Working with pay per click programs for three years I have optimized allot of landing pages. This post will help to explain some of the best ways to improve your conversion rate and make the most of your hard earned PPC budget.
Headline:
When understanding how to optimize landing pages for PPC it’s important to have a good headline that tells your potential customer exactly what they want. For example if you ad title says 60% off baths, make sure you repeat that offer in the headline of your page. You only have a short amount of time to capture a users attention, if it was the call to action in the ad title then keep that momentum by featuring it on the landing page, this will help with your quality score and general ad quality.
You could also try using different colours such as red and bold font, in order to draw more attention to the title.
Create Trust:
As hard as it is to believe many people still have fears from buying over the internet. Even if you use a secure payment method such PayPal or Sage Pay, people still don’t know if you will deliver products on time or how you deal with damaged items and returns.
This is where trust comes into play, you can create trust in a number of ways
- Testimonials: Independent, well written and consistent testimonials are the greatest way to improve trust. Using a independent program such as Trustpilot makes sure you can’t tamper with reviews and it also gives you a star rating that appears on your Google Ads.
- Trustmark or trust certification: Seeing a independent badge of trust shows that a company must have compiled with a extensive list of quality criteria. 65% of consumers in Europe agree that having a Trustmark is a factor in their decision to purchase or not.
- As seen/As used by: Has your product been featured on a TV show or reviewed in a magazine. Does a fortune 500 hundred company use your software. If so then shout about it name dropping can be a huge plus when it comes to trust.
Buttons:
It might seem strange but when people land on your page do they know what to do? Do they know that by clicking on a item they can learn more, or that they can subscribe to a newsletter. Without buttons telling your potential customers what you would like them to do they might just bounce right off the page. It seems strange but by adding a button with a call to action telling the user exactly what they should do and why i.e. “Download now for free” or “View Now to learn more”.
Less Filler More Killer:
Does your landing page have over 3 pages of products to chose from? Is there multiple links to chose other products that are not related to the particular ad group campaign that you are aiming to get a conversion for? If so scale it back.
A user is more likely to convert when they don’t have to go through pages and pages to find what they want. On the other hand if they see a link that attracts them to something else that is not the reason they clicked your ad in the first place chances are you lost that conversion.
Everybody says make sure your Adgroups are niche and targeted. Take this principle and add it to your landing page. Focus on a small amount of products and see which sell and then take off the ones that don’t and add some new ones. Rinse and repeat for higher conversions.
A/B Testing:
If you have followed everything I mentioned above then you have a solid ground work on which to base your landing page on. however this is just a start, you should never be satisfied and always be testing. Did one Headline work better then another, how about your call to actions?
You probably already A/B test with your ads so why not your landing page. Studies show that constantly tweaking and improving your page will not only increase your conversions but also make you a better marketer.
The experiences you gain from testing web pages and content will give you fresh ideas and ways to tackle the market and to promote new ideas/products.
