Spread the Link from a Promo Page

When I talk about landing pages to clients for a promotional product or contest, I usually explain that there will not be unnecessary clutter, like navigation menus and distracting images. I like plain and simple to keep the visitor focused on what is being promoted. It also makes it easier to track visitors that go to the landing page. I still believe this is a good way to go, however; sometimes the bigger picture is missed, which is to bring visitors to your entire company, i.e. the rest of the site.

Today I saw this article Justilien Gaspard wrote on online promotion & linkbuilding from Searchenginewatch.com. In the article it states:

“Even though these promotional pages may have
high-quality links pointing to them, they're often
left as orphaned pages on the site. One quick fix is
to add a section of links on those pages linking to
your most important pages. This will allow the link
value to flow to those main pages.”

I think this is a great strategy and can be compromised with my common method. So the landing page can still be kept simple so long as you include links back to your main pages, or include the basic navigation bar that matches the rest of the site.

Additionally the article mentions you should not delete the page once the promotion is over. Instead leave it up and state that the promotional period has ended so they can navigate to the other pages. Another alternative is to simply do a 301 redirect to the home page so the link value is transferred.