The importance of your PPC landing pages

So your PPC campaign has a great impression share, high CTR and top positions but are you losing conversions? You can optimize your keywords, match types, ads and targeting but you need to think first about the landing page.

The landing page is one of the most important factors in creating a successful PPC campaign, creating immediate relevance for the visitor.  Knowing your target markets goals is a must as this ensures that you fully understand what visitors expect to find and what they will want to achieve when they reach your landing page. Provide the customer with exactly what they want – they will have high expectations that you should be able to meet!

Knowing your target market

Many PPC campaigns fail to meet and exceed goals due to the landing pages so it is vital that you research exactly what your target market will want to see when they click on your ad. You need to cater for the exact needs of the users based on their search queries – a winning landing page will create a sense of emotional connection from the user!

There is very little point spending your allotted money directing people to your landing page if you aren’t going to deliver what you promised in your PPC ad. Will they want to see special offers or luxurious products? One thing I know they will want is for the promise in your ad to be repeated on the landing page – you need to instantly convince the user that your page is highly relevant to what they have in mind.

Tell them what you want

It is your responsibility to define exactly what desired action visitors need to take when they click on your PPC ad and land on your landing page. If you want them to book a theatre ticket, have a large ‘book now button’ in their line of sight as soon as they see your landing page. You need to encourage a purchase decision and your landing page needs all of the information necessary to increase the number of people making the decision to take the buying cycle to the next stage on your landing page.

Make the navigation easy!

Every step a user has to take to complete a process on your website will reduce their response by an average of 10%. You need to take this into consideration when designing your landing page!

It is vital that you find the balance in making the landing page as easy to navigate as possible without too much content or clutter as this can be a distraction. Keep things simple, you don’t want to dilute the impact of your call to actions and leave the user questioning why they clicked on your ad in the first place! Keeping sign up, newsletter and contact forms as easy as possible to complete is very important, only include fields that are essential for you to obtain all of the necessary details and for the customer to obtain their interest.

Many marketers argue that all relevant content should be above the fold on the landing page – this will perform better than a landing page where you have to scroll down to find what you are looking for. All call to actions need to be above the fold – the simpler the process the more likely the customer is to complete the desired process.

Keeping the content simple

In order to reduce affecting your conversion rates it is vital that you keep the landing page content simple as it provides you with a flowable design with as little distractions as possible. Text needs to be condensed (bullet points if possible) to provide the user with easy reading yet all the information necessary. Fonts need to be large and clear and appealing to the user is a familiar font that is consistent across the website and easy to scan over.

You don’t want to clutter your landing pages with too many flashing banners or Adsense ads as these will deter the eye of the customer and distract them from the buying cycle. All of your graphics should be appealing to the user and also consistent across the buying cycle process. Crisp images are also a must for a PPC landing page; a clear image engages the customer and speaks a thousand words! Multiple view images can also add value but you should only use imagery if it necessary otherwise it will distract the visitors attention.

You also need to ensure the customer a safe purchase with strong trust indicators on your landing page. Include all trust related logos above the fold such as hacker safe, ATOL protected or logos for awards that you may have won.

Testing the responses

To maintain the quality of your PPC landing pages it is important that you find out what works best for your customers and what style they prefer. In order to do this, you need to test responses to different versions. Your landing pages should be optimised for your keywords – the more relevant the content is the more likely the customer will convert and the higher your quality score.

Conducting tests and usability studies frequently will help you spot and improvements that can be made and ensures that you are providing your audience with exactly what they want.

It is surprising how many advertisers tend to bypass how important the landing page quality is to a PPC campaign. It can be as simple as testing different titles and headline based on your keyword performance or as monumental as changing the structure.

Give the visitor options

Another factor of landing page optimisation that advertisers tend to bypass is providing your visitors with an option for those that don’t immediately convert. Newsletter signups, call backs, live chats and phone numbers are a few examples of keeping the attention of your visitors and encouraging them to return to your site. The order thank you page also has great potential with the opportunity to up sell products; creating a relationship with your new customer on a personal level and making them more likely to return.

So when your paid search campaign has a high impression share, high CTR and good positions, don’t start with altering your bids and keywords – consider your landing page. The smallest of landing page changes can make the biggest impressions and is most definitely the key to converting paid search traffic!