Good landing pages are imperative to the success of any Google Ads campaign. Not only do they encourage conversions once customers have clicked through from Google, but they also have a profound effect on the performance of your campaign itself.
Bambrick Media defines a landing page as the webpage customers are directed to when they first click through on a Google Ads listing. It’s important to keep in mind that Google’s first priority is always going to be its customers — the better your landing page, the more relevant your Ads listings are going to seem to searchers, and the more Google maintains its market share and continues to make money.
Google, therefore, looks at landing pages as a valuable metric in defining your quality score (a factor that determines your rank in listings, as well as how much you pay per click) and the overall effectiveness of your campaign. Remember that Google can only read text, so the more relevant written information, the better.
However, written information isn’t the only key to a successful landing page. We like to work with our customers to create the most valuable campaigns possible, which is why we have put together the Essential Guide to Landing Pages.
This guide can be found below, and your account manager will be happy to discuss how we can apply this to your website.
Essential Guide to Landing Pages:
Landing pages are the pages that a visitor first comes to when they visit your website. They may have been directed from referring websites, advertisements, or search engine results. Of course, the idea of a landing page is to direct the visitor to take the action that you want them to take — this might be making a purchase, enquiry, or simply sharing the content on social media.
Whatever the goal, there are a number of required elements that should be incorporated into your landing page to ensure that you convert as many of your visitors as possible. Relevancy, transparency, and ease of navigation are also general points that should be incorporated to increase conversions.
Here are essential, detailed points that will lead to more conversions.
How to create landing pages that convert
Write a killer headline
The first thing people look at is the headline. Make sure it’s concise, clear, and highly relevant to your campaign.
Sell, sell, sell!
Ultimately, your landing page is there to sell your product or service to the visitor. So, what do you need to sell it?
Break down the features and benefits
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What is going to make someone buy your product, or use your service? What makes your product or service better than your competitors? Clearly outline the features and benefits that you’ll be able to provide them. For example, if you were selling apartments, there’s a whole world of elements that will encourage purchase. You’d include elements like the location (what would draw someone to live there?), the price, lifestyle (this can often be a unique selling point and often drives consumer decision-making), the fit out and amenities, plus the care and detail gone into the project. You’d also want to delve into the people behind the project, which allows you to explore the thought and effort gone into each piece of the development. People want to buy from people — this builds trust. People tend to be wary buying from a faceless, nameless corporation that has no personality.
Content (text)
Without content, you won’t be able to successfully sell anything. People need an explanation — there’s no point just putting a photo of your product on the page and expecting people to convert like crazy. Your visitors want to know about the product. The only way that you’re going to achieve that is through lots of sales copy — and it needs to be compelling. Be concise but particular; details are important and will help to make the sale, or push them to an inquiry.
High-quality images
As we all know, a picture tells a thousand words. You want your thousand words to represent your product, service and business in a positive way. Invest in high-quality photos that accurately represent your image and push the visitor towards your ultimate goal: their conversion. Beautiful photos show the care and dedication you’ve put in — and then likely the same care and dedication you put in to your product or service.
Create a strong call to action
Don’t leave your visitor in the dark about what to do. They’ve read the whole page — now what? Do they call, do they buy, or do they fill in a form? Make the call to action clear. “Call us now on…” or “Contact us today…” are examples of how you can incorporate a call to action. Including a form fill or other design elements to make it clear what the call of action is will significantly aid your conversion rates.
A picture tells a thousand words, and a video tells even more
While the sales copy on the page is extremely important, including other elements like images and video that tell more of the story will significantly increase your conversion rate. Over 90% of people agree that visuals are a key factor in their purchasing decisions. Include enticing images that show more of the product, and, where applicable, a video that also entices the visitor even more.
Make inquiring easy
The goal of most landing pages is to drive consumer action. This is going to come from a form fill inquiry, or through a phone call. Because of this, the way the phone number and the inquiry form appear on the page is very important. Placing it in the wrong place can seriously affect your conversion rates. If you want to drive inquiries through a phone call, then place the phone number either on the top right-hand side, or bottom right-hand side. If you have a longer page where you need to scroll down a lot, placing the number in other places down right-hand side of the page is also ideal.
With a form, ensure you limit the field to the most critical, to the least number of fields possible. It also needs to be completely visible on the page as the whole box — not a link, completely visible, as customers need to know that there is a form — with examples in the fields of what to enter there.
Again, similar to the phone number it should be on the right, and immediately follow, or accompany, the content. This is because consumer behaviour demonstrates that because people are used to reading left to right, and top to bottom, the best place to put forms is to the right of the content or underneath. (This depends on how much content you have — if you have to scroll down a lot it needs to be visible above the fold.)
Entice your visitor as soon as they visit the page
When you reach a page, you often don’t see all of it straight away. Anything that you have to scroll down to see is considered below the fold. Ensure that your most vital and important elements are above the fold, in the first, primary view that the visitor sees. 80% of people spend their time above the fold, so engage your visitors straight away. It’s similar to a headline — why would you scroll down if what you see initially is not relevant or doesn’t make you want to look any further?
Limit navigational options
By giving the visitor fewer options, you focus them towards the thing that you want them to do — the call to action. For this reason, only targeted traffic should be sent to the landing page because the landing page will be targeted to those particular visitors.
Testimonials
Including what others have said about your company is another great way to boost conversion rates. This increases consumer trust and encourages the visitor to purchase that product or make that inquiry. Consumers want to know what other people think of you and how your products or services have helped them.
Other trust elements
Instil more trust elements on the landing page for your visitor. You can do this in a number of ways, such as displaying third-party logos of companies that use your product or service, and telling visitors about the people behind the business or project. An About Us page, FAQs, information about the team, suppliers, awards, past projects and assurances or guarantees will increase your visitor’s trust twofold. You can’t expect people to see a business’s website, know nothing about them, and instantly make a purchasing decision. As mentioned previously, people like buying from people, not corporations.
Testing is key
Find out what’s working better than other elements by constantly testing. You won’t know if you need an extra testimonial or better headline until you properly test. Without testing, you could significantly miss out on increased conversion rates.