If you’re serious about obtaining a strong conversion rate then one of the most important tasks to take care of is to have a highly effective landing page. A user who clicks on an ad will spend on average about 7 seconds scanning and reading your web page before they bounce out of your site and move down to the next link. My goal is to help you build a more successful landing page and to lower your per-click cost while at the same time pushing your ad to the top of the SERP (search engine results page).
The Right Ad Words Landing Page
First and most important you will want to create a landing page (and its corresponding adwords ad) that strictly focuses on a single product or service that you offer. Let’s look at a hypothetical… Someone who is looking for a plumber is very likely to type in something like this: residential plumber, <city name> plumber, broken toilet, broken sink, water heater repair and so on. If someone is looking for help to get their water heater repaired and they land on a page that with a loud message such as “24/7 water heater emergency repair is available any time, any day!”. Then the users is very likely to stay longer on the page, and either pick up the phone or fill out a form. You want to have a unique landing page that focuses on a single service/task. This approach immediately identifies the visitors needs and provides them with a call to action.
Identify a handful of key services you offer and focus writing to-the-point compelling content that will have the user call or fill out your form.
If possible try to remove distractions so that users do not click away from that page and get lost elsewhere on your site. Some landing pages don’t even have a navigation bar (making sure the user doesn’t wander), and in certain cases this does work! Also be sure to remove any links to your social accounts. Again, we want to follow a path of least distractions: problem -> solution linear path. With that said be sure that the landing page has a very clear phone number and/or online form to fill out.
Make sure that your written Google Ad carries the message into the landing page. Think about when you read a book. When you turn a page you continue to read a sentence on the next page. You want that continuity from a Google Ad to your landing page. Going back to our plumber example for emergency repair your ad headline might start with:
Joe Plumber – Fixing Water Heaters 24/7!
… add message…
As the user clicks on that loud ad headline that message continues with a big sentence on top of the landing page that might start with: Joe the Plumber can be at your home within a matter of minutes, getting your water nice and warm! Joe and his crew are licensed and experienced in handling urgent repairs when they are least expected! Call Now 888-111-2222!
Any content and visual design assets must be supportive and compelling. They must further enhance your CTA (call to action). Content must be action oriented, reassuring with big loud bullets such as: satisfaction guaranteed, 10 Years of 5 Star Service, Accepting All Credit Cards and so on.
If you decide to use a form to collect information then you should have the form ask as few fields as possible. Keep it very simple and don’t over complicate the form. Your goal is to introduce yourself and then dive deeper into their needs.
You Will Pay Less Rank and Higher for Google Ads
Always keep in mind that Google Ads wants to connect the users with the right information. The more they do this, the more people will trust Google. Thus Google Ads assigns a “Quality Score” for different keywords you are bidding on. The more relevant your landing page is to the keyword, the more Google likes your ad and your landing page, and the higher your quality score for that term ranks. Google rewards quality words by 1) ranking you higher in ad spaces AND also 2) discounting your average cost per click! Learn more about Google Ads quality score for keywords on this here.
If you need help creating highly effective Google, Bing or Yahoo Ads and strong landing pages that convert then feel free to contact me. Otherwise please use this guide and if you feel like going a bit deeper and learning more about this then visit MOZ.com SEO Learning Center. Just a heads up, lots to learn 🙂
Good Luck!