The experience a visitor has on the landing page once clicked through from a Google Ad makes a huge difference to the conversion rate achieved from the campaign. A positive experience on landing pages will directly impact the bid cost for the keywords.
Therefore it is worthwhile ensuring the landing pages for Google Ads campaigns are created, tested and optimised correctly to achieve the most from the allocated ad spend. Landing pages impact the quality score and ad rank, so is an important element to get right.
In our blog post, we will look more at why the Google Ads landing page is so important to any Google ad campaign and the areas to focus on for landing page best practices to create the perfect landing page.
Landing Page Not Home Page
To begin with, let’s cover specifically what we are referring to when discussing the landing page. This is a separate page from the home page or any other page on your website. It is created specifically to be the first page potential customers arrive on after clicking the relevant Google ad for their search query.
Whilst the majority of pages on your website will be focused and written with organic search in mind, for example, including relevant keywords and long form copy etc. with the aim to appear higher in the search engines results page for the relevant query.
Landing pages are created bespoke with the aim of converting visitors who have clicked through on a specific Google ad to make a purchase or complete a form, which will increase conversions. The target audience will at this point have a particular problem they are looking for a solution to and due to their search query, likely have a high purchase intent.
Once a potential customer has clicked through from an advert from the online marketing campaigns, if they are taken to the homepage or other pages on the website, this will not directly provide the solution to their problem or query. If they have to then navigate to find it themselves, they could lose interest or think come to the wrong page and leave the site.
To be successful to convert visitors to either make a purchase or complete a form/enquiry, a dedicated landing page for the Google ad or ad groups chosen should be bespoke.
Why landing page performance matters?
There are reasons behind firstly ensuring to have a landing page for Google ads and secondly ensuring it is a positive landing page experience for visitors to the website page. Google when regularly reviewing ad campaigns actually take into account the user experience on landing pages.
Ultimately Google will want visitors using their search engine to have a positive experience throughout their journey from end to end. If they provide links to a search query entered which results in visitors quickly bouncing back to the search engine and not getting the answer to their query, this is not the desired outcome.
Therefore the landing page is as important as other elements such as the ads themselves to get right. The landing pages directly impact the quality score and ad rank, which in turn impacts the bid cost and position the Google ads are shown on the search engines results.
It is of benefit both to your business and the potential customers for the landing page experience to be positive. With a lower bid cost, this will provide a higher return on ad spend, with the allocated ad spend being able to be maximised further.
If successful and your Google ad is shown more frequently and with a higher position, this in turn will drive more traffic to your website. With the right valuable information given when a visitor arrives on the landing page to answer their problem, this should lead to your desired action of increased conversion rates.
Relevant Content
The landing page should be created with relevant content to the advert it is associated with. For example, including relevant keywords and similar wording used on the ad copy. This keeps visitors’ attention by reassuring them they have come through to the right page to continue with finding the solution to their query.
Whilst it should be helpful content, it is important to be concise, quick and simple for a visitor to find the right information, perhaps consider the use of bullet points and include useful data.
The focus purely on the landing page should be on providing the solution to their problem, which had led to the keywords used for your target market. Therefore the landing page shouldn’t go into other information about the business not needed at this point.
Design
Not only does the landing page copy need to be tailored to suit your target audience and provide the relevant information, but the design of the page also plays as important of a factor to achieving a high converting landing page. It is recommended to have a simple landing page design which doesn’t detract from getting the visitor directly to the answer they are after.
For example, keep the design clean and simple, with relevant imagery such as a product being modelled if appropriate or lifestyle imagery for a service based business. A good landing page will use negative space correctly to help draw attention to important elements, which will help with converting visitors, such as the call to action (CTA) or to completing a form on the page.
Call To Action
With Google Ads having an impactful and clear call to action button on the landing pages will help to convert visitors and keep visitors’ attention on the landing page. This could be ‘buy now’ or ‘find out more’. It could even include a time sensitive offer.
The call to action has the best impact if it stands out clearly as part of the design, it doesn’t want to be getting lost among the body text. Just like a headline should be noticed, so should the call to action.
Social Proof
Although a Google ad campaign may have strong ad relevance and ad copy, once on the landing page a visitor will need to know your business is trustworthy to go onto convert. A method of quickly providing this on a landing page is to provide social proof.
This could be in various formats, popular options are to include accredited logos. For example, for the trades industry it may be relevant to include logos of governing bodies they are approved or associated with.
Another approach is the inclusion of positive and relevant testimonials, the more tailored to the relevant keywords the better, as opposed to being a broad testimonial. Being more specific will help increase the trust built with the visitor, reassuring them quickly that you are the right business for their needs.
Simple To Complete Form
Business objectives relevant to running online marketing campaigns in particular Google Ads typically will be focused on achieving a high return on their ad spend and delivering a good conversion rate.
To achieve this it helps to include as few barriers as possible to converting visitors. If looking to collect customer information or receive enquiries, including an easy to complete form on the landing page can be effective.
It is worth testing and optimising the form to get the right level of information, it should be enough for your business objectives, but not asking too much from a customer which leads to them leaving your website. Once completed it should take visitors through a ‘thank you’ page.
Page Load Time
A business could have created a landing page which ticks every box for its target market, however, if it has a slow page load time this will likely directly impact on losing visitors to go to another website before converting. It will also impact the quality score from Google as page speed is a factor included among this.
There are many studies which show the direct link between page load time and bounce rate. It is advised to aim for a page load time of 2 seconds or less to avoid losing visitors going back to Google to find an alternative website to help them.
When reviewing the page load time it isn’t just for desktops, mobile devices also require a good page load time and to be designed to be user friendly when arriving on the landing page. Recommend testing across all devices.
Testing
The landing page as we noted earlier is one of the most important elements when it comes to delivering a successful Google ad campaign, along with other key elements such as ad relevance, keywords etc.
Time should be spent on regularly testing and optimising the landing pages. This could be done through split testing or a/b testing to identify which is delivering the best results for the business objectives.
Regular testing allows for constant improvements and changes to be made to achieve the best conversion rate and receive the highest quality leads and customers, for example with a high customer worth.
How Can We Help?
We hope our blog post was helpful to understand further the importance of a good landing page for businesses running Google Ad campaigns. As noted there are many factors to ensure are right and tested to achieve a high conversion rate and maximised ad spend.
At 1PCS Creative we are a Google Partner and are experienced in working on Google Ad campaigns across multiple industries, giving us the right knowledge and expertise to deliver successful Google Ad campaigns. Please feel free to get in touch to see how we can help.
Ben Webster
Creative director at 1PCS. Addicted to design, SEO, pizza and helping companies big and small succeed online.