A landing page is the first page a visitor arrives at on your site after inputting a specific address or clicking a link in an email or at another site. At one time, the home page was the primary landing page for many online marketers. But as marketing on the internet has developed, landing pages designed specifically to have a visitor take a specific action, have become more popular.

Seth Godin, well known marketing expert, states that a web page can cause a visitor to take one of only five actions:

1. Click and go to a different page

2. Make a purchase

3. Give permission for follow-up

4. Tell a friend

5. Learn something that may prompt the visitor to provide feedback

Squeeze page is the term frequently used to describe a landing page designed to capture a name and email address. On a traditional squeeze page, if you don't take the action the web site owner wants you to take, you have no other option than to close the page.

In the past, more technically oriented visitors could check source code and figure out how to get around the squeeze page and find the pages behind it. As a result, many web site owners now encrypt the page so that there is no back door to sneak through.

A squeeze page that allows the visitor to go to another page without taking the action the web site owner wants them to take is called a sissy page. I'm not sure how this phrase came to represent this action. Merriam-Webster defines "sissy" as a timid or cowardly person. So I guess someone thinks you're afraid to not let a visitor find out what you have to offer!

The intent of my landing page is to get my visitors to request the special report. But if they decide they don't want to, or they have already ordered the report, there is a big red button near the bottom of the page that says "Enter Site". Guess that makes me a big sissy!

More online marketers are using landing pages to narrowly focus on their target audience and to prequalify their prospects. Landing pages are ideal for product or service launches because you only need to convey one message - there are no other distractions like there can be on other types of web pages.

From a marketer's standpoint landing pages are a good time and budget investment. That's because since you know this is the first page a visitor will see, you can confidently spend your time, energy and money on developing the page into one where the visitor will take the action you want.

This includes researching keywords, creating an attention grabbing headline and including graphics that support what you want your visitor to do.

Single page web sites will continue to be popular as long as visitors continue to take the action their creators want.