Targeted Landing Pages for PPC campaigns
Why your PPC ad campaign needs targeted landing pages
Setting up a campaign specific landing page can improve your PPC conversion rates by focusing your content and removing homepage distractions. Landing pages are a tough topic to cover because certain things work for different people, so it’s sometimes difficult to understand what really works all the time. We do know simple design and simple content helps reduce noise and confusion for your audience.
The way people interact with websites is constantly changing, requiring updates. For instance, if you have a website that hasn’t been updated in a few years, chances are the colors, text, and layout is out of date. For small businesses looking to optimize their content on a budget, it can be tough to deliver higher level landing page optimization, like “A/B” split testing. So, with this in mind, there are a few simple ways your business can improve its conversion rate and site use-ability.
Campaign specific landing pages
To increase conversions, the first page a user lands on must be relevant to the keywords that got them there. Include similar phrases to the ad copy that is directed towards your landing pages. This should be done more so with your ad copy, but altering your landing page content every once in a while can’t hurt. For advertising, Google’s Quality Score pulls similarities between your landing page and your ad copy, so in addition to improving conversions you will increase your ad placement.
- Raise quality score – The similarity between your landing page content, title tags and your ad’s message improves your quality score. Specific landing pages reduce the costs of your pay per click ads by improving the quality score (decreasing the amount you must bid to rank for a keyword or phrase).
- Keep your site focused - Although you campaign specific landing page should be branded like your website it shouldn’t have all the distracting elements. You can set up your landing page on a sub domain and allow marketers to set up more aggressive marketing tactics.
- Match your ad message – If your message is focused, simple and has a call to action, there is a better chance the user will click on it. The same goes for your page, if your advertisement matches your web page there is less chance for the user to bounce.
Try video on landing pages
The newest trend to hit landing page optimization is the use of video. Citing an eMarketer study, “in 2011, 68.2% of US internet users, or 158.1 million people, will be watching video online at least once a month.” Video is still new and exciting for many people. How-to videos, informational, and commercials could be used to creatively teach a consumer what your organization is all about. In reference to a WebVisible Q4 2010 report, "26% of small business advertisers used video on their home page (or landing page), up from 19% the year before. Not only that, but views of those videos are up as well-a whopping 85% increase over 2009's numbers."
Template based and generic-marketing strategies may work for some businesses, but if your small business is looking to stand out amongst the crowd you should target a specific niche and cater your landing page to it. Landing pages should incorporate a call to action and unique content to engage users.
Contributed by: Matt Krautstrunk is an expert writer on office copiers based in San Diego, California. He writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as copier machines at Resource Nation
