Sounds like a simple question but the truth is that most businesses owners don’t know and most web designers have stopped asking.

Most websites have become over grown with so much junk that it’s difficult to even figure out what there about, much less there purpose. I’ve seen landing pages that make me feel like I’ve just walked into a crowded store and have 50 salesmen all trying to sell me something at the same time.

The idea is that you create a certain type of landing page for each type of traffic source you are using. Now there are a lot of ways to set up a landing page, for example a landing page can be part of your main site and have the same navigation and page layout as your main site. A landing page like this can be several layers deep built into your main site.

We can also build a microsite that is built around a specific topic. This type of site is designed for a specific audience. A microsite usually has a couple pages of supporting information but the whole site is designed around getting you to do a specific task, rather that task be getting you to make a purchase or apply for some kind of information.

Even though it is a microsite it can still be branded as part of your main site.

Another type of landing page is a stand-alone landing page. This page gives your website visitor one option and that option is either to purchase something or leave. It’s also normal for these pages to have an exit strategy of some sort, like an exit pop up.

As I said before there are a lot of different types of landing pages, and it really depends on the type of traffic and product as to what type of landing page will benefit your business the most.

However, another thing that is good about landing pages is that you are able to track all your traffic going to that page. This means that I can run a Google ad campaign and know which keywords are converting and which ones are not.

This allows me to track my ROI at the keyword level. With this type of traffic I would go with a stand-alone page as there are fewer distractions, and the page can focus on exactly what the web visitor is looking for. In most cases, fewer distractions mean more purchases.

One thing that I would do with the stand-alone page is add some navigation to any important pages on the site that might help with the purchase decision.

You have to look at every page as an entrance page, like a door in the mall that people can go through to get to your store. While the main door needs to be tailored to everyone that is entering the store the side doors can be tailored to the exact department you are going into.

Single products or services are great for stand-alone landing pages. I am sure you’d be surprised at the number of products that have been sold with nothing more than a one page sales letter.

Micro-sites work best when there is more supporting information needed to make the sale. Microsites are great because they work totally separate from your main site and focus totally on the needs of the website visitor.

Now what I want to do is separate the content that is mission critical from that which is just there for the icing on the cake. Mission critical would mean that the page is needed to make or increase revenue. This would exclude things like company mission, job opening, management bios and things like that.

When doing this keep in mind that a meaningful transaction doesn’t have to be the main conversion goal. There are all kinds of small steps that create a psychological momentum towards the end goal. We want to build on our level of trust before getting them to the main conversion point so every click or move in that direction can be counted as mission critical.

What you should have now is a list of mission critical parts that can be tweaked and fine-tuned for better conversion, as well as a list of distractions that we’ll need to look at later.

First thing we want to do is look at the content and ask ourselves if this content helps to deepen our relationship with the website visitor?

We also want to ask ourselves what affect the content would have on the site if it was removed. And who is this page designed for, prospects, clients, business partners, potential partners or competitors?

Your site should be tailored towards potential clients or partners if you are looking to make money with the site. And each critical mission goal on our list is a conversion point that we need to reduce friction on, allowing a visitor a squeaky clean in and out process.

Any action the visitor takes on our site that is measurable and has value will be considered a conversion point.

I’ve placed a blog on the main page of this site and have been blogging about website designs and what inspires me about web designs. So much so that I decided to take the site lick worthy and start posting inspiring web designs on that site.

But that got to me to thinking about this blog and how it’s been neglected so I’m here to try and get this blog going again as well.

Guess I’ve got a lot of thinking to do if I’m going to start posting on this many blogs.

I really want something special for the site that will let me stand out from the crowd.

I was sitting here wondering rather this was the way to go. I heard one of the guys talking on the phone to a lady, that had just purchased a do it yourself site. She was needing help with the design. The simple and easy to set up site did not seem so simple. But that was not what caught my attention.

The guy she was talking to was not a salesman nor was he trying to sell her a job. But he did point out all the flows in the program to her.

1. She was using a subdomain name. This means she did not own the website. She could very well get links to the site and get it going good only to find herself out the door. And the competition owning her site.

2. She is limited by the program. When we design a website for a customer there are no limits. If the customer wants a small header, large header no navigation there are no limits placed on that customer.

I saw one website that bragged about having over 900 designs to choose from. Chances are there are only a couple nice looking designs. And the chances are even better that you are not the only one using that design.

There is no other place in the world that offers the ability to get some many customers for so little money. But if you try and save every penny possible then you will never make it online. Your website is an extension of you and the design has to convert your traffic.

It is not easy task.

The idea is to customize each page for each keyword. Another words if I find that more girls click on a page than men then I will customize that page for girls. And of course if it is more men then I will customize the page for men.

While I am doing this I will also be writing text for each of my 10,000 keywords. Now that might seem like a rather large number to some people but the idea is that the more pages I have the more traffic I can bring into the site. While I am writing the text I will also start getting links to this section of my website and running ads with MSN’s new Microsoft adCenter.

I guess I better get back to work on adding more text to the site.

The guys are also working on bringing our forum back home and adding a couple pages to the site that talk about our new services. I’m about ready to get back to posting on the forums but wanted to do some final touches on our design first.

I want to know what’s in it for me. Tell me what your service or your product can do for me. How is it going to make my life better, more complete and happier by owning your product.

We want the header to show the visitor what they are missing out on by not having our product. We want to create a desire in them to purchase our product, while at the same time letting them now what the site is about. The header should match the rest of the site perfectly while displaying our logo, tag line, phone number and address.

While tag lines appear to be created with very little or no effort, they, like your logo, do take time and planning. When you hear, Just Do It, you immediate think of Nike. The Real Thing, makes you think of Coke.

If your trying to create the perfect image for your business, it starts with the tag line and logo.