Landing Page Optimization Tips
Let’s talk about “Landing Page Optimization” - another one of those fancy marketing agency terms you hear but may not truly understand. This is a powerful and incredibly necessary tool for any digital marketer to know. Let’s dive in!
What is a Landing Page?
Simply put, a landing page is whatever page loads whenever someone clicks on one of your ads.
Sometimes this may just be your website's home page (don’t do this.) Usually, this is a streamlined, highly optimized, relevant page targeted exactly to your readers interest (do this.)
There are countless Landing Page services you can use to create cookie-cutter, click-and-drag, “WYSIWYG” landing pages… which are fine… but you don’t need that!
If you have a website, it’s easy to create highly effective landing pages. Here’s a quick overview of some of the most important elements of crafting any successful, high-converting landing page:
Relevance
As we discussed in our Top PPC Optimization Tip post — the more relevant your ads and landing pages are to a user’s search, the better they will perform and the lower your CPC will be.
Make sure your ad copy and your landing page are perfectly in sync. If you’re advertising a download of a free e-Book on the “10 Best Music Festivals in the U.S.”, you want to make sure your landing page has a clear and actionable step they can take to get the e-book they clicked the ad searching for. Often times your websites homepage is a general catch-all of your services, offerings, and information. This will lead to high bounce rates and lower-converting ads, which means you’ll be spending a lot more money!
Get to the point!
While you want to make sure to provide appropriate context to your audience, we all hate those trite, long, overdone YouTube video intros or the life story of a blogger before they get to the recipe you were looking for.
Your audience searched for a very specific need they have, found your ad relevant… you’ve got them hooked! Now, make sure you deliver quickly, or they will cast another line for an easier fish. This isn’t the time to woo them with your words to make yourself seem more qualified.
Targeting
In the same vein as using Single Keyword Ad Groups, if you have the ability to create micro-content on a macro-level, you will be rewarded highly! Think about it… the more hyper-relevant your ad visuals, copy, and placement are to the audience that’s searching for them, you’re that much more relevant to the end user and therefore will see much higher conversion rates.
What does this look like? If you’re targeting an older female demographic with your ad, make sure to include an older female in your ad visuals and don’t speak in slang or colloquialisms that won’t register with that audience. Conversely, if you’re targeting a younger audience, don’t use that same visual or tone… let them see themselves using your product and speak to them the way they are used to. But, make sure you know what you’re doing. People can sniff out a phony from a mile away!
Be clear
Every menu option, rambling sentence, or witty tid-bit about you is a possible distraction point to send your user off down a rabbit hole, or worse, off of your page altogether because they didn’t find what they wanted from your ad soon enough.
Repeat your CTA if you feel the need to have a substantial amount of copy or photos on your page, or anything that will cause your reader to scroll, then it’s important to have your CTA repeat several times through their journey. The LAST thing you want is someone ready and wanting to take action on your page and they don’t know how or where to do it. After every major section of large chunk of text (you shouldn’t have these anyways), it’s important to give your reader a chance to take action.
Bonus:
If possible, add a little extra value on your confirmation or download page. You’ve most likely created this landing page in order to do lead generation by collecting people’s contact information, so, their guard is likely already up. Winners always give 51% in any relationship, so show them you’re only looking to ultimately provide a benefit to them and their business by providing an additional free tip, giveaway, or access to something unexpected since they took the leap of faith with you!
