How To Build Landing Pages That Work

Get the Flash Player to see this Google Ads tutorial about building your keyword list.

Your Google Ads ad alone isn’t enough to convert website visitors into customers. But how do you build a great landing page?

If you already have a website, this article will teach you how to make it more profitable. If you don’t have a website you can build a very basic one very quickly and easily using Google Sites.

Building Your Landing Page

Guidelines for a good landing page:

Set the purpose of your landing page before actually writing it. You decide what you want the visitor to do. A great tip is to set a goal for each page.
Send the user to pages that load quickly, don’t use pop-ups, don’t link to pages that were disabled, and generaly speaking, don’t make the visitor wait.
Highlight the benefits you are offering.
Do not promise what you can’t offer.
Instead of pictures and animation, use copy. Describe the product or the service you sell.
Try to enter your prospect’s mind. Answer their questions using his or her words.
Make the website easy to scan and navigate. Make it obvious how to order.
Make the customers return to your website. A customer never ceases to be a prospect.
Test more versions of copy. Don’t hesitate to make the changes that would raise your sales.

Writing Your Landing Page

Rather than discussing the differences between writing for print vs. writing for web, here we will discuss what you must do to have a landing page that converts better.

Focus on the copy (written text) first and the design second. All search engines understand text and Google will reward you for a well designed website, but above all else people understand copy. The only way to tell people what you want them to do is through copy.

Follow these steps for a well written landing page:

Make the Goal of Each Page Obvious

Having more than one goal per page will confuse your visitors and drive them away. Everything you write must converge towards the same purpose.

Obtain Testimonials

This is a common way to gain your visitors’ trust before they actually get to know you. Whenever somebody praises your service or product, remember to ask for their permission to publish that on your web page.

Choose Your Keywords

Use your keywords with balance. Make them come naturally. Don’t over-optimise. Remember your goal.

Write the Content

Supposing you’ve done your homework and all the people that come to your landing page are targeted visitors, driven by one of your Google Ads ads, here’s what the page must do:

Be genuinely helpful.
Offer reliable information.
Avoid the mambo-jumbo sales lingo.
Put the benefits of your service ahead its features.
Offer real solutions to real problems.
Create the urge to buy.
Make it easy to order.

Add relevant links

Remember that you sell solutions to problems. If you know about something else that may help, don’t hesitate to link to it. It could be something in it for you, too.

Matching the Ads with Your Content

This is a second condition to make your landing page convert: your ads (together with your keywords) are the ones that send you traffic. If they don’t work for the same purpose (i.e. selling the same product), all your trouble is in vain.

The biggest mistake you can do is send all the traffic to the home page. So don’t. Each ad in your campaign should work for its own landing page. By customizing them, you make them more effective.

Why a Good Landing Page is Important

Your website must be appealing enough to close the deal. It will help with your conversion rating and increase your ROI. Your ads will drive customers to your site, but if it’s not good enough to convert those visits to your website into sales then you are literally wasting money on advertising.

A great landing page doesn’t just produce better conversions it can also save you money on your advertising costs.

What is Quality Score

Google rewards advertisers that have easy to use websites, that load fast and are transparent in their intentions, whom openly share information about what their business does and provides relevant and original content on their websites. A great landing page is one of the main components of how Google calculates your Quality Score, along with the relevancy of your keywords to your ads, and many other factors.

Google uses Quality Score to determine the price you will actually pay per click. More often than not a high Quality Score means that your keyword will trigger ads in a higher position and at a lower CPC.

Quality Score means that you can compete against advertisers with bigger budgets than you simply by having highly targeted ads and a really good webpage.

Remember, you can watch this and other Google Ads Tutorials on our Youtube channel too.
Further Reading: We recommend reading How To Eliminate Unproductive Traffic next, or select from one of our growing number of tutorials below.