Top 10 List: PPC Landing Pages Best Practices

At Shanee Kirk Marketing, we believe SEM consulting starts with a landing page consultation.  No PPC campaign can be successful without a landing page that will convert.  This is true in all industries – B2B, B2C, eCommerce or Lead Generation.  A bad landing page or irrelevant landing page can be the death of PPC before it even begins!

ppc landing page

    • Clearly Define Objectives – Clearly define the objectives and the priorities of the landing page. Once the user arrives to your page think: “What is the next thing we want the user to do.” That objective should be clearly visible and “above the fold.” Any secondary objectives should lie below the fold.
    • Think of Measurement Up Front – Define, Construct and implement a system to measure the results of your objective. This could be through java-script tracking, or better yet, Google’s Adwords Conversion tracking. In most cases, an “action” (i.e. a sign up, lead, sale) must be completed and you track the visitor landing to a 2nd page of choice.
    • Get Specific and Personalized – Do not use your home page. Driving campaign traffic to the home page is not advised. Creating a custom, landing page, specifically devoted to the campaign objectives is the best practice.
    • On-Page Forms – Where possible, use an on-page, filtering or qualifying form process to collect lead information. Having the form on your page (versus a “click here” or a button graphic) has been proven to double or even triple conversion rates.
    • Control the Funnel – Limit Navigation as much as possible. Wherever possible, create a landing page template that funnels visitors straight to the objective. Eliminate unnecessary navigation, including site navigation that can be found throughout the main site
    • Create Keyword Relevance – Use your keywords. Using your most popular keywords from the PPC search campaign will tie in relevance from Google and increase your Adwords Quality Score, while lowering your potential Cost Per Click (CPC).
    • Making a First Impression – Most visitors through PPC are just learning of your site or company for the first time. Your landing page should quickly and clearly explain who you are, what you do, and direct to the funnel. A professional look and feel and appealing graphics will help with this. Good first impressions will allow more visitors to “stick” and lower your bounce rate.
    • Tracking Your Success – Use a third party analytics program or another relevant, measureable metric to track the success of your objectives. Monitor results and carry a “constant improvement philosophy. (i.e improve conversions, improve page load time, improve visitor time on a page, etc).
    • Avoid the Common DONT’S – Don’t put your content/copy in flash, Don’t design for large monitor displays, Don’t design a “heavy” page with large graphics/large video files that slow your page load time.
    • Test, Test, Test – Whether using a multi-variant testing tool (like Google’s Web Site Optimizer) or through a hand made A/B Split Test, new concepts should always be in test mode to monitor and improve the results of the PPC campaign.

And, as always, if you’d like the advice of a professional SEM, please call us at 281-352-7742 or complete the form to the right.