Want More Paid Conversions? Implement Custom Landing Pages

Are you thinking about starting a pay-per-click campaign or wondering how to increase conversions from your current campaign? Well, move custom pay-per-click landing pages to the top of your priority list. And we're not just talking about one landing page for your entire pay-per-click campaign. Our experience shows that several landing pages should be developed for every pay-per-click campaign, and each page should speak directly to the visitor who has clicked on your ad.

Custom landing pages have been shown to be incredibly effective, and here are a few reasons why it's so important to implement them. First of all, industry research indicates your landing page has between zero to eight seconds to convince the visitor that your offer is for them. Your landing page must grab the visitor immediately and offer a clear, concise call to action. If you simply send searchers to your home page or even a broad category page, you risk them abandoning the site completely within a matter of seconds.

Second, Google assesses landing page quality and relevance for each ad to determine the ad's quality score. If Google determines the landing page is not sufficiently relevant to the ad, they will increase the bid for that ad. Simply put, unless you have a compelling landing page that's directly related to the search term, you could be paying more for that ad and your rankings might be continually decreasing.

The Power of Custom Landing Pages

A client of ours for several years, Atlanta School of Massage recently experienced a dramatic increase in conversions and sales by partnering with us to implement custom landing pages for their pay-per-click campaign. Custom landing pages generated a remarkable increase in conversions and sales while decreasing their cost-per-lead and average cost-per-click.

As many of you know, one of the many advantages of pay-per-click is results can be seen almost immediately, and the results of this effort were impressive.

  • Conversions from the pay-per-click campaign increased 234% after the custom landing pages were implemented.

  • Sales (new student registrations) increased 58% in January 2007 as compared to January 2006.

  • Overall cost-per-paid-lead decreased 70% and the average cost-per-click decreased 46%.

This proves to us that you don’t need to continually raise your bids on Google to improve your conversions.  Look at other factors such as your landing pages to get more bang for your buck.

Implementing Your Own Landing Pages

Before you embark on developing your own custom landing pages, here are a few tips we learned along the way:

  • Each landing page should include a headline that closely matches the ad text, and the content should be directly relevant to the search term.

  • The subheads should offer useful summaries of the information found on the page, and they help break the page into easy to comprehend sections.

  • Keep the body copy short and to the point.

  • Use bullet points wherever possible.

  • The call to action should be clear and concise.

  • The actual conversion form should be on the landing page.  The searcher should not have to click to navigate to the form, and minimal information should be required on the form.

  • If possible, all imperative information and the conversion form should be above the fold so scrolling and additional clicks aren’t necessary.

After our success with Atlanta School of Massage, we strongly recommend custom landing pages for all pay-per-click campaigns. But don’t just take our word for it.  Try custom landing pages for yourself and watch your conversions climb.

Sources:

  • eWhisper.net, “Google AdWords Case Study – Improving Landing Page Quality,” July 2006

  • MarketingSherpa, “Anne's Blog: Behind-the-Scenes at Google AdWords 2.6,” January 2006

  • SearchFactz powered by SendTec, “Turning 10 Paid Search Mistakes Into Profit,” 2006

  • Slegg, Jennifer. Search Engine Watch, “Analyzing the Google AdWords Landing Page Algorithim,” July 25, 2006

  • MarketingSherpa, “Landing Page Handbook,” 2005.

About Us

Founded in 2001, Prominent Placement is an industry leading search engine marketing agency offering integrated search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and strategic linking services. Prominent Placement has unrivaled experience in driving business success and has earned industry accolades including AMA Atlanta Chapter AMY award finalist the past four consecutive competitions, winning in 2005, TAG TAMY award finalist the past three consecutive competitions, also winning in 2005, and PRSA Atlanta Chapter award finalist 2006.  Prominent Placement is a member of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO), the American Marketing Association (AMA), the Business Marketing Association (BMA), the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA) and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

For more information call us at 888.SEM.MKTR (888.736.6587).  For a look at our comprehensive approach, please see our Search Engine Marketing Services page. And to discuss your company's individual search marketing needs, please use ourcontact us form.