Landing Site Navigation Question

[Harrow]

I'm putting together my first landing site (about 7 pages or so), i'm designing it myself and was just wondering if I should have a top navigation (to go to the other pages like privacy/about us/T&C...etc) near the top of the page that i'm sending traffic to...or just a bottom footer navigation.

The reason i'm asking is that i know that the top navigation can be seen as an exit point from the landing page and may distract visitors from clicking through to the offer....thus losing clicks.

If i have just the footer navigation google is happy since everything is connected and the possibility of losing clicks to the top nav is lowered....any thoughts on this?

What do you guys do for your landing sites? Assuming the other pages in your mini site are not pages that are direly important....just basic mini site stuff like privacy/about us....etc. Thanx!

 

[kblessinggr]

"Landing" pages normally are not 7 pages or so, they're typically 1 or 2 pages, sometimes 3 at best if you got users entering their information in steps. Typically there isn't a top navigation on a landing page you typically have...

Header (big logo, text, something to immediately catch the visitor)
Body, sometimes with a sidebar that will typically have quotes or "exciting" information and such, and sometimes the sidebar will have an about me (if its a flog), or duplicate links for the offers.

Then the actual commitment link or forms, and so forth.

and if it's a flog it'll sometimes have comments under that, or testimonials.

THEN under all that, but usually in a fine print will be a sub-navigation bar, typically popups like terms, privacy, contact, etc etc, and the usual legal fine print.

You end up doing something like 7 pages its no longer a "landing page" and more of a sales or ecommerce website. The privacy/tos is generally used simply because google ranks you better if it exists (and in a way you need it to keep the site legit in some states , they can't sue you for promoting a rebill if you warn of such activities in the terms )

 

[Harrow]

Hi kblessinger, thanx. Yes i'm aware of all of this...that's why i said landing SITE. Meaning i will be having all of the pages that keep Google happy.

But i will be sending traffic to say just the "home" page of that 7 page mini site with the CTA to the merchant offer.

So is it safe to say that the top navigation is superfluous and not needed? If you were designing this kind of site (landing page with 5-6 other "pages" with privacy...etc) would you have just the footer navigation connecting all of them, and not bother with the top navigation? Thanx for your time.

 

[calidavid]

each of those pages should be its own landing page, in that case. user server-side includes so you can include the same registration form so you can A/B test on an aggregate basis.

top navigation is almost always bad for conversions. you never should need the other pages for most landing pages. to present more info, use AJAXed content on the same page.

having said all of that, you should just split test the theory that having headers or not is good. It's possible your product is something that requires tons of handholding and supplementary pages.