Designing AdWords Landing Pages: Tips for Better Conversion
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It’s always so tempting to get wrapped up in the advanced tactics and techniques of online marketing. There’s the potential to plan and strategise without actually doing something that will make a real difference to your results. Today however, I want to go back to basics and encourage you to revisit one of the most crucial and overlooked elements of converting customers online: the Landing Page.
Consider what happens when a user clicks on an Google AdWords link and ends up on your site. The first page that they see when they click that link is your landing page. A landing page is a lot like a first impression - and we all know how important a first impression can be, especially for online businesses.
A successful landing page seeks to do one of two things: to inform the visitor, or to persuade the visitor to complete some manner of transaction. The former type, known as a reference landing page, displays text, images, links and other informational elements. For the most part, reference landing pages may just be a way for the hosting site to generate advertising revenue. If you’re a business owner looking to generate revenue through your own products or services, then the second type of landing page is more suited to your needs. Known as a transactional landing page, its purpose is to get website visitors to buy a product or at least complete some sort of form. The goal of the page might just be a simple as keeping the user there long enough to click through some ads or other site content.
Getting the user to give his or her email address, or even name and telephone number, or to straight up buy a product is known as a conversion (I told you we were going back to basics today). The goal of any landing page is, of course, to have as high of a conversion rate as possible, so it’s imperative for anyone that wants to take advantage of Google AdWords or other pay per click advertising to learn how to properly optimise their landing page. Here are a few simple tips to do just that.
1. Half now, half later
One simple way to push for a basic conversion, such as getting an email address, is to withhold some amount of information from the user until he or she submits some information to you. If your customer is interested in what you have to offer, they may be willing to submit their email address or other information to find out more about your products or services. However, it’s important to reassure users that you won’t use their information maliciously - remind them that you will not use their email to spam them, or submit their address to people who will.
2. One page for one job
Avoid using your homepage as a landing page. Your home page should be the hub of your website, with links to various different sections and information about your business. This can be overwhelming to users, who may just leave the site before they really see what you have to offer. Your landing page should be concise and targeted to maximize conversion potential.
3. Sell without overwhelming
Use copy that is short and potent, without being over the top. Giant walls of text can be very intimidating to users, and that’s something you want to avoid. Use small blocks of text and bulleted lists to quickly get your point across to visitors of your landing page. It can also be a good idea to design your landing page in such a way that it doesn’t require scrolling.
4. Don’t waste your visitors’ time
No one has that time to waste, and if you are not going to follow through on what you’ve promised, you’re not going to get any conversions. Make sure that when a visitor reaches your landing page, they know that you mean business and are going to do everything you can to keep them satisfied and interested.
5. Include a call to action
Don’t leave people wondering what to do next; it’s essential to include a call to action that is easy for the visitor to fulfil. No one wants to send a stamped, addressed envelope, or fill out a huge online form. Better alternatives are free-phone numbers, short (around 4 fields max) forms with the promise of being contacted back, and even PDF downloads with more information and plenty of branding.
6. Reiterate the benefits you offer
Reassure your visitors by reiterating what you promised them in your Adwords advert e.g. “Cheapest solid oak kitchens - guaranteed!” or “Get a free, no obligation quote today!”. The worst thing you can do is give the impression you have promised something that isn’t a reality. Click-thru traffic have little patience with this kind of thing.
7. Test, Revise, Repeat
Imagine being able to change your shop layout and fittings every week, keeping the best bits and discarding the under-performing elements. Well that’s exactly what you can do with landing pages. Use your favourite web analytics to identify the bits of the page that are not being used, and change them for something else such as customer testimonies or accreditation logos to increase the trust and authority of your brand. Don’t be afraid to move elements around your page, and change the wording, with the goal of inching up your overall page conversion rate.
Actually that last tip is probably the mothership of landing page tips - if you’ve never tested and revised your landing pages, then you’re potentially missing out on a couple of percentage points of conversion, maybe more. So take a look at your Adwords landing pages today and get more bang for your buck!
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David Lindop is a Search Specialist at Setfire Media, a leading digital marketing company who specialise in Adwords management, SEO, linkbait & social media marketing
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You are right about how important the landing page is. I have found that you need to make changes to it regularly so Google doen’t consider it stale or old news.
I have 14 websites. One is my brick and mortar business, which has been in operation for 25 years and online since 1996. My other 13 sites are informational only, and don’t sell anything. I just set them up for adwords clicks, and it’s kind of a hobby because so far the pay is kind of low. BUT, it’s nice to get my $350. monthly checks from Google even when I haven’t done anything lately to earn it!
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[...] Inspiration point: Designing Adwords Landing Pages [...]
Good tips, thank you.
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nice article about adwords
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Thank you for sharing this information. It will surely com handy with my website optimisation.
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Well I’ve started up a small, ultra-targeted Adwords campaigm. The traffic I’m buying is very narrow, but I’m still waiting for the first conversions…
Tips 3 and 4 might be something I need to really consider. I wonder how to balance the need for brevity with the fact the page’s content is already ranking decently in the organic results for other related terms.
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Thanks for giving nice information. I like all instructions specially Test, Revise, Repeat one
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Hey Domain Lady,
Yeah, it’s great to get an extra $350 for doing nothing! I think that’s an understatement :-)! Nice work on that!
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Hi John,
A book you might consider picking up if you’re interested in the AdWords game is “The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords” by Perry Marshall. It’s full of great information about how to properly use AdWords. You can get it from PerryMarshall.com
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Eid,
That’s really what you have to do online. Keep trying things and keep testing to see what works.
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Most offend I prefer the Google AdWords. That are likely to be best tool for my work. Your tips are really simple to follow.
Specially good point is the third one -”Use small blocks of text and bulleted lists to quickly get your point across to visitors of your landing page.” EVEN the last point is nice-Test, Revise, Repeat. Thnx…
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Glad you found it of use. Dane took it upon himself to expand on my article, with more of a focus on the design of individual landing page elements. It’s well worth a read http://landingjuice.com/14/11-adwords-landing-page-design-tips
@John it’s always a nail-biting time when you first launch a campaign and the first results come through… let us know how you get on.
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David: I don’t have any good news to share on the Adwords front! A couple days ago, they “slapped” my campaign - I think. They’ve at least dropped my quality scores to 3s and stopped serving the ad on most of the keywords. I’m clueless at the moment, because my landing page is now showing up at #6 in the organic results for the exact keyword they won’t take my ad on.
Not good enough to pay for a link, but good enough to rank near the top naturally? I’m not sure what Google has been drinking.
Dan: I might have to check out the book eventually. I am starting to see big gains from heavy content writing and unique article distribution. I may just play on these strengths more for a while. Feeling very annoyed with Adwords because their automated suggestions, ranking, and copyright protections are absurd. (My campaign was temporarily suspended because someone claimed “Promo code” was their copyright!)
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Dan Reply:
September 29th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Hey John,
You could also try out Yahoo and MSN and see if they work well for you. Granted, they don’t get as much traffic but I know some people like them better because they can be easier to work with. Anyway, just a thought.
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Great article! I’ve been using adwords by Google. It only has gotten me one customer so far, but I will definitely use your tips to help boost that.
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well when it comes to Google one thing that should be made clear that stale news is completely discarded by this search engine however it provides the solution for this aswell. by using the keyword tool of Google we can suggest the change to the keywords which prevent its highlighting as a stale news….. this is a nice post thanks buddy
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I’m really struggling with my adwords - I have tried to do everything they say but the quality score remains low and subsequently the ads rarely show.
I just cannot work out why.
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Dan Reply:
October 6th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Usually the quality score has to do with relevancy. Are the words you bidding on showing up on your landing page?
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@Steve001 - I have to disagree with you there. None of the search engines *completely disregard* stale news. That’s a exaggeration.
I agree that fresh content (natural listings, not PPC) is often given an initial boost in the rankings, especially blog-based news, but older content is still ranked providing it:
a) is relevant to the search query
b) has authority / trust
Although PPC and natural search do seem to have some links backstage, older landing pages are certainly not dropped from the program.
@John - Sorry to hear that!
Have you received any warnings from Adwords? Any alerts in your Adwords control panel? How competitive are your keywords?
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So the visitor has landed on your great landing page, but only 2 to 3% will ever do any call to action. Thus you lose upfront 97%.
You should at least know the company names of your visitors that have landed.
That would allow you to contact these warm companies.
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I have tried adwords and it did not work for me. However this information might help me
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Ahh.. been looking for good views about landing pages, I found only a few helpful and free info such as this one.. Thanks for sharing us this info, Creating good landing pages is one of the biggest challenges that I’ve encountered… I don’t want to just create some junk pages ’cause I want to maximize my profits and finding good info like this really means a lot..
Thanks a bunch, will also add this to our web copy resource list..
Kudos!
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Dan Reply:
December 10th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Glad to hear that you found the info helpful. And of course, I appreciate the link!
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It is amazing,…today i spent some hours searching for tips for my landing pages.
Then I stopped it, I went out to take some fresh air and suddenly, without looking for it,…i found this post
the law of attraction at its best
Alex.
online web stores
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Actually this is really good advice. Many thanks! It is difficult to create a website that hooks potential customers in. A good guide here is to get traffic to other pages in your website. Great idea!
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Thanks..
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thank you very much. it’s a good idea.
One page for one job.I agree with you very much
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