It is expensive to buy traffic using pay per click. It is expensive to “optimize” your website pages for natural search. In both cases, the ultimate goal is to convert these clicks to conversions so that you see a nice return on your investment (ROI). One way to increase your ROI is to increase the conversion rate on the pages that visitors land on when they click on your ads or visit your site as a result of natural search.
There are really two kinds of landing pages; campaign specific landing pages, and organic searched pages. People who know what they want click on ads, and they are different from organic searchers doing research. They want what they searched for, and they want it fast. Your landing pages should provide them with facts, take them exactly where they want to be without any hassles, and make it simple for them to get what they want.
So what should you consider when designing your pages to increase conversions?
What is the Most Effective Landing Page?
Avoid using your home page as your landing page. Create specific landing pages for every ad and paid search term. If this seems daunting, remember that retailers can use the "product page" as a landing page, and service providers can use the "service page". However, if you have the time and resources, the most effective thing to do is to create landing pages specifically targeted towards your PPC campaign. This provides you with more freedom to customize the design of your landing page.
If the ad campaign is a temporary offer, you won't want this landing page indexed by search engines, and you can use the robots.txt file to tell search engine spiders not to index it. It would be embarrassing if you remove the ad listing but consumers continue to find this landing page because it appears in the natural search results.
What Goes On the Landing Page?
Make sure your landing pages answers these questions:
• What's the offer?
• Who's interested?
• Why are they interested, and why should they take further action?
• How do they get started?
On your landing pages, start with benefits, not features, and use persuasive wording.
• Be Concise – If you use paragraphs, use one idea per paragraph and use no more than three lines. Use bullet points. Make headlines bold and prominent.
• Match the Wording on your Landing Page
• Use a Big Call-To-Action Image Button – placed in the top right of the page.
• Show the Price, show the shipping information.
• Make Sure the Page is Grammatically Correct
• Show Credibility – Add testimonials, awards, partners, associations. Show product ratings or reviews. Include a phone number! You want to establish trust.
• Don’t Clutter the Page, and Use Images – make sure the landing page looks professional and appealing. Put graphic on the left side. Make sure the page looks good on a mobile phone.
• Show some cross-sells. Show “best sellers” or “best value” services.
• Use Short Forms – do your need to have more information than: Full Name, Email, Phone, Product or Service interest?
• Thank You. Make sure you thank them afterwards. You can even give them an unexpected bonus like a link to a survey or a case study.
The Message From Your Ad Listing
Make sure the content on your landing pages works with your ad copy, and follows through on your ad promise. For example, if your ad says you are a low cost provider, show them price comparisons on the landing page. In this way you begin to establish trust with your site visitors because your message is consistent, from the ad to your landing page. Trust will increase your sales and encourage long-time customers.
Position Critical Information At the Top of the Page
Your landing page does not have to be short, but all the important information, like benefits and the order button should be visible without scrolling. Web developers refer to this as "above the fold." Since people use different size screens and different browsers, make sure you test this information placement. Your landing page might look great on a 1024x768 screen resolution, but most of your visitors are still using 800x600 screen resolution, and they won’t see the buy button without scrolling. Make sure this is not the case.
Don’t Give Visitors Too Many Navigational Choices
On really targeted landing pages, you should completely remove the website navigation and provide only links which will help complete the sale (such as shipping information and the privacy policy).
You don’t want to give customers too many choices on your landing pages. It might distract them before they buy. Once they complete their purchase, then you can take them to a "thank you" page that offers them links to search the rest of your site.
Use Action Words
Use words that easily convey what you want the visitor to do, like Buy Now, Sign Up, Download, and Add to Cart. In addition, make sure you put the words in a place on the page where they will be noticed. Many people ignore the top 60 pixels of a screen because that's where they expect to see a banner ad. Make your buttons large, graphical, and brightly colored, and put them in the middle of the landing page, above the fold.
Consider the Google Quality Score:
Since many of the landing pages you will be designing will correspond directly to your Google Adwords campaigns, it is important to understand the Google Quality Score.
An Amazing Article by my marketing mentor, trusted advisor, & Great Friend
Sue McCrossin, PA Internet Marketing
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