Several factors go into creating a good landing page, none of which should be ignored.  These techniques will determine how many of your clicks turn into conversions.  Conversion rate, as I have previously written about, is a tier one success indicator of how well your campaign is doing.  Give your users an effective landing page, and you should see your conversion rates increase.

I am going to discuss the technique that has had the greatest impact on conversion rates in my campaigns.

Clear Messaging

Your landing pages need to clearly state what you want the user to do.  Never assume that the user knows what to do.  Make the conversion process as easy and forthright as possible.

Let’s take an example.  If I do a search for “Rawlings baseball gloves,” I see these ads:

Both ads advertise Rawlings baseball gloves, but which company has the better landing page?  The first ad leads to a page that immediately shows Rawlings baseball gloves:

The second ad leads to the company’s homepage, where customers are forced to search for the product they’re ready to buy.  The second ad will most likely lead to a bounce, because it doesn’t take the user to a relevant page.  By contrast the first ad takes the user right to the product, capturing the user right away and increasing the chance of a purchase.

Another example of a landing page honed for lead generation is one that contains a specific download and a form:

This page combines the registration form and the download function.  Instead of working through two different screens, the user can fill out the form and read the content on the same page.

Here are some other techniques that I have found to improve conversion rates.

Length of Form

If you ask a user to complete a form, be careful not to ask for too much information.  Too often companies ask for everything within this first interaction.  Users see the length of the form and are scared away.  Even if many of the fields are optional, a user’s first instinct is to leave because the form is too long. By asking for less, you improve your chances of converting that user.  Further user information can be gathered by a follow up email or phone call.

Appropriate Tabbing Structure

When filling out the form the user should be able to hit the tab key to go to the next field.  It can be frustrating (and a bit annoying) to use the mouse to get to the next field.

Privacy Policy

Let’s face it, the internet is not the safest place in the world.  Users are weary of giving out their contact information.  For this reason you should include some sort of privacy statement on your landing page.  Whether it be a link to the site privacy policy or a message that assures your users their information will be kept confidential, this item is a must have.

Browser Compatibility and Screen Resolution

Ideally your landing pages should be compatible with all browsers, even the obscure ones.  At a minimum, though, make sure the pages are compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.  These pages should also be compatible with the different versions of these browsers.

Screen resolution is another important factor.  Your key messages and calls to action should appear “above the fold” even in lower resolutions.  Above the fold means the items in your landing page that users do not need to scroll down to see.  Users have several other options and are not going to wait around for you to make your point.

Conclusion

The most important advice is to make sure what you say in an ad is what the user sees on the landing page.  Ultimately you are throwing money away if you are not giving your customers the right user experience.

Engaged in a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, the company was not seeing sufficient results. The lack of optimized landing pages was hindering the performance of the campaign by costing QUMAS valuable conversions.

QUMAS wanted to increase the visitor conversion rate, so the company turned to PixelMEDIA to develop and create landing pages that would further this objective.

PixelMEDIA Solution
After speaking with QUMAS, PixelMEDIA understood the conversion goals of the campaign to be whitepaper and webinar downloads. The new landing pages would require visitors to fill out a form in order to download the specific resource. User information would be collected, but visitors would still be allowed to learn about QUMAS without having to contact the company directly.

PixelMEDIA’s next step was to create a landing page via wireframes. An Information Architect created a page that greatly improved the user experience. The title of the
whitepaper/webinar was moved below the header to stand out. The description and image were clearly defined on the page and easy to see. Additionally, six fields of the form were removed to encourage more visitors to fill it out. Finally, the conversion goal clearly stood out and told the user what to do. The result was a landing page design in which most of the page was above the fold, making it easy for the user to fill out the form in order to download the requested resource.

The PPC campaign ads were updated with the new conversion goals and destination URLs. The redesigned, user-focused landing pages were created for multiple whitepaper/webinar downloads, resulting in an increase of registrations over the next four months.

We are very pleased with the landing pages developed by PixelMEDIA. The increased traffic to our site and acquisition of new prospect information has strengthened our integrated marketing campaigns and we have seen a number of these prospects convert to active sales opportunities.   —Caoimhe Kiely, Global Head of Marketing, QUMAS

The Impact

• Over a period of four months,
• Form submissions increased 153%
• Conversion rate increased 44.8%
• Average time spent on site increased 74%

For this initiative, PixelMEDIA provided the following search marketing services:

• PPC campaign management
• Form creation
• Landing page optimization
• Content strategy

• Vary the letter cases
• Try different calls to action (CTA)
• Add more keywords throughout the campaign
• Test different variations of landing pages

One of the first things I always test is different letter cases within the ad copy. Check out these ads with two different cases:

vs.

I have seen the same ad with varying cases have drastically different results whether that be through higher click-thru-rates (CTR) or conversion rates. Additionally, testing dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) better helps to match search queries to the ads. Trying different calls to action is good to test as well:

There are literally hundreds of permutations of ads you can write to contain different cases and punctuation, varying ad copy, and any other ideas you may think of.

There is always the opportunity to add more keywords to your campaign. You can expand the reach of your ads by testing terms in different match types. For example, if you are only bidding on the exact match of “designer coffee tables” you could also try it in phrase and broad match. You can take advantage of many free keyword expansion tools and can comb your site for new keywords. There are even tools that will make permutations of your keywords.

Testing different variations of your landing page(s) is always a good idea. Whether you do an A/B test or a multivariate test, play around with items on the page. You can tweak the content and shorten the registration form among other things. Google AdWords Website Optimizer is a great tool for testing variations of landing pages.

Keep in mind to always be careful whenever you test new ideas. Some ideas might have great results, but adversely some might not. It is important to keep a close eye on your tests as to not waste precious budget.

I have only touched on a couple of items as there is so much within PPC to test that you should never become complacent with your campaign. Remember, your campaign might be performing well, but it can always do better.