One of the elements of a Google AdWords campaign is a link to a web page that visitors first arrive at after clicking on your ad. This is called a landing page. Many small businesses running AdWords campaigns use an existing page on their website as a landing page. This often is the homepage, but it could also be a services or product page. Campaigns set up like this will lose sales.
The key measurement to consider here is conversion rate, the percentage of people who respond to the call to action on a landing page. General website pages are not optimized for AdWords conversions, so they will not have an optimized conversion rate. Without an optimized conversion rate, sales are lost.
The solution is to create specific landing pages for every Google AdWords campaign. In fact, you should create specific landing pages for each ad group, ad, or even keyword. The more specific and targeted the landing page is, the better the conversion rate will be.
Anatomy of a Good Landing Page
This is easier to understand when you look at the anatomy of a good landing page. It first has to adopt good web design standards. This includes being fast loading and having clear branding. After those basics are in place, it is all about conversions.
All the content on a specific landing page should help get that conversion. This means page text and headings must be persuasive and highly relevant to the search query the visitor typed into Google.
A good product-specific landing page should also have a clear call to action. Apart from that CTA, there should be hardly any other links on the page. Some PPC experts say there should be only the CTA, but most go for one or two secondary links and/or a reduced main menu. The idea behind this is to remove as many distractions as possible to keep the visitor focused on making a decision.
Also, there should only be one main choice for the visitor to make. You can have a secondary option if the user decides not to convert, but they should only have one main choice. The primary offering and all the key information should always appear above the fold.
A standard website page simply doesn’t meet these requirements. In addition, it is easier and more accurate to carry out detailed split testing when you set up a landing page in this way.
To maximize conversions from AdWords campaigns, you should always use specific landing pages because of their greater focus on conversions, and because it is easier to test and improve.
