Your landing page is the heart of your marketing campaign. When you get smart about online marketing, you use Google AdWords to drive more traffic to your landing pages, right?
Now, for you online marketers that use it regularly, you know that Google AdWords gives Quality Scores for your ad and ad content. But, did you know Google AdWords ranks your landing pages too? The better your score, the better your Ad positioning, cost per click and overall advertising success.
Here’s how to build a landing page for your Google AdWords campaigns.
Plan your online marketing campaign
A little planning goes a long way in online marketing success. Hey, if you don’t have a clear direction and a least some sort of path for what you want to achieve, you’re not going to get the results you need.
To increase your Google AdWords ranking, you need to plan your landing page campaign with Google AdWords in mind.
Here are 7 questions to better plan your landing page for Google AdWords campaigns:
1. What do I want out of my landing page campaign?
List out the results you need to achieve from your landing page campaign. In other words, tie your online marketing campaign to your business marketing objectives.
Do you need:
- Lead generation
- Coupon participants
- Increased website traffic
- Webinar participants
- eBook downloads
Take it further by asking:
- How many leads do you need, by when?
- How many coupons do you need redeemed, and in what time frame?
- How much website traffic does your business need for this particular landing page?
The clearer you know what it is you’re aiming to achieve, the better results you’ll get, and the better you can plan out an AdWords campaign to drive clicks to your landing page.
2. Who’s your target market?
Let’s face it, you need to know who you’re designing your landing page and Google AdWords for. If you don’t know who’s going to convert on your page, you’re not going to attract the right audience.
List out your key targets:
- Is your landing page campaign directed to B2B – if so, what type of business (SaaS, professional services, marketing companies, etc.)?
- Is your landing page campaign directed to individual consumers – if so, list out your markets’ demographics (gender, age, location, income level, experience, etc.).
The better you understand your customer, the more you can target them with Google AdWords, and the better you can design your landing page for conversions.
Advanced tip: You might find you have more than one target market and from your planning you determine it’s best to run multiple landing page/ Google AdWords campaigns.
3. What’s my offer?
Before you build your landing page, you – of course – need to know what you’re offering. Are you solving a customer problem? Are you giving lots of great information away for free?
Answer these questions about your campaign:
- What makes your business offer unique?
- How are you better than your competitors?
- What are your key unique selling points (USP)?
- What are you offering right now to get your customer to convert?
4. What’s your competition doing?
It’s good practice to know your competition. Are they running an online marketing campaign? Are they using landing pages yet?
Use your research to:
- Build a landing page that’s more effective
- Build a landing page that targets a different market and offer
- Build a landing page to show you’re more in the know about online marketing
5. What’s your message?
Figure out your marketing message. Use it on your landing page, and use it to create matching ads in Google AdWords.
Craft the most effective messages you can with your target customer in mind:
- What CTA’s will entice your demographic to convert?
- What headers will create the most emotional connection?
- What words resonate with your customer? (for example: If your offer is a coupon for pizza delivery, and your market is busy families, use words like “busy schedules” or “healthy dinner options”; if your pizza delivery coupon is being marketed to college aged customers, use words like “cheap pizza” or “super large slices”)
The words in your message are important. The better you match your landing page message with your Google AdWords copy, the higher quality score you get.
6. What top keywords will you use?
Don’t use all of your Google AdWords keywords on your landing pages. But, do use your top keywords.
When you’re planning keywords in Google AdWords:
- List out words your customer uses when they’re searching for you
- Brainstorm keywords related to your campaign
- Use the Google Keyword planner
- Think outside the box to generate lower cost ads and reach your target market
- Be specific
Advanced tip: Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion to create more specific targeting.
Then, take your top 2-3 keywords to include them on your landing page. Google AdWords loves matching pages and relevancy – so the more cohesive you make your landing page words with your Google AdWords ad groups and campaigns – you guessed it – the better your quality score.
7. How will you measure results?
Before you start promoting your landing page, determine what tools you’ll use to measure your results. Set up your preferred analytics to track your campaign objectives in real time, and to measure your landing page/ Google AdWords campaign returns.
Use your data tools to A/B test your page too.
Build your Landing Page for Google AdWords
Once you’ve got your marketing foundation set, it’s time to build your landing page. There are a number of key elements you need to include when you’re designing your page for an effective Google AdWords campaign.
Keep in mind that Google likes landing pages that are:
- Relevant
- Useful
- Unique
- Easy to navigate
- Trustworthy
Here’s 7 points to increase your quality score:
1. Use your top keywords on your landing page
I know I’ve said this before, but the better you match your keywords on your landing page with the keywords in your Google AdWords campaigns, the more Google will like you.
Your customers will too.
If your Ad gets clicked on and people are directed to the destination landing page, the more cohesive it is, and more it matches your customers’ expectations, the more likely they will trust the page. The more trust they have, the more likely they will convert.
2. Keep your offer consistent
Ok, this one’s pretty obvious, but when you’re running a solid marketing campaign, you’ve got to keep your offer/ service/ product consistent throughout your sales funnel marketing.
For example, if your landing page is for a new service your business is offering:
- Set up a landing page that promotes the benefits
- Use your keywords for your service
- Use Google AdWords that promote the same benefits and use the same keywords
3. Create a landing page that’s original and useful
Each of your landing pages needs to be unique. And each landing page needs to be useful for each of your Google AdWords campaigns.
This means: Don’t just cut and paste your content from your other landing page offers.
Make your landing pages unique and specific for each Ad or Ad Group you intend to run. Include useful information too. Remember that Google does read your destination landing page – the more applicable it is to your keywords and targeted market, the more Google will like you. Ah, your customers will like you too.
4. Design and write a clear CTA
One of the fundamentals of building a landing page that converts is to create a Call-to-Action that’s easy to see and enticing to click.
Make a CTA button in contrasting colors, and use short, action oriented words to motivate a quick reaction. Making your CTAs better gets results – even changing the text of a CTA can increase conversions by 161%.
Here’s a few ways to improve your CTA:
- Use simple action words like “buy” “act now” or “get yours”
- Make a CTA button with contrasting colors
- Place your CTA where your customers will see it
5. Don’t add friction
Keep your page focused on one action you want from your visitors for your campaign. I’ll say that again – keep your page focused on ONE action. If you add too many CTA’s you’re going to lose your customer conversion.
Keep the text and visual noise to a minimum on your landing page. Make it super obvious to your customer why they clicked through, and what it is they need to do next. Don’t spook them with distractions – make your customers feel comforted that they made a clear clickthrough choice.
6. Show who you are and what you do
Be upfront about who you are, what your offer is, and what your business does. Google likes pages that exude trustworthiness. I know it’s easy to forget that not everyone know who you are and what you do – but they don’t. Be sure to include elements on your landing page that relate this. Include a phone number, address, map, your clear tag line, or your business name and logo. (Keep in mind not to over-clutter with friction.)
Your landing page is often the first impression your visitor has of your business. Show them you’re upfront and open for business. You’ll increase conversions.
7. Build a landing page for Google AdWords to read
Yes, Google can read your landing page kind of like a human. But, it is a website search engine. Google also reads your landing page like a, well, computer.
When you’re building your landing page (or your website developer or tech team is), don’t ignore the opportunity to relate with HTML, URL paths and other SEO tactics.
Here’s 3 ways to increase your Google AdWords Quality Score:
Use good meta tags – Use meta tags like title tags, description attributes, alt tags and more to convey what your page is about – and use your keywords.
Example: your title tags are what show up in your organic search results, too. Use keyword phrases on your page to code them in:
Match your content and title tags – Show Google that you’re telling your customers the same thing you’re telling those Google crawlers. Use consistent keywords in your title pages, and match them with your page content (or semantic signals).
Use your keywords in your landing page URL – That website address you use when you set up a new page on which to host your landing page is more important than you think. Make sure you’re using – yup, you guessed it – your top keywords that describe the purpose of your landing page.
Hey, Google actually uses the words in your URL path to help you decide what keywords to plan in your ad. So, make sure your keywords, or offer, is clear and easy to read.
Example: Wishpond uses the keywords “landing-page-builder” in the URL path to our Easy Landing Page Template/ Builder tool .
A/B Test and Measure Results
A/B Testing
Always A/B test your landing pages, and A/B your Google AdWords campaigns. A/B testing is very common in online marketing. By making changes within your online marketing campaigns, you can test a control (“A”) against a variant (“B”), and scientifically optimize your landing page and Google Adwords for conversions, clicks and more.
For your landing page, A/B test your:
- CTA wording, button, colour scheme and placement
- List of benefits
- Unique selling features
- Images
For your Google AdWord campaigns, A/B test your:
- Headline
- Display URL
- CTA
- Competitive advantage
- Wording of your offer
Run a number of A/B tests to achieve your cumulative optimized gains.
Measure Results
Set up your analytics tool to track your business marketing objectives. (See, that planning stuff works!)
Track your results for:
- Lead generation
- Coupon participants
- Increased website traffic
- Webinar participants
- eBook downloads
Depending on your analytics tool, you can track and measure how many leads you get, the costs of advertising, the number of sales conversions you get and a lot more. You can calculate your ROI for leads and sales and even make cool looking charts to prove your marketing success.
Conclusion
Try out these tips to optimize your landing page for Google AdWords. Google will rank you higher – and you’ll likely increase your customer conversions – for a lower cost.
Want to read more about landing pages:
- 21 Ways: How to Create Landing Page/ Google AdWord Combos That Convert
- 25 Tips to Optimize Landing Page Conversions
- How to A/B Test your Landing Page to Maximize Conversions
- How to Optimize your Landing Page for Lead Generation
- 21 Actionable Landing Pages for Content Marketers
Want to read more about Google AdWords:
- Why Does My Small Business Need Google AdWords? [Ultimate Guide]
- 10 Google AdWords Mistakes You Need to Avoid: Beginners Guide
- 10 Questions: How to Plan a Successful Google AdWords Campaign
- How Do I Optimize Keywords [and ROI] for My Small Business AdWords Campaigns?
- How Do I Optimize Budgeting and Bidding in Google AdWords? [Basic Edition]
What do you think? How do you promote your landing pages? What tips do you have for using Google AdWords?
Written by Krista Bunskoek @ Wishpond
