Why Effective PPC Landing Pages Are Crucial

Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) has been with us for some time now and each day more website owners are discovering it's power. More visitors, more targeted referrals, the list goes on. Yet so many PPC advertisers struggle to get a good return on investment (ROI). Why?

ANSWER: PPC Advertising is Only Half the Battle!

You or your PPC campaign manager may well be the best in the business at creating Adwords and Search Marketing ads, choosing targeted keywords and optimising budgets - but that will only get you part of the way. The effectiveness of your landing pages is just as crucial.

Landing pages are the pages you link to from your pay per click ads. They are the first thing visitors see when they click on one of your ads.

When you first start using this form of search engine marketing (SEM) you probably just direct the clicks to your homepage. Seems logical right? Unfortunately, this is rarely the best choice. It is far better to link to a page that is closely associated with your targeted ad content so people can find what they were looking for straight away. Don't expect them to surf your website looking for what your ad promised.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

It's disappointing to hear about a business or webmaster that has given up on pay per click advertising because it wasn't working out for them. Most of the time their poor success rate is blamed squarely on PPC advertising itself. This is rarely the real reason.

Pay per click ads will get them to your site, however it's up to the pages/content on your website to convert those visitors into something more.

Continually analyse the response to your PPC ad campaigns and see what more can be done on your website and landing pages in order to get people to complete your goals and objectives.

Optimising Your Landing Pages

While setting up user group studies would be ideal to obtain feedback, few of us can afford that sort of testing. That said, there is an excellent online alternative available and best of all it's free. It's called Google Website Optimizer.

What is Google Website Optimizer?

Website Optimizer is a fantastic tool that is free and open to every website owner. It allows you to test various design choices on your website to see which ones people are most responsive to and it's ideal for PPC advertisers who want to ensure they have very effective landing pages.

Instead is explaining it here I suggest you visit the official site for the how's and why's. Here are some useful links on Google Website Optimizer:

• Website Optimizer Homepage
• Website Optimizer Quick Start Guide
• Website Optimizer Videos & Webinars

Learn to understand this tool and you will almost certainly improve your conversions on your PPC advertising campaigns.

Need Help With Your PPC Campaigns?

I'm a Google Adwords Certified pay per click campaign manager and offer my services on a month by month basis to clients worldwide. Contact me if you would like to discuss how I can help your PPC marketing.