Do’s and Don’ts of the Perfect Landing Page

PPC landing pages are something that every business struggles with. While they may seem simple in theory, their execution is often less than desirable.

Poor execution might be because several different departments can get involved in the creation of a single landing page.

Each part of a company can have a different agenda for the landing page. Customer service wants to highlight their warranty plan. IT wants to stick with their ordinary web template, and the legal team wants to put the company’s policies in an attention-grabbing place.

So many competing interests.

How can you, as the company’s PPC expert, possibly make visitors convert amidst all these competing agendas?

As you know, a PPC landing page can’t do everything on its own.

So how do you balance these different goals?

Start with these do’s and don’ts of the perfect PPC landing page. Here are the do’s, first.

PPC Landing Page Do’s

1. Make Sure That Your Headline, CTA and Offer all Align

These things must align to prevent confusion among visitors. Remember this rule: confusion is bad for conversions.

To bring more clarity to your landing page, follow this rule: the copy should be all about the user.

Discuss the outcome and benefits for the users who decide to take action. And most importantly, remember to keep the writing clear and straightforward.

Now, this is not as easy as it sounds. You might need to start working with a pay per click company. It takes experience to know how to write compelling copy, stick to the main point of the page and come at it from the perspective of prospective customers.

2. Improve Your Website Design and Graphics

Good web copy is essential – but so are the images and design. They need to meet specific standards so as not to undermine the compelling content that you’ve written.

The first rule is that you need to use images that are relevant to your offer. If you’re selling a book, then you need a picture of the book.

Sounds simple, but this doesn’t always happen for various PPC offers.

The second and final thing you need to know regarding design is that frequently a simple landing page design is all you need, supported by a clear and bold CTA button.

3. Show Your Product In Motion

Videos can do wonders for conversions, especially when offering hard to describe products or services.

However, that doesn’t mean that you should stick any old video onto your landing page. On the contrary. Videos, like images, need to be as relevant as possible to the goal of your landing page.

4. A/B Test Trust Signals

These are things that signal trust. They can include testimonials, trust seals, etc.

You don’t need to clutter your page with them. Even just one or two good ones can tip visitors over the edge and into your sales funnel.

Your landing page may not need them, but you should test them first.

5. Utilize Your Thank You Page

Not only is saying thank you the polite thing to do, but it’s also the right thing to do!

What do we mean by that?

Well, your company might, for example, want to include a bunch of different links on your landing page.

Instead of doing that though, save some of those links and call to actions for your thank you page!

This way, you can have your cake and eat it too.

Keep your landing page clean. And remember this: the conversion doesn’t have to end the conversation!

6. A Landing Page is Not Set in Stone

You should expect possible resistance from your company to landing page revisions or new landing page additions.

After all, landing pages are a big deal to the company’s bottom line, and represent a significant change – and change can always be scary.

Not only that, many companies also collaborate at length before publishing a landing page. Redoing them can be an alarming prospect.

So to sell the idea to your company, start by implementing some of the essential changes. Perhaps the results of those changes will help them see your point of view better…

PPC Landing Page Don’ts

7. Leave Out Distractions

Distractions include external links, social media links, sidebars, site menus, etc. These are (or should be) an obvious no-no.

After all, why would you want to lead your prospects astray when you’ve got them right where you want them?

Don’t let prospects get lost in the woods, because they might not come back.

8. Don’t crowd your landing page with different agendas

Finally, we come full circle to our first point, the most critical part of creating a perfect PPC landing page.

The goal of a PPC landing page should be above all else conversions.

Multiple agendas on your PPC landing page will interfere with this goal.

What are conversions?

Conversions in B2C means selling your product or service.

Conversions in B2B, on the other hand, could mean any of the following: capturing an email address, signing them up for a webinar, or having them download a freebie like an eBook.

You don’t want to ‘oversell” on a landing page by presenting multiple different options. Having “contact us, read this post, read that post, look at our new service offering,” and so on, will just clutter your PPC landing page.

If you want to create several different calls to action, then you’ll need to create several different landing pages. Makes sense right?

It’s a lot easier than it sounds, especially when you have already come up with your landing page design template.

Conclusion

While this advice will give you a good start in creating the perfect PPC landing page, it’s by no means a comprehensive list, nor will every tip here work for every company. You’ll need to test these ideas out for yourself and see how they pan out in your PPC accounts.

After all, PPC can be full of surprises. Every PPC marketer has seen things that shouldn’t work work, and things that should work, not work at all.

Even if these are the right principles for the majority of PPC experts, individual companies might do some things differently.

So please spread the word, and let’s try and get every company on board with these principles.

If you’re ready to start working with a pay per click company, we’d be glad to help. Reach out to us here.