When you set up your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns you have to decide which page in your website you want your visitors to ‘land’ on.  Not surprisingly these nominated pages are called ‘Landing Pages’.  Quite often most PPC campaigns choose an existing page in the website which has the content most relevant to the PPC advert of keyword phrase.  This can work,however there are two major drawbacks to this approach:

a)     The page selected may not cover fully the subject of the ad, leading to a poor visitor experience and low conversion

b)    The Google Adwords ‘quality score’ will be lower than that of a dedicated landing page which in turn means higher costs per click.

There are a few other reasons why you should consider having dedicated landing pages created for your PPC campaigns, or even a page for each Adgroup that you run:

• A specially created page is much easier to optimise for a higher Google AdWords quality score.
• The A/B split testing of a landing page is easier if you are free from your site’s template.
• You can get rid of all elements that might reduce the landing page’s efficiency.
• You can keep testing until you find the best combination of layout and content in terms of visitor conversion to sales.

So how do I design an effective Landing Page?

1. The landing page content should be 100% relevant to the ad and provide your visitor with valuable and unique information.

Whilst we would not recommend a ‘word by word’ replica of your PPC ad on the landing page we would recommend you include the Adgroups primary keyword phrases on the page because it will help connect the landing page to the ad that the visitor has just been reading.

Having a dedicated landing page whose quality is at least as good as the rest of your website is very important.  Don’t just ‘throw’ a quick page together, if you do not have the resource in-house have it developed professionally.  This will help with both the Google quality score and improve the visitor experience / conversion results.

Google recommends that “advertisers bear in mind the three main components of a high-quality website: relevant and original content, transparency, and navigability”. This is especially relevant to landing pages.

2. Make sure that your landing page content is concise, relevant and most importantly it should include at least one prominent call to action.  In other words the landing page should have all the information necessary for a visitor to complete your targeted action.

Use ‘plain English’ keyword-rich headings and sub-headings so that a visitor can quickly understand your proposition.  Include the most important and convincing facts and details of your product or service but focus on the benefits.  Keep the page content short and to the point – no more than 200 – 250 words. 

The object is to give the reader enough information to make them want to take the next step – your landing page should make that next step almost intuitive for them and be the next logical action that the reader will take.

3. The page must be credible and contain detail that will reassure your potential buyers that they are safe in buying from you.  Testimonials from previous customers can help as can any accreditations that your company may have.  Also include details of any warranties offered, if appropriate.

4. The landing page should be quick to load.  Make sure any images used in the landing page have been re-sized for the web and also ensure that they have the appropriate ‘alt-tags’ added.

If you would like more information about Landing Pages please leave a comment below or visit WSI IMS – WSI Internet Marketing Services for Business in the South East of England.