Landing Page (and Connection between Blog & Website)

SCLove · #1 Jul 22, 2009, 09:42 PM

I am just learning about the importance of Landing Pages and was wondering if you could give me some advice:

In thinking about my question, below, maybe the smartest way to accomplish this is to push people from the WordPress Blog (www.lovepalmspringshomes.com) to something like the Property Valuation Page of my website (www.palmspringsgreathomes.com). I am imagining it wouldn't matter whether they had to provide their info either on the blog or site as long as we captured it. The site would open in a new window and they could either proceed with the site or blog after requesting their info.

1. Is there a Landing page Template that I can use for my WP Blog (incorporating a "Call to Action" - maybe for a Free property Analysis)?

2. Also, any ideas of how I can funnel traffic between the Word Press blog and my website site using a Landing Page?

Thanks very much.

Regards,

Stephen Love

Flynn · #2 Jul 23, 2009, 09:46 AM

For a landing page you'd usually not want sidebars and not list the page in the page menu bar. You can do both through the theme options but to turn off the header and footer as well it would probably be best to create a page template for this, because that's not possible through the theme options alone, unless search engines don't matter for these landing pages, then you could do it through the theme options, with a CSS Insert

td#header,
td#footer {
display: none;
}

But the content will still be there, just not visible, which may be considered spamming/cloaking by search engines.

A cleaner way would be to remove header/footer for real: Create a new template named i.e. landingpage1.php with the following content

<?php
/*
Template Name: Landing Page 1
*/
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" <?php language_attributes(); ?>>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

... plus other stuff copied from the <head>...</head> section of Atahualpa's header.php depending on what WP functionality you actually need for this page

</head>
<body>

Free style HTML here, and can use fragments from Atahualpa's index.php and Wordpress functions

The Atahualpa layout code is spread over header.php, index.php and footer.php: Best to create a new simple layout altogether, a simple centered div

<div style="margin:50px auto;padding:50px;border:solid 2px #000000;font-size:1em;text-align:center">
Content of landing page...
</div>

</body>

Upload this landingpage1.php into the Atahualpa theme directory, write a page in the WP write page panel, choose "Landing Page 1" as the page template (see drop down select menu at top right of Write Panel), and in ATO -> Page Menu Bar -> Exclude pages from Page Menu Bar? put the ID of the page to exclude it from the page menu

SCLove · #3 Jul 23, 2009, 10:42 AM

Thank you very much, Flynn. But how would this lead the reader to the website page?

Flynn · #4 Jul 23, 2009, 11:49 AM

I probably didn't understand the question. A landing page is usually used for visitors coming from outside i.e. from ads. To send visitors back and forth between your other site and your WP site, you'd set links

SCLove · #5 Jul 28, 2009, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flynn

I probably didn't understand the question. A landing page is usually used for visitors coming from outside i.e. from ads. To send visitors back and forth between your other site and your WP site, you'd set links

Yes, I understand that. Back to your advice regarding setting up the Landing Page. I think I follow you and would want to proceed with the "cleaner" way that you advised. I've copied the part of your message below that confuses me. What other stuff? Fragments? Then you say "Best to create a new simple layout altogether" (as a third option?). I'm confused. Do I do this by starting the same way in creating a template. (Haven't tried to create a template and assume it's self-explanatory in the Theme Dash as opposed to WP Dash?)

Wordpress for Dummies describes a simple approach using the Default Theme. Can I follow this without affecting my Atahualpa functionality?

Here's the excerpt of your reply tat I referenced above. Thanks, Flynn.....

... plus other stuff copied from the <head>...</head> section of Atahualpa's header.php depending on what WP functionality you actually need for this page

</head>
<body>

Free style HTML here, and can use fragments from Atahualpa's index.php and Wordpress functions

The Atahualpa layout code is spread over header.php, index.php and footer.php: Best to create a new simple layout altogether, a simple centered div

<div style="margin:50px auto;padding:50px;border:solid 2px #000000;font-size:1em;text-align:center">
Content of landing page...
</div>

</body>

Upload this landingpage1.php into the Atahualpa theme directory, write a page in the WP write page panel, choose "Landing Page 1" as the page template (see drop down select menu at top right of Write Panel), and in ATO -> Page Menu Bar -> Exclude pages from Page Menu Bar? put the ID of the page to exclude it from the page menu

SCLove · #6 Jul 29, 2009, 11:45 AM

Flynn: Please have a look at my questions of yesterday Thanks. - SL

SCLove · #7 Aug 2, 2009, 09:28 PM

I am sure he's busy and I haven't yet had a response from Flynn to my post of a couple of days ago. Need to set up a Landing Page ASAP and would appreciate it if someone might also advise me.

Part of the confusion is that someone told me that I have to add Atahualpa again in my sub-domain to create a Landing Page. Is this right? I see nothing about this is any other instructions.

Regardless, can I follow the simple "Wordpress for Dummies" instructions using the Default Theme just for the Landing Page while leaving Atahualpa configured as I do for the blog?

Thanks.