In simple terms, a PPC landing page is a web page which a user ‘lands’ on subsequent to clicking a paid ad. Essentially, there are two broad types of landing pages; click through pages and lead generation pages. Click through pages are more often than not used in ecommerce with the intention of moving a user further down the purchasing funnel. They use a CTA such as ‘add to cart’ to achieve this. Lead generation pages usually include a form designed to collect personal information about a user in order to market a product or service to that user at a later date.
The Faster, The Better
It takes someone just seconds to make a strong first impression and the same can be said when considering landing pages. This is just one reason why it is important to provide a fast loading time when navigating a user to your landing page, not to mention the fact that it improves your Google Quality Score, effectively increasing your ad position for a lower cost. Providing a fast loading time keeps the user engaged and reduces your bounce rate.
Keep it Simple
Avoid making your landing page look ‘busy’ with distracting videos and pictures because that is exactly what they will do; distract the user. Living in such a fast paced society, it’s important not to bog the user down with excessive amounts of text and jargon, they must be able to understand the message you’re trying to convey in a relatively short space of time. Besides, lots of images and videos will only slow your load time down anyway.
Relevancy is Key
It’s very unlikely that you’d walk to an aisle in a supermarket marked ‘bacon’ only to find boxes of eggs there instead. It would be pretty disappointing too. Don’t make the same mistake with your landing page. Keep it relevant to what your ad has proposed and re-emphasise its message; do not disappoint. Don’t send the user to the homepage, instead, take them to the purchase page and provide them with more information about your product or service. By keeping your ad relevant, you’ll lower your CPC, increase conversions and ultimately, improve ROI.
Provide a Clear and Simple CTA
Don’t hide it below the fold or with mouseover effects. Champion it. It’s important that the user knows what to do next and it’s your job to guide them to the action you want them to take. This being said, what you don’t want is for the user to feel too ‘pushed’ or committed. Use a ‘soft’ CTA, for example, ‘add to cart’ rather than a CTA such as ‘submit’ which may discourage the user.
And Finally, Test, Test, Test!
Your landing page is an important element to your campaign so it’s important to test it as often as is necessary. This can be achieved in two ways; A/B testing and multivariate testing;
A/B testing allows you to test two entirely different pages against each other to determine which one is more effective in terms of performance.
Multivariate testing lets you test a number of components within a landing page at one time to determine which combination of components are most effective. Anything can be tested from CTA variations and navigation to headlines and copy. Testing your landing page is vital in determining what works well, what doesn’t, what to use and what to avoid.
by Jen Mottram
