Every Ad Needs a Destination

Google Ads are expensive so if you are going to make the investment be sure you are ready to engage and impress visitors and capture leads which result from the campaign.

Don’t be this guy

When business owners express frustration with the lack of results from their investment in Google Ads, the first place I go is to their landing page. In many cases I discover they used their home page as the landing page for the ad.  

This makes no sense. You have already attracted the attention of a customer who has a very specific need. They have selected you because your ad promised to answer a question or fulfill their request. In most cases, your home page is much too general. Now they have to stumble around and continue their search to find what they are looking for.

At that moment it is easier to simply jump back to Google and click on one of your competitor’s websites. 

To improve your results, your ad should drive visitors to a very specific landing page which offers exactly what they are looking for.

What makes something a good landing page?

Deliver what you promised – This is not the time to bait and switch. If the ad promised a free coupon, make sure that’s the first thing the visitor sees.

Focused Content – Your ad promised one thing, so keep the rest of the content on the page tightly focused on that topic. This is not your chance to tell the customer everything you do, but this is the time to strongly impress the visitor with your expertise in the one thing they were searching for.

Clear Calls to Action – Have something for the visitor to do. You have paid for them to come to your website, make their visit worth your investment. Have a clear offer to download, watch, register, or buy.

Google likes good landing pages too

A quality landing page does more than just make customers happy. It boosts the quality score of the ad. The higher the score, the more likely Google will give priority to your ad and even discount the price you pay per click.

Why does Google reward ads backed by good landing pages? At the end of the day, Google wants people who use their search engine to find what they are looking for. When consumers become frustrated with search results they go elsewhere. Just look at what happened to Ask Jeeves.

So to support their objectives, Google gives priority to ads which are supported by good, informative, relevant key word, and content rich landing pages.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to build a topic specific landing page with a clear offer. Then below the offer add additional content, ideally 300 – 500 more words of content. Consider links to blog posts on related topics, pictures which have been titled with relevant key words, charts, graphs, or multimedia files.

Most visitors won’t scroll down but search engines will read the entire page and rank it as relevant and authoritative if you beef up the content.

So whether you are spending $100, $1,000, or $10,000 a month on your ads, make sure you spend the time to create the best possible landing pages.

Want to learn more? Download our Guide to Landing Page Success.