I’d like to give a brief, unfiltered, to-the-point explanation of what exactly a true PPC landing page represents. I will then write a follow-up to this blog at a later date with additional details and examples of solid ad copy and landing pages. Let’s begin.
 

The Advantages of Paid Search Over Organic Traffic

Within organic search, Google will select and serve up links or offer options from your website that it believes to be the best match for a given search query. These organic listings can be the 5th result (at best) or lower on a Search Engine Results page - also known as SERP. As with any search result wishing to reside and thrive on Google's hallowed search engine, you need to ensure your website is up to snuff and optimized for search.

However, when it comes to paid advertising on Google, Bing, etc, you are able to choose where to direct traffic and what those pages are. Taking less power out of Google’s hands and placing the ball firmly within your court.
 

Choosing Your Ad Landing Pages

Sure, you could reflect a seemingly never-ending list of advertisers, and choose to link your ads to your homepage. But promise me you will not do that. I’m serious. Please. Promise me. It is almost never the best option for converting and for best measuring your paid search efforts and impact.

• Homepage content often will not match your ads and is less likely to contain the info and call-to-action you have designed your campaign and ad around.
• Cost-per-click (CPC) will inevitably rise as you continue to use more generic/less specific pages.
• Also, the more generic a page is and less relevant to each searcher’s query, the more likely the searcher will bounce. And this, in turn, signals to Google that the landing page experience (one component of Google’s Quality Score) was not ideal.

A Tool to Analyze Your Landing Pages

Unbounce, an Internationally known company that produces landing pages for websites, offers a highly useful and complex Landing Page Analyzer. It shows you how your pages are performing and what changes may need to be made to allow them to perform and convert more optimally.
 
In a sampling and analysis of nearly 500 pages, Unbounce discovered that dedicated and focused custom landing pages converted 65% higher than standard website pages. This provides even more of a case to create and utilize a custom-tailored page for your conversion and paid search efforts.

Graphic Credits: Unbounce - Tool Recommended in blog
 

Perks to Utilizing Customized Landing Pages

By carefully tailoring each landing page and pairing them with the most relevant ad copy, you are able to:

• Achieve a higher Quality Score
• Lower your Cost-per-Click (CPC)
• Lower your Cost-per-Acquisition (CPA)
• Increase paid search conversions

As I was researching this topic, I noticed there is clearly no shortage of case studies and examples out there. Some advertisers even claim up to 22% conversion rates. Now, results will vary, but you can see the sheer impact in having a landing page that combines a clear message with a laser-focused approach.
 

What Does a Top-Performing PPC Landing Page Contain?

1. Strong, contextual images (along with a hero image at the very top of the page)
2. A headline with a sub-headline
3. A single, focused Call-To-Action
4. Clearly outlined features and benefits of your product or service
5. Testimonials or social proof supporting your claims

Contact Ecreative for More Info and Insights on Landing Pages

My top professional New Year’s resolution for 2021 is to heed my own advice, not take the easy way out, and to work to conceptualize and build out custom landing pages with hyper-focused messaging and calls-to-action for all my campaigns. Because, I mean, everyone loves lower click and conversion costs and increased business, right?

Swing by next month for the second half of this blog, entitled Landing Pages for PPC. If you would like further paid search insight, are interested in having an audit performed on your Paid Advertising account, or have questions about Landing Pages and Paid Search Conversion Rate Optimization, I welcome you to contact Ecreativeworks at your convenience.