Pay Per Click Reference

Behind the pay per click (PPC) ad text, the landing page is probably the most important part of your PPC campaign. After viewing and clicking on your pay per click ad, the landing page is the first view the user will have of your product/service. A landing page should be directly related to the subject and keywords of the ad and one click away (or less) from the conversion (i.e. a purchase, registration, etc). The more relevant the material on your landing page the more likely the visitor will complete the desired action.

Concentrate On Conversions

• The converstion action should be up front and obvious. Don't make the user hunt for it.
• Do not give the visitor a lot of choices. Try to reduce the number of avenues a visitor can take to leave the landing page. Instead funnel them towards the conversion.
• Try to put the conversion's first step on the page. For example, the visitor can add the product to their shopping cart or sign up for the newsletter on the landing page.
• Consider repeating the conversion opportunity at the bottom of the page. It can act as a next step for the visitor. This can be especially useful on longer pages that require scrolling.

Blue Widget Example

For this example, assume we are advertising blue widgets with pay per click ads and our conversion is when a visitor buys a blue widget on our website. In order to increase the chance of turning a click into a conversion, the landing page should be the page of the site devoted to information about blue widgets, preferably one step away from the order page for blue widgets. It would be ideal if the visitor arrived at the product detail page for the blue widget. This page would contain all of the information related to the blue widget and give the potential customer an opportunity to add the widget to their shopping cart. The goal and primary purpose for this pay per click advertiser is to get the customer to buy the item they are advertising in their ad.

If the landing page provides information on the blue widget mentioned in the pay per click ad, users will not have to search the rest of the website for the information they want and will be less likely to abandon the site in search of a more user friendly landing page. Internet users are not conditioned to having to spend a lot of time looking for what they want so you should be mindful of this when creating your landing pages as well. The same rule applies to writing your pay per click ad and creating your landing page, include the keyword phrase the visitor used in their search. Your landing page should have multiple instances of the keywords (i.e. blue widgets) used by your pay per click ad.

Landing Page Tips

• Consider removing the website navigation from your landing page.
• Do not feature other products/services that are not directly related to your pay per click ad.
• Stay away from sending visitors to your home page. It represents your website and not just the advertised product/service.
• Take the time to create a custom, but simplified landing page.
• If available, include a large photo of your product/service. Images communicate faster than text.
• Be careful not to have too much text and avoid scolling. Too much copy on your landing page can overwhelm the visitor.
• Do not put unnecessary hurdles and steps between the visitor and your conversion.
• If you do not get the conversion the first time, you can get it later. Try to collect the visitor's email address so you can contact them later.
• Try different things and see how it affects your conversions. Tweak and test your landing pages.

Remember, you have already paid for the visitor’s click on your pay per click ad and it is not the final step you want them to take. You want to turn the visitor's click into a conversion and the best way to increase your conversion rate is to make sure your landing pages directly correlate to your pay per click ads. If you are only gaining traffic without conversions, you are not getting a good return on your investment and just wasting your money.

Next Step

• Set Your Cost Per Click (CPC)