PPC Landing Pages Best Practices

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) has been prominent in the marketing industry for two decades and is one of the most powerful promotional tools available – especially when equipped alongside PPC landing pages.

PPC advertising allows companies to maximise their marketing budget by only having to pay when their ads are clicked on. Whether on specific websites or using Google ads, PPC advertising offers a simple way to measure the success of a marketing campaign.

When used in tandem with pay-per-click landing pages, a business can reap massive benefits from their marketing campaign, and create an excellent conversion rate.

Are you a business owner or marketing lead and want to know more about landing page content and how it can transform your campaigns?

Read on to find out everything there is to know about the dos and don’ts of PPC-dedicated landing pages.

What is a PPC landing page?

A pay-per-click landing page is a single page of a website that is created for PPC advertising campaigns.

It is where visitors are directed after they have clicked on a PPC ad to increase the conversion rates of the marketing campaign.

PPC landing page content is designed to be highly focused on a clear action and must match the ad’s content and messaging. The aim is to create a conversion where the user either signs up for something, contacts the company or purchases a service or product.

Why are paid search landing pages useful for PPC campaigns?

PPC landing pages are vital for increasing conversion rates on offers for your audience. Paid search landing pages help to communicate your offer, create interest and, ultimately, increase sales.

Here are four reasons why PPC landing pages are essential to ensuring the success of PPC campaigns.

High relevancy

A dedicated PPC landing page has to be highly relevant to the ad it’s linked to. This ensures visitors see content directly related to the ad they have clicked – eliminating distractions (which are easy online) and guiding visitors down the sales funnel.

Improved conversion rate

If your conversion rates are low, incorporating PPC landing pages into your marketing campaign is a surefire way to improve results. A PPC landing page including clear messaging has a high chance of conversion.

Highly personalised messaging

Personalised messaging is a popular method of changing elements of the PPC landing page design to target the user’s demographic or input.

Quizzes and lead magnets (a free item given away to gather contact details) are a particularly effective way of doing this.

Data tracking

PPC landing pages are also useful for analysing the data behind your campaigns.

They help to gather incoming traffic and the behaviour of your target audience, allowing you to tweak the content on the page to improve conversion rates.

Dos and don’ts for pay-per-click landing pages

Follow our seven PPC landing page best practices to master your digital marketing campaign.

Each of these steps is vital to ensuring you get the very best out of your pay-per-click landing pages.

Message matching

The first step to ensuring you have successful PPC landing pages is keeping the wording and messaging consistent across both the advertisement and the landing page.

To match the message between the ad and landing page, use similar phrases, colours, logos, copy and offers. That way, the user is fully aware that the page they’ve landed on is the exact page they were seeking when clicking your PPC ad.

A good PPC landing page message match delivers exactly what the ad promised. If they click a link and end up on a PPC landing page with a contrasting message, it will confuse them, and more than likely result in loss of interest.

Keyword matching

Just like message matching, keyword matching is one of the key elements of running a successful PPC landing page.

Your landing page must be relevant to the keywords you bid on. Why? Because your visitors won’t be able to identify whether or not your landing page relates to their search, leading to them leaving your website and losing a conversion.

Ensure your PPC ad copy includes the keyword your visitors are likely to have searched. This way, they know the ad they’ve clicked and the landing page they’re on is relevant to their search query.

Minimal form submission fields

When converting users with a contact form, less is more. Try to keep the number of fields they have to enter their information in as few as possible. The reason is that the faster the user can complete a sign-up form, the more likely they are to convert.According to research from WPForms, simply taking one field out of a contact form can increase conversions by up to 26%.

The average number of fields on a contact form is five, so if you can keep between three and five, you should see positive conversion numbers on your PPC landing page.

Fulfill the single purpose of driving conversions

The sole purpose of a PPC landing page is to drive more conversions. After attracting users to your web page via an ad on search engines, or elsewhere, your sole aim must be to convert.

Paid search campaigns are only deemed successful when high-quality landing pages result in excellent conversion rates.

Ensure your PPC landing page has no distractions and serves the exact purpose you attracted users. Whether that was to input details into a contact form, opt into a newsletter, download an ebook, or purchase a product – your PPC landing page has to be dedicated solely to this purpose.

If there are links to other pages on your website or suggestions to browse other areas, this can lead to distraction and reduce conversions.

Align headlines and CTAs

Landing page best practices also include matching the title and any call to action from your ad copy to your PPC landing page.

A landing page that matches the title and CTA of its ad leads users down a logical conversion path.

They saw an ad for a monthly newsletter and clicked it as they were interested in signing up. If the landing page title is different or slightly misleading, it could confuse the user, causing enough of a distraction to leave.

The same applies to the CTA. If the ad requests users to opt into a newsletter but the landing page copy asks them to join and sign up for a service, the messaging can be confusing – leading to poorly performing PPC campaigns.

Keep the wording the same from the title to the CTA to keep everything as simple as possible for the user.

Don’t distract visitors with internal or external links

While it can be tempting to direct visitors to internal or external links after clicking an ad, allowing them to see everything you offer, it’s actually a bad idea.

If you direct visitors to one dedicated landing page with a sole purpose, you have a chance of converting.

However, if you direct users to other pages with internal and external links, they have a huge range of distractions and pages to visit. You’re unlikely to ever get conversions this way.

There should be no links to your website, or anywhere else, on your landing page.

PPC landing page design is important

Finally, the design and layout of your landing page are important when attempting to convert users.

Ensure your page is colourful and includes images relevant to your purpose. For example, if you’re attempting to sell a particular product, include high-quality imagery of it so users can get a clear look at what you’re trying to sell.

Without good imagery, how can the user decide if they want to buy your product?

The same applies to things like newsletters. Give the user a look at what they’ll be receiving each week or month.

The PPC landing page design has to have a simple and easy-to-use layout too. Make everything as distraction-free and simple as you can so convert users as quickly as possible.

A poorly designed PPC landing page will lead to low conversions.

Work with PPC landing page experts

At Paramount Digital, our talented pay-per-click team is hugely experienced in creating and managing PPC landing pages.

We can optimise a PPC ad and landing page to work hand-in-hand to create more conversions for your business.

Having worked with hundreds of clients over several years, we know exactly what to do in every situation.

If you feel like your business requires the help of our expert team to create and manage a PPC landing page, don’t hesitate to get in touch today.Simply give us a call at 01744 747474 or send an email to marketing@paramountdigital.co.uk.