Landing pages are important, and we have heard that millions of times. But why is landing page relevance so critical for your google ads campaign? Landing pages are where the visitors land after seeing an advertisement, newsletter, or as a result of a marketing campaign.
It’s crucial for any website or eCommerce site to attract leads and create conversions. However, once leads land on your website, following best practices for optimising the landing pages for Google Ads will ensure you turn every click of your visit into a customer.
Let’s see everything you need to know about optimising the landing pages.
Why Optimising the Landing Pages for Google Ads Are So Important?
1. Improved Quality Score
Ensuring that your landing pages are optimised will help you get a better quality score.
While we will talk about how you can improve the quality score later in this blog, let’s see the top two benefits of a high-quality score.
- It helps the Ads rank high on the Google
- It reduces your cost per click (CPC) by an average of 30%
Since we have discovered that optimising the landing page is of crucial importance, then why ignore it?
Google’s quality score is considered one of the best metrics to determine the performance of a paid search campaign. A high-quality score means that your Ads will position higher on Google. And the best part is, it will cost you less than the competitors if you manage to secure a better Ad ranking than theirs.
The quality score is based on the 1-10 scale, with 10 being the best score. To ensure a high Quality Score make sure to cover the following points:
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Ad relevance
It refers to how closely the keywords used in your Google Ads campaigns match the keywords used by the individuals on their Google search.
Are you wondering how you can improve the Ad relevance? It’s very simple:
Make sure to perform a preliminary keyword research analysis prior to the setup of the campaigns. That way you get an idea of the keywords you should be targeting. But don’t spend days looking for the best keywords. In my opinion, the best ones will be those that start showing up under the search terms report of your campaigns.
Once you identify the keywords, use them in some of the headings and descriptions of the Ad. This will also make sure that you grab the user’s attention.
In addition, you can also explore other ways in which you can add the right keywords, like in the URL slug.
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Landing page experience
This comprises the relevance of the keywords associated with the landing experience as well as the overall landing experience.
Ensuring a smooth landing page experience is the key to an improved quality score which is essential to rank our ads better.
So, how can you improve the landing page experience?
First things first: focus on creating a powerful headline/title. In most cases, this is the only part that the visitor reads. Hence, it should include the right focus keyword.
According to whatsaytheexperts, 80% of the time while creating your landing pages should be allotted to creating an irresistible offer.
Moreover, you should naturally distribute keywords throughout the landing pages. Here, the essential bit to know is that you should not overstuff the landing page with keywords. If you find this challenging, feel free to reach out if you need help from a freelance PPC and SEO consultant.
Then include your keywords into the H1, H2, and H3 tags which will help Google pick up your target keywords faster.
Write a concise and to-the-point copy. Make use of bullet points, headings, and bold texts to drive the concentration of the visitor where it’s most needed. It helps in digesting the information quickly too.
To keep the visitors at the center of your landing page, I would recommend the PAS classic formula to structure your landing page content: Problem, Agitate, and Solution.
Cutting to the chase, this means:
- Identifying and highlighting the problem of the visitor. This, in other words, is why the visitor clicked on the Ad in the first place.
- Then putting stress on their issues while creating a hype of what you have to offer them.
- Lastly, give them the solution to their problems with your unique offerings.
Each part of the landing page should make visitors feel that they landed on the right page, and acting upon the CTA should be clearly visible and not more than two clicks away.
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Expected Click-Through rate (CTR)
Based on past performances, Google evaluates the expected CTR.
CTR is a ratio showing how often the people who see the ad end up clicking it. It is a tool to help analyze how well the keywords, the product listings, and the ads are performing.
A high CTR is ideal as it indicates that users are finding the Ads relevant, and perhaps they found the solution to the problem they came looking for.
In addition, the CTR is a useful measure to identify what keywords or ads aren’t performing well. You should work towards the improvement of those elements.
2. Optimise Landing Pages for Google Ads to Drive Conversion
After employing so much effort in a Google Ads campaign, the key goal for any digital marketer is to drive conversion. Ideally, you need to analyse each step of the conversion funnel to make the site appealing to the visitors. Regardless of the step of the funnel you are trying to optimise, all landing pages should be on point.
Driving conversions isn’t as easy as it may sound, and a bad landing page experience will definitely hurt your conversions.
3. Optimising your landing page will decrease Bounce Rate
Did you ever click the link of a website but bounced off it within seconds? Well, that’s because you couldn’t find what you were looking for.
A high bounce rate may mean that you need to employ further efforts to optimise the landing page. In turn, a better landing page experience encourages people to browse your website longer and take the desired actions. Google is smart enough to understand whether a user is getting a good experience out of your website. In return, you get a lower CPC (cost per click), higher traffic, and conversely, the more conversions/sales.
Google Analytics can prove to be really helpful here. You can log in to your account and look for the Bounce rate Column. Here you will find the insights to keywords and landing pages with high bounce rates.
Alternatively, if you notice a high CPC in your Google Ads account , it may be a clear indication that those pages need more work.
However, a high bounce rate isn’t always bad. Sometimes, the visitor leaves the landing page instantly because they found what they were looking for.
Only a well-thought and highly optimised landing page will be able to retain the visitor’s interest resulting in them staying and responding to the call to action.
5. Better Ad Position when you optimise your landing page for Google Ads
How about spending a hefty amount on Google Ads just to find that your positioning of Google Ads is still very low?
Highly optimised landing pages mean better positioning of the Google Ads.
Google analyzes the landing pages that are performing better. This means the more relevant and useful information the landing page shows, the higher the number of clicks, and the more likely it would be for the ad to position higher.
6. shares at 0 cost
If you are able to identify and write the content your target market is looking for, there are very good chances that your visitors will recommend or share your page with others. This will increase your website’s exposure to new customers who could be interested in your products and services; and everything all happens at zero cost.
What Are the Best Practices to Optimise the Landing Page for Google Ads?
1. The Landing Page Should Be Relevant
Ensure the relevance of the website in accordance with the niche of the targeted audience.
And how exactly can you ensure that? For this, you need to provide the visitor with exactly what they are looking for.
For example, by not directing them to the generic page so that they waste time surfing around.. Instead, when you optimise your landing page for your Google Ads campaign, direct them to the relevant page they are looking for. By using the relevant target URLs in your ads, your visitor will have a better experience when they land on the exact page that will solve their pains.
Focus keyword is another essential aspect when it comes to relevancy of landing pages.The keyword or message your Google Ad conveys should be in line with the content on the landing page.
2. It Should Be Easy to Use
Another way of optimising the landing pages for Google Ads is providing ease of use to the visitors. Users don’t like complicated websites, let alone the converting landing pages e.g. checkout.
Here is what you need to bear in mind:
- Easy navigation options.
- Properly organized layout of the landing pages: Include all the relevant tags, title, bolds, etc.
- Straight to the point landing page copy. Tell them what they want to hear right off the bat.
- Ensuring a visible CTA (call to action) option.
- The landing page should allow easy access to social media accounts.
- The content (images and videos) should be shareable.
3. The Google Ads Landing Page Should Gain the Trust of The Users
By trust, I mean transparency, complete honesty, and clear directions with the provided information. Landing pages are the way to build a credible impression on the visitors.
To gain the trust of the visitors coming to your site, make sure your cover the following when you optimise your landing page for Google Ads:
- To be clear of what you are offering.
- To be upfront of all the charges and additional costs.
- To make contacting options visible.
- The landing page should be free of any grammatical errors.
- To avoid using pop-ups.
- To post reviews and testimonials to build credibility.
- To make use of a fuss-free design.
- To add transparency to the business objectives by providing the link to terms and conditions.
4. It Should Be Mobile-Friendly
Google is increasingly working towards providing its users with a greater experience on mobile, considering a large portion of the website users browse the website on mobile phones.
Therefore, Google has lately introduced the core web vital factors. While these factors were already in play, the major development was making the mobile website friendly as it will directly impact the ranking on Google.
According to Adobe, mobile-optimised sites triple the chances of mobile conversions to exceed by 5% or above.
It has been established that websites and landing pages should be compatible with mobile screens. You can use a tool to test them: Google’s Mobile-friendly test can help you understand if your landing page or website is mobile friendly .
5. Pay Attention to The Speed of The Page
In order to optimise the landing page for Google Ads, another best practice is to work on the loading speed of your page.
The more time it takes to load, the higher the bounce rate, and diminished conversions.This will be interpreted by the algorithm as a signal to de-rank your Google Ad.
Tools and metrics are great when it comes to optimising the landing pages or checking the efficacy of the practices you have recently adopted. PageSpeed tool, for instance, gives you the speed score and suggests how you can further improve the speed of the site.
Finally, you can use the AMP versions of the landing pages. They load faster and provide the visitors with a smooth landing page experience. Ask your developer as he/she should be able to help you.
6. Pay Attention to SEO Optimisation
The best step to ensure that your landing page is optimised for Google Ads is to ensure that you are careful about the little things that matter.
Landing page SEO is critical if you want to see your landing page ranking on the first page.
While content is the key, a high degree of attention should be given to the overall optimisation of your website.
There are some quick ways you can gain with on-page SEO to improve your landing page. For instance, make sure all your pages contain a meta description, H1, H2, H3 tags, and a title with your focus keyword.
If you need a hand with your SEO, feel free to reach out to get access to a freelancer SEO Consultant. First meeting is on me!
What Should Be the Final Step?
Once you have applied the best practices to optimise the landing pages for Google Ads, it’s about time you see what works best for you. You see, there is no starting or ending point when it comes to ensuring your landing pages do well on Google Ads.
It’s a continuous, never-ending process.
At this point, you are required to test qualitative and quantitative data with the help of some tools.
For instance, conducting A/B testing. This concept revolves around using the two different versions of the landing pages and analyzing which landing page performs better. Similarly, Google Ads also has an in-built A/B testing feature which allows you to test a total of four elements. They are the headline, first line, the second line, and the display URL.
In this way, you can analyze which Google Ad is driving more CTR, higher Quality Score and conversions.
Similarly, you can use Multivariate testing for the landing pages. However, this type of testing isn’t only restricted to webpage testing, but you can use that for Google Ads as well. I recommend using Google Optimize – a free, very powerful tool to get you started with the first landing page optimisation tests.
As mentioned earlier, make it an ongoing process of tweaking changes every now and then to ensure that you are able to increase conversions. You can’t just create and drift apart from the process once it has been done. You need to stay attached to the process for the landing pages to perform well. Test, analyse and repeat.
Conclusion
Optimising the landing pages provide the visitors with a smooth and user-friendly experience when they click on your ads. For this reason, you need to put into practice the recommendations from these articles to have a very optimised landing page.
Landing page influences the success of Google Ads to a great extent. Hence, it’s your call to optimise the landing page in the right manner to increase conversions and, subsequently, your Return On Investment (ROI).
Happy creating conversions, folks!
