The thank you page.  

This could be something that you have a significant amount of experience with as a business, or something that you've never heard of.  With the rise of using the internet for business purposes, there's also an excess of knowledge and tactics that are being passed along for businesses to use to their advantage.  One of these tactics is the thank you page.  After a site user fills out some type of form on a business website - whether it be to sign up for a newsletter or inquire about a specific project or product estimate - after hitting submit, the user will come to a page.  What you do with this page is up to you, but most sites use this opportunity to thank the user for choosing to engage with their business.

Message v. Page

Some businesses decide to use a simple thank you message, which is just a small blurb that will appear at the bottom of the site, with all the regular content still above.  With a thank you page, however, you can take the opportunity to thank the user, as well as provide them with more content that may be suited towards their needs, or educate them about services of yours that they didn't even know about.

Engagement

The key to a good thank you is to leave your users with a way to be engaged.  In most cases, a simple thank you message doesn't tell the user anything new, and leaves them on a page they've already seen.  With a thank you page you can offer the user opportunities to stay on your website.  One way of doing this is to ask yourself if there's an logical next step to offer your new user.  Depending on your answer, you could craft the thank you page to show similar products or services, or the ability for the user to talk with a member of your business team.  Another option is to shape your thank you page with related content in the way of blog posts and educational materials.  This content can be hand-picked by you to represent what the user is interested in, or a random order of material. 

What to Include

If you're still unsure of what to include on your landing page, you can use these helpful tips of what the page can be made up of.  The first is a blurb of the original offer or product, the thing that they provided their contact information for.  Next should be the content that was part of the offer, whether this be a video, recording, reading material, etc.  You should also provide a secondary way for the user to get in contact with your business, such as signing up for a monthly newsletter.  Integrate social media by allowing the user to share their experience or offer with their friends on popular social media sites.  Provide the user with a way to contact your business: phone number, email address, social media landing pages, etc.  Provide opportunities to read relevant educational information, or blog posts, about your business products or services.  Most importantly, don't forget to thank the user for their participation, letting them know they are an important part of your business.

To learn more about optimizing your business's website, contact a Blue Archer professional.

Michelle Hawley

Digital Content Writer

@BlueArcherPGH