You can have a Google AdWords account with hundreds of thousands of keywords that each have fantastic click-through rates (CTR) but without quality landing pages, you will never fully optimize your CPA and never reach your true money-making potential.
A Dedicated Landing Page is a standalone campaign-specific page distinct from your main website that has one goal and one call to action. A landing page is a lead generation page that you should always send Google AdWords campaign traffic to, not your home page on your website.
By standalone I mean that it has no ties to your website, like global navigation. In essence it floats alone, only accessible from the link you’re providing in your marketing content (Google AdWords)
This separation allows them to be super focused on a single objective and makes conversions, leads, analytics, reporting & testing much more effective.
The purpose of a landing page falls into two categories:
1. To capture leads that enable you to market to people in the future, or
2. To “warm up” potential customers to the product you are trying to sell to them before sending them further into your sales funnel.
Dedicated Landing Pages:
• Are modelled off proven designs using high converting layouts and design elements, but each one should be custom designed to suit the business and target market.
• Are coded from scratch using PHP and HTML so that they can easily be added to most websites and are independent of the design and structure of the rest of the website.
• Are mobile responsive and built as light as possible so that they load fast.
• Work best with 1 clear call to action, such as a quote form, sign-up form, or single product to buy.
• It is best if phone numbers are trackable.
• Google Analytics should be installed on the page to track conversions.
• Professional copy should we written for the page.
Some considerations when developing your Landing Page:
1. Establishing your goals:
The first step in creating quality landing pages is to establish your marketing goals to decide what you are trying to accomplish. Do you want sales, form fills, mailing list registrations, sign ups, etc?
2. Consider your target market:
Think about who is coming to your landing page. Consider their demographics, location, interests, etc.
3. How they got there:
Do not use the same message to target viewers from PPC that we would use if they came from social media or email nurturing campaigns. Considering how your viewers got to your page will influence and change the messaging you use to close them.
4. Create dedicated landing pages for each ad group (if possible):
In a perfect world each ad group would have its own dedicated landing page. Start with one landing page per campaign. As you have the time and resources to build a new page, add it in and slowly convert your ad groups to all have specific targeted landing pages.
5. Don’t lead traffic to your home page:
People are inherently lazy. The more hoops you force them to jump through the less likely they will convert. That means less leads, less sign-ups, less sales, less $$$$.
6. Optimize your landing pages for conversions:
– Keep the page clean and easy to read. Don’t overload your visitors with all the information in the world. Keep it short and sweet and give them exactly what they are looking for.
– Make it easy for your traffic to convert and give them multiple ways to do it. The goal of a landing page is to build trust and have your traffic convert.
– You don’t need your visitors’ entire biography. Instead simply ask only for the information you need most. This will appear as less risk to your visitors and will lead to higher conversion rates.
– Use clear calls to action along with arrows and catchy text while avoiding a “scammy” look. Depending on your marketing goals consider putting your phone number at the top of the page, adding a form directly to the page, or allowing a purchase to be made directly from that page.
– Use persuasive copywriting techniques and “power words” that inspire visitors to take action.
