I personally always include a header in all my landing pages. I tried it without and didn’t like it. I want visitors to know where they are landing even if they are not going to my Home page and even if they haven’t visited my site before (it’s part of my branding and it helps establish trust) You can see how I’ve done my landing page (using Premise) here http://jivenationtoronto.com/dance-classes-modern-jive-trial/ Each landing page has a different name so I can identify them and track their coversion. Ideally if you use Adwords ppc you should have a landing page for each keyword, it really improves your conversion rate.

I can say that because of my landing pages (and I am constantly tweaking them) my conversion rate has increased nicely. I use ppc as one way to drive traffic as I want to see what converts and how well it does so. I drive it directly to my landing pages and in this case have a free offer which, when they bring into class to redeem. I track everything through Google Analytics and another tracking package I have so I can see how many people download the coupon. It’s been trial and error but it has been fascinating. Landing pages help increase your CTR and my ppc conversions are high double-digits (since mid-March this year). They were not always this good. Although the link to the page is available from my Home Page I never drive people there (they can find it via my organic seo of course). But if they want to find out more about us they can scroll down to a link at the bottom and get to the main site. I can say there is both art and science to landing pages and you really have to test what works. At the end of the day it’s phone calls and foot-traffic that count for me, the landing page makes it easier to focus my effort.
I also have a landing page that I use just for one of my workshop events – I use it as a standalone.
One thing you left out was that it is important to use your keywords effectively and to understand how to tag. I use Scribe to check I’m using them the best way possible. I like Premise because it makes it very easy to create landing pages. But you could also use one of the Genesis page templates – the one that removes side bars. For myself I find Premise more professional and more flexible. My current project is to create a video for a different landing page and test how that works compared to the coupon. I decided to leave my full prices at the bottom of my page – it helps show the value of what they are receiving free – and people were calling and asking me anyway.
I do find that many businesses still don’t see the value in landing pages… they send people to their Home Page (Big Mistake), whereupon people get lost and click away.

Well. I guess i did all the above