The “Thank You Page” is the Most Underutilized Page on the Web

Posted: January 31, 2007

If someone took the time to write your business, or checked out through your shopping cart - they haveÂ trust in yourÂ business. Don’t just serve them a standard ‘Thank you for…’ page. Use this valuable real estate to extend your relationship with their business.

Matt McGee has a nice write up about the four most underutilized pages on the web. His focus was on SEO, however, the title inspired this thought so throwing a little link love to a good read. According to Matt (who I respect) his top four underutilized pages for SEOÂ are:

Glossary
FAQ
About Us
Contact Us

While I agree those pages are generally underutilized for SEO; I think the most underutilized real estate overall comes from user engagement after they have decided to act.

If someone gave you their email address through a contact form, they trust you with their email address (and possibly a name, phone number, etc) and wish to hear from you. At this point, engage them with other conversion possibilities like a newsletter signup, an RSS feed, white paper download, etc.

If someone checked out on your site, they gave you a credit card. This is a lot of trust. There’s nothing people hold more dearly than their finances. Don’t just serve them a page with a ‘Thank you for shopping click here to print your receipt’ - use this opportunity to continue to engage those visitors.

In each of the above situations, do you give someone the ability to continue to interact with your site? Or are you saying ‘Thank you very much, now go away’? Don’t just lose that customer interaction, continue to engage them towards other aspects of your website or business.

The most difficult thing for a business todo is form the initial relationship with another party. Here’s your chance to not only form a relationship, but nuture it to grow overtime.

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Written by Brad Geddes aka eWhisper · Filed Under Blog

Comments

6 Responses to “The “Thank You Page” is the Most Underutilized Page on the Web”

Take advantage of “thank you” | Marketing Pilgrim on January 31st, 2007 5:01 pm

[...] at bgtheory.com blogged today on what he thinks is the most underutilized page on your website: the “Thank you” page. Brian says of “Thank you” pages: [D]o you give someone the ability to continue to [...]
Matt McGee on January 31st, 2007 11:28 pm

Great points, Brad. I agree with you 100% about the “Thank You” page — it’s a missed opportunity at most places I shop or interact with in some way. As you say, it’s not about SEO, but about customer engagement and retention.

(Thx for the kind words & link, too.)
Friday Favorites 1/16/07 - Stuntdubl - Search Engine Marketing Consultant on February 16th, 2007 2:13 pm

[...] discusses how the thank you page is the most under-utilized page on the web, tips us off to Google’s retail specific knowledge base for adwords, and how to find your [...]
markus941 on February 16th, 2007 4:20 pm

Do you have any specifics that you recommend? Are you suggesting “sign up for our newsletter”, “Send this site to a friend”, or “check out our forums” type stuff?
David Temple on February 18th, 2007 2:04 pm

I really enjoyed that post because that’s been my mantra for a long time. If you want a customer for life you’ve got to get most of them at the first pass. You’ve spent countless dollars getting the customer and first impressions go a long way.

How about giving them a gift? It doesn’t have to be anything big. Sending them something in the mail is an excellent way to stay top of mind. Maybe offer them a discount on a future order.
Don’t let your thank you pages be the most under utilized page on your site | make money blogging on April 5th, 2007 5:10 pm

[...] Geddes over at ewhisper has a great posting about the use of the thankyou page, that I am pretty sure I havent seen [...]