How To Improve Your Landing Pages
An effective and functional landing page is a vital component of every pay per click advertising strategy, with encouraging individuals to click on your advertisement just the first step.
Your landing page must appeal to your target audience, meet their expectations, and effectively communicate key pieces of information to successfully increase your conversion rate. The effectiveness and relevance of your landing page will also improve your quality score, which can positively impact advertisement position, bidding prices and ad rank.
The purpose of landing pages:
1. To convert clicks. This could involve securing instant sales, receiving enquiries for further information or quotes, generating leads, and booking appointments. Providing contact information is particularly important, as your potential customers may want to converse with you before making a purchase.
2. To increase your customer database. Data is extraordinarily helpful for tailoring future advertising and marketing campaigns, while building up your email list is important for effectively shaping your direct marketing strategy.
3. Successfully communicating key pieces of information. Not every click will result in a conversion; however, your landing pages should always seek to thoroughly explain your products or services, raise awareness of your business and shed some light on your backstory, and forge connections in meaningful ways.
Integrated landing pages
Landing pages that form an integral part of a website tend to be very efficient and become an effective part of your overall SEO strategy. This is due to their permanent placement within the overall structure of a website.
Bespoke landing pages
Created exclusively for a specific advertising campaign, bespoke landing pages have the advantage of being specifically tailored to secure the maximum number of conversions. As they are not permanent parts of a website, they can struggle to perform well in terms of SEO.
Bespoke-integrated hybrid landing pages
Alternatively, you may decide to combine the best elements of each type of landing page by optimising an existing page or customising your homepage to reflect the messaging of your advertisement. Regardless of your approach, you should subject your landing pages to the same thorough testing processes as your advertisements. Split testing will help you to identify the most effective combination of features for your business and advertising campaign.
Relevance and continuity
It is important to remember that individuals who actively click on pay per click advertisements generally possess a higher level of intent when it comes to making a purchase compared with casual browsers.
Your landing page must provide the details your audience needs to make an informed decision, in addition to incorporating high-quality design elements and imagery. Back up your claims with proof or testimonials, and ensure that information is both detailed and accurate.
Crucially, the messaging conveyed on your landing page must maintain a level of continuity with your advertisement. Do not confuse or catch your audience off-guard, as they will look elsewhere for answers to their questions.
Obsolete landing pages
Once your advertising campaign is over, you need to consider what you are going to do with your landing page. You do not want potential customers coming across out-of-date information; therefore, setting up a redirect to a permanent page of your website or a customised 404 error page will usually be the best approach.