A subject that rarely gets the attention it deserves is that of landing pages. In a lot of online-publications the subject is covered in the search engine or advertising sections, however, it could just as easily be in the website design section as much that is written about landing pages applies to all web pages - not least because I would argue that if you are listed on a search engine all your pages are potentially pages on which people can land.

This article is Organic Landing Pages: A Case Study - typical of what I say above article. It is aimed at SEO, but is as much about website design. I bet they don't teach this on 'web design' courses in computing schools - this is a marketing thing [see my rant - what is wrong with e-marketing].

Here's another article on the subject, this time a case study - Landing Page Optimization, and another Seven Tips for Effective Landing Pages

This one Landing Page Optimization Tested addresses the issue of 'sales friction', something else I recall from my old sales days [see nothing new in marketing on the web ].

Another one which empasises how important and wide-ranging [and some might - wrongly - say boring] testing is, this article - Landing Page Conversion - also shows how changes in web page design and content - no matter how small - can acheive better results.

This article is actually a promo for a book on the subject, but there are some good snippets - Landing Page Report.

And another, this one from a guy who dispenses some sound basic advice - 10 Factors to Test that Could Increase the Conversion Rate of your Landing Pages.

This article shows an example of getting it wrong - Just a Bit Off Target With Pay-Per-Click.

Don't be fooled by the title of this one, it is very much about landing pages - Why Virgin’s Banner Ads Work, Even on Facebook - the author walks readers through a good example of online advertising.

Here's one that has illustrations of how to do it, and how not to - Good and bad landing page examples.

This one - Landing Pages: Part Of The Site, Or Part Of The Ad? - makes a lot of sense at an operational level, though the decision to use the practice is strategic in nature.

Pain Reliever Pages is about landing pages, but this model could be applied to any page if you consider that any page on your site could be the 'landing page' from a search engine query.

This - Optimizing Headlines & Subject Lines - isn't an article, its a lecture that you can listen to [and follow on ppt slides]. It's perhaps a bit slow, but stick with it, it's good stuff - and it has examples to reinforce the 'lessons'.

Google uses a ranking system for landing pages for its SERP ads, this article - 9 Myths of Landing Page Quality Score - offers up a few tips.