What makes a good landing page? Consider these things 

We’ve put together a series of five blogs on Google advertising planning, which cover digital advertising in a broader sense. You’ll find great tips for effective Google advertising in all of them:

1. Five questions and answers on Google advertising
2. Google Ads tips from an expert
3. Side eyes ahead! (The importance of analytics)
4. How to get more out of a small marketing budget
5. What makes a good landing page?

The company’s website receives a steady stream of visitors organically as well as thanks to marketing efforts. Do site visitors still generate little leads or traffic?

The problem could be the landing page you are using. The importance of landing pages in digital marketing and search engine optimization can be easily overlooked when the focus is on driving traffic to your website. 

In this blog, we explain why you should make sure your landing pages are attractive and perfect for visitors.

What is a landing page?

From a marketing and advertising perspective, a landing page is the part of your website where a visitor arrives through your marketing efforts. 

A landing page can be a specially created part of your site that is only visible when you click on a link, or it can be a specific part of your site, for example, a category page for a product category.

One use of a landing page may be for a specific action, such as submitting contact details or requesting a quote. This kind of landing page is highly convertible, as it meets the customer’s expectations from advertising. For example, a customer who comes from an advertisement like “Leave your contact details on our website for a free consultation” is not interested in your homepage - they want to leave their contact details with you as easily as possible.

Kuten kuvasta vHowever, as you can see from the image, a landing page doesn’t always have to be short and sweet, as long as it’s done right. The landing page of ‘Webprofits’ is long, but it’s easy to read with the proper placement of graphics. It tells the visitor enough about their product and how it will benefit them. Overall rating: 10+

The landing page is not always completely new.

Using a specific section of a website - such as the category page above as a landing page - works when you don’t necessarily want the consumer to take a particular action right away; instead, you want to introduce them to the products/services. 

In this case, the link in the ad should direct consumers to the category page of the products that match the ad. The consumers will see the same things as in the ad. The consumer has clicked on the advertisement because he is interested in the advertised product and wants to find out more about it.

A bad or completely wrong landing page gives a confusing picture and makes the consumer turn back after finding that the thing that caught his attention in the advertisement is not in front of him.

The landing page of ‘Multitouch’ is full of images that do not make any sense to the consumer. The generic “marketing simplified” slogan gives the reader no idea what he is expected to do on the site or what the product is. 

Meaningless diagrams and charts in the image only create new questions: where are these graphs from? Does this product have anything to do with them? A classic example of a confusing and wrong brand story.

To create a good customer experience, the website graphic needs to match the content of the ad - and vice versa. It should clearly state what they expect to do on the site or clearly highlight the service or product that the consumer came to the website to find.

Landing page optimization with analytics

Analytics can often help us determine the reasons for poor conversion rates for ads. Sometimes, the target groups are wrong, which we can see in the form of lower click and conversion rates. 

Sometimes, the bounce rate (= website opens and closes at a fast rate) is alarmingly high. In such cases, the reason may be the use of the wrong or poorly implemented landing page.

If you can’t offer what you promise in the ad, they’re likely to turn back as soon as the customer arrives on your website. On the Internet, on average, customers are just as lazy.

The page matching the advertisement converts

A landing page that matches the ad well can convert effectively. Generally, a landing page is built with as few elements as possible that sometimes distract from its true purpose. Such elements may include internal links or banners. 

For example, if the purpose of the advertising were to build a customer base by offering a free guide or information pack, it would not be appropriate to over-promote other products or services. Of course, the landing page must have a clear transition to the rest of the company’s website, but it should not be the main focus.

In Google, a web page link that corresponds well to your ad will bring your ad higher up in the search results. Google’s algorithm recognizes the part of the site behind the link that blends well with the ad’s content and thus displays it higher in the search results.

The quality score system is designed to ensure that ads match the advertised site, so the landing page that matches the ad is of primary importance. Landing page optimization therefore also pays off in terms of search engine visibility.

Watch this video for five tips from digital marketing guru Neil Patel on building a converting landing page. 

Don’t direct everyone to the same place

Your business should segment its customers, so why not use landing pages to help with segmentation? For most businesses, the customer base is not homogeneous. There may be many different customer segments, so using a specific page to support targeted advertising is perfectly natural. 

You don’t need to create a whole new page for each segment. You can set up specific pages to open so that a click on a link takes the visitor to the part of your site that relates to that particular ad and customer segment.

You can also vary the landing pages within campaigns. For example, in the image, landing page 2 has been used in two different campaigns. The first campaign uses two different colors because the interests of the blue target group may be different from the red target group. 

Therefore, the blue ones are directed to another part of the website, for example, because they are likely to convert directly without the need for further information.

We hope this blog helped you better understand the importance of the right landing page!

We would be happy to help you build a successful Google Ads campaign! Feel free to contact us.

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