If you have an online business and you want to expand it using internet search then this post is for you. If you have an online business, on the other hand, and you just want to help search engines make some extra bucks this one you can afford to miss. This post talks about landing pages and how they improve conversion rates by generating leads from PPC traffic to your site.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is any page on a website where traffic is directed to prompt a certain action from the user (referred to as the prospect). To borrow an excellent analogy, imagine a golf course; the landing page then is the putting green that you drive the ball (the prospect) to. And just as the goal is to get the ball into the hole on the green, the goal of the copy and design of a landing page is to get the prospect to take your desired action. A landing page is usually a page isolated from the rest of your site that is specifically crafted for Pay Per Click campaigns.
Landing Page Types
There are two main types, the Reference Landing Page and the Transactional Landing Page. Reference pages deliver information relevant to the visitor in the form of text, pictures, links or other elements that does not require interaction. Transactional pages on the other hand are interactive asking visitors to complete a transaction such as an ad click, fill out a form or file download with the aim of actually converting that prospect to a sale.
Landing Page and PPC
Landing pages are primarily used for PPC campaigns and play a prominent role in the execution of a successful campaign. This is the page where visitors arrive at after they click on a PPC ad, and thus has a substantial say in the performance of the ad. Usually landing pages are closely customized to the PPC ad purely because they are vital in “closing the sale” and effecting conversions from users. Landing pages also directly impact the Quality Score used by Google Adwords in determining the final price you will pay for every click through to your website.
Landing Page Optimization
Obviously it goes without saying that the landing page needs to be optimized. In fact, landing page optimization should be among the first steps taken when considering PPC marketing. Optimization for conversions includes the addition of the relevant keywords, as well as various other optimization techniques. Creating targeted landing pages that directly relate to the search phrase and reassures the user that he is in the right place can greatly enrich your ROI and bolster your PPC ranking as well. Some useful things to be kept in mind for landing page design are:
- Design it simple
- Have less navigation links for easier navigation
- Include reassuring elements like compelling imagery, speaking slogans and call-to-action elements that effect conversions
- Give information like privacy policy that wins visitor trust and ensures you get reliable information back.
Look at the image in this PPC blog itself and you will see a landing page we built for our Toronto area internet marketing client. You will see all the elements mentioned in this article!
A well optimized landing page rewards you with excellent conversion rates and also helps you to benefit from the targeted visitors that your PPC ad can send to a page. It’s crucial that businesses are alive to this critical component in website optimization and profit from it – that is unless you like wasting money. 
Whether it is transactional or reference landing page, LPO (landing page optimization) is crucial in determining our PPC returns. Methodologies like A/B testing, Multivariate LPO (MVLPO)and total-experience testing will help us to test our landing possibilities. From my experience i understand that there is no generic features for’doorway pages’, instead thats relative and may vary for each client and campaign.
Good write-up on landing pages. But landing pages can be labeled as duplicate content by the search engines. They can also be regarded as spam. Because even though landing pages can be utilized legitimately and responsibly, many have abused the process by creating pages using keywords and descriptions that are in no way related to the content of the site.
For PPC campaigns, quality of the landing page is all important and hence absolute attention should be paid in its design. The key to securing the most appropriate landing page for a PPC ad is to deep link individual ads to the page on the website that most reflects the pay per click ad content. But a common mistake with pay per click is to send all ads through to the web site home page. This will make you lose quality score points, and also potential revenue as users struggle to find the original offer or product promised in the ad.
The success of your PPC campaign will hinge on the effectiveness of your landing page to convert visitors. An optimized landing page can guarantee your ROI .and its development should then be given top priority. Your article is an eye opener and should prove useful.
Excellent article ! Thanks for laying it out. In my opinion reference landing page penetrates more than transactional landing page. Interactive nature is good but coming to buying option (if it is a genuine buyer) people will look for detailed information.
With the advent of paid advertising, the importance of Landing pages have increased. As obviously stated above, its like the ’5-minutes’ show where a performer performs his best.
If the judges (in this case the audience) are impressed he gets the reward (by having achieved conversions through his website.)
Great post Hari!
What Bianca commented is so true. That’s why you need a Internet Marketing team such as TechWyse to create your landing page. We are able to create a landing page where we avoid the duplicate content and your site getting penalized by Google!
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