are able to deliver your site quickly and clean manner. 
8. Cut the cord to external navigation, other than anything that may be related to what you are trying to accomplish. Remember, they came to this page for a reason – keep them here until they have fulfilled what you are both looking for.
9. Useless 'stuff' - take it off the page as soon as possible. This goes in line with number eight, but is extremely important. You don't have to associate a picture of yourself with the product unless you have done studies that it gives the visitors a better idea of who they are really helping and not someone they are simply supporting.
10. Add visual elements, but keep them simple and only place them on the page if they are really effective. If anything, choose a default CSS, blog, or WordPress template and customize it thoroughly to your liking and in a manner that helps attain your goals.
11. See what works. Continually test the page against other versions to see which one(s) work the best.
12. The purpose of landing pages is to separate what may appear to be an "ad" from your site and focus all the energy and purpose into a single page. You don't have to promote your product or services through every post, just this single page. That's what makes them more effective.
13. Create an experience for your visitors. Like larger companies, you can create campaigns around products and ensure that your visitors return from the site (even if they didn't purchase or "convert") with a better experience than they were expecting. 
14. Have some confidence statement, such as testimonials (and real ones at that), which will help you better promote your product.