Whether you advertise on Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads or any other pay-per-click (PPC) marketplace, you should optimize your landing page for conversions. By increasing your conversion rate, you’ll achieve a higher earnings per click (EPC), thereby making your PPC campaigns more profitable.
1) Add and Optimize CTA
Every PPC landing page should have a clear, clickable call to action (CTA) that instructs visitors what to do next. It’s one of the most critical elements of an effective landing page as it directly influences the percentage of visitors who take action. To increase your conversion rate, place a single CTA button at the top of your landing page where visitors can see and click it without scrolling.
When designing a CTA, choose an eye-catching color like red, green, orange or yellow. Bright colors such as these consistently outperform dark or dull colors. Also, create actionable copy for your CTA. Rather than using “Store” as the text overlay, for example, consider using “Buy Now” or “Redeem Offer Now.” Including actionable text in your CTA button stimulates user engagement and, subsequently, increases conversions.
2) Remove Navigation
Whether it’s a right-side column, left-side column or a top horizontal menu, remove all nonessential navigation links from your landing page. It’s typically a good thing to include links to other internal pages on a website, but not when developing a landing page. The sole purpose of a landing page is to entice visitors to take action, such as buying a product or completing a form. Navigation links distract visitors from taking this action, diverting their attention away from the CTA and lowering your landing page’s conversion rate.
3) Use Whitespace in the Design
You can draw attention to your CTA by using whitespace in your landing page’s design. Also known as negative space, whitespace isn’t space that’s white; it’s the space used to separate text containers, graphics, and other elements of user interface (UI). Add whitespace to the areas around your landing page’s CTA to attract visitors’ attention to the CTA. For the best results, create whitespace in a color that contrasts to the color of your CTA.
4) Add PPC Keywords to Copy
It’s no secret that adding keywords to a web page’s copy can increase the page’s chance of ranking organically for that keyword. However, adding keywords to a PPC landing page can also increase its conversion rate. Try to include the primary keyword or keywords that you are targeting with PPC ads in your landing page’s copy. PPC marketplaces like Google Ads and Bing Ads look at a landing page’s relevancy to determine the ad position and click costs. By including your PPC keywords in your landing page’s copy, you’ll increase its relevancy and reap the benefits of a higher conversion rate.
5) Optimize Speed
The speed at which your PPC landing page loads will affect its conversion rate. One study found that each additional second added to a landing page’s load time decreased its conversion rate by 7 percent. A separate study published by Google found that more than half of users will abandon a page that takes three seconds or longer to load.
6) Provide Social Proof
Something as simple as adding social media plugins or add-ons to your PPC landing page can increase its conversion rate. You can include a Facebook button on your landing page, for example, that displays the number of users who’ve liked it. When visitors see that your page has hundreds or thousands of likes, they’ll feel more confident taking action. A Facebook button is just one way to provide social proof on your landing page. You can use similar buttons to display the number of Twitter tweets, Google +1s, Pinterest Pins and more.
7) Display Phone Number and Address
Including your business’s phone number and address in your landing page improves its credibility while driving conversions in the process. Even if your company doesn’t have a physical presence, you can still sign up for a PO Box at your local post office and use this address on your landing page. You probably won’t get much mail to this address, but that’s not its intended purpose. Displaying your company’s address and phone number shows visitors that your landing page is owned and operated by a real business, so they’ll feel more comfortable providing you with their payment or personal information. And with a phone number, you may generate conversions from direct calls to your business as well.
8) Include Privacy Policy
With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) now in effect, privacy policies are more important than ever. If your PPC landing page collects personal information from visitors, you may be legally required to include it. This page explains the type of data you collect, from whom you receive it and how you use it. Not only does a privacy policy keep your legally compliant, but it may also increase your landing page’s conversion rate. Visitors
9) Simplify Conversion Process
A common mistake business owners and marketers make when developing a landing page is creating a long, multi-step conversion process. The more steps required for visitors to take action, the higher the risk of them abandoning the page. If a user is forced to sign up for an account before he or she can buy a product, for instance, they may think twice about proceeding. Therefore, you should simplify your landing page’s conversion process by using the fewest steps possible. A basic two- or three-step conversion process that doesn’t include forced registration should suffice for most landing pages.
10) Create Multiple Landing Pages
Don’t use a single landing page in your PPC campaigns. Instead, use multiple landing pages with different design elements. According to research by HubSpot, marketers who used 40 landing pages in their campaigns generated 1,200 percent more leads than marketers who only used one to five landing pages. By using multiple landing pages, you’ll collect invaluable data on click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates, which you can use to optimize your pages further.
Optimizing your PPC landing page for conversions is essential to creating a successful, profitable marketing campaign. Regardless of your landing page’s objective, following these 10 tips will help you achieve a higher conversion rate.
