Tired of throwing money at Google Ads and seeing minimal returns? You're not alone.
The truth is, most businesses focus so much on getting clicks that they forget about the crucial part: what happens after the click.
Imagine doubling or tripling your sales just by tweaking one thing – your landing page. Sounds too good to be true? It's not (case study at end of post doubled conversions). Let's dive into the simple steps that can transform your Google Ads results.
The Hidden Problem: Why Your Landing Page is Costing You Sales
Success with Google Ads boils down to a simple equation: Traffic + Conversion = Success. Many businesses pour their budgets into driving traffic but neglect the critical destination: the landing page. This is where you convert clicks into customers.
Remember, the whole point of a landing page is to reduce friction in the sales process. It should lower the barriers and hesitations a site visitor has to buy your stuff.
Sure, there are common culprits like slow loading speeds, confusing messaging, weak calls to action, and irrelevant content. But these are often symptoms of a deeper issue: focusing on the details before getting the big picture right.
The good news?
You can easily double or even triple your conversion rate with a few strategic tweaks (case study example at the end did just this). Imagine the impact that would have on your sales and profit!
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The Fundamentals: Building a High-Converting Landing Page
Let's talk solutions. Fixing your landing page doesn't require a complete overhaul or a fancy marketing degree. It's all about focusing on the fundamentals.
Simplicity and Focus
Successful landing pages all have one thing in common - simplicity and focus. Focus on one core goal - what do you want the person to do? Call you? Book an appointment? Buy?
Having different goals is confusing and dilutes your effort. Remove all distractions and unnecessary elements that distract from that one goal. This is why using your website or home page is generally a bad idea for a landing page. There are distractions all over the place with links to your About Us, Contact Us, Services Pages, and on and on. With a landing page, you don’t want links to other pages or sites, so all those should be removed.
The Power of a Compelling Headline
People first see your headline when they land on the page. It needs to grab their attention and tell them immediately what you're offering and why they should care. Think of it as your elevator pitch, but even shorter.
As David Ogilvy once wrote:
David Ogilvy
"On average, five times as many people read the headline as the body copy."
Bad Headline Examples
Do not take development of the headline lightly. Here are example of poorly performing headlines and reasons why:
Good Headline Examples
In comparison, here are five examples of good, effective headlines.
See how the good headlines are specific, benefit-driven, and create a sense of urgency? That's what you want. (here's a helpful post on proven headline formulas)
Strong Call to Action (CTA)
This is what you want people to do next. Make it crystal clear. Here are some examples.
Effective CTAs use strong verbs and contrasting colors on buttons to draw attention. They're also placed prominently on the page.
High-Quality Visuals
Use high-quality images or videos that directly support your message. Avoid generic, cheesy stock photos that scream "fake." Show your product in action or show happy customers using your service. Canva is a great tool for making stunning images. It has many templates for idea generation, leverages AI, and is far easier than trying to figure out Photoshop. (related post here on optimizing image for SEO and page loading times)
Discover How Our Agency Can Drive More Leads and Sales To You
SEO - increase traffic and leads from Google
Content Marketing - from a data-driven topic strategy to awesome content
Paid Ads - Google Ads and Paid Social Media
Mobile Optimization
Over half of all web traffic is mobile. Your landing page must look great and function flawlessly on smartphones and tablets. Use a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes. Check your page for any text or images that bleed off the screen.
PPC Landing Page Best Practices - Mobile Responsiveness
Strategic Tweaks: Elevating Your Landing Page Performance
Now that you have the foundation, let's talk about some simple tweaks that can dramatically improve your results. These are the secrets that separate good landing pages from great ones.
Social Proof
People are naturally influenced by what others say and do. Include testimonials or reviews from satisfied customers. Showcase your ratings and awards. If you've worked with any well-known companies, display their logos. Build trust by demonstrating credibility.
Page Speed Optimization
Google found that 53% of mobile users abandon a site if it takes over 3 seconds to load. And Portent found that pages that load in 5 seconds compared to those that load in 2 seconds see 2/3rds fewer conversions. Test your site speed using Google Page Speed Insights.
PPC Landing Page Best Practices - Conversions vs Landing Page Load Time
A/B Testing
The only way to know what truly works is to test different versions of your landing page. Try different headlines, CTAs, images, and even different layouts. Use tools like Crazy Egg or Optimizely. Remember to test one element at a time to isolate what's working and what's not.
Search Intent Alignment
Your landing page needs to align perfectly with the keywords people are searching for. This seems obvious, but you'd be surprised how often it's overlooked. If someone searches for "blue widgets," your landing page better be about blue widgets! If you’re a personal injury lawyer advertising personal injury representation for car accidents, you better ensure they are landing on a car accident page, not just a general personal injury page.
Pro Tip:
For a quick check on search intent, go to Google and do a search for the keywords you're targeting. Do the pages in the search results reflect what you thought and what is on your landing page? If not, you need to reevaluate your search intent alignment.
Matching search intent improves the user experience and boosts your Quality Score in Google Ads, which can lower your ad costs and improve your ad ranking.
Quality Score and Cost per Click Relationship
Google rewards “GOOD” advertisers that have good landing pages aligned with intent, that load fast and deliver the information people are searching for.
In the worst cases, poor advertisers can see 10 times higher cost-per-click.
Case Study
Imagine this:
A local business owner in San Jose, Francisco, was running Google Ads. He was getting clicks, sure, but the sales just weren't there. He felt like he was throwing money into a black hole.
'It's gotta be the ads,' he thought. '
I just need someone to manage them better.'
So, he reached out to us, hesitant to even consider touching his landing page.
'That's fine,' he insisted, 'just make the ads work, and let's see what you can do.'
But after a quick chat, the lightbulb went on. Francisco realized his landing page was, well, a mess. It was like inviting people to a party and then locking the door. He'd focused so much on getting people there, he forgot to make it easy for them to actually come in.
We rolled up our sleeves and implemented our PPC landing page best practices.
The results?
It was like flipping a switch.
Conversions nearly doubled, jumping by a staggering 91%.
His cost per click plummeted by 50%, and his cost per conversion dropped by 24%.
Even his click-through rate soared by 111%.
All because of a revamped landing page. Francisco went from feeling like he was wasting money to seeing a real, tangible return.
It wasn't magic; it was simply understanding and applying the other half of the success equation.
Advanced Strategies: Supercharging Your Results
Alright, you've mastered the fundamentals and implemented those key tweaks... now it's time to take things to the next level. While these are technically not part of a landing page, if you want to squeeze the most profit from your ad spend, I highly recommend these tactics.
Retargeting
Have you ever browsed a website and then seen ads for that same website following you around the internet? That's retargeting. It's a powerful way to re-engage visitors who have already shown interest in your products or services.
Retargeting Ad Example Showing for A Restaurant
Data and Digital Plumbing
Digital Plumbing - Conversion Tracking for Google Ads
By digital plumbing, I am referring to tracking conversion actions such as form fills, click to call phone numbers, live chat, etc - it’s imperative when running campaigns that you are passing back these data so Google Ads can learn from it. These data will help you identify areas for improvement and optimize your landing page for even better results.
Read my post on Setting UP Google Ads Conversion Tracking
CRM Integration
Your landing page shouldn't be a silo. It should be integrated with your CRM system. This allows you to automatically capture leads from your landing page and nurture them through your sales funnel.
Below is an example of a lead nurture sequence that automatically drips emails out to a prospect. The square icons are the emails, the round clock icons are timers that are set to specific time delays before sending the next email. To learn more about lead nurturing, marketing automation, and how it can skyrocket your leads, read my post, Unstoppable Lead Generation.
Lead Nurture Sequences in Your CRM - Keap
Conclusion
By combining these advanced strategies – retargeting, personalization, digital plumbing, and CRM integration – you can create a truly optimized landing page experience that drives conversions and maximizes your ROI. Implement these changes, and watch your Google Ads sales soar!
Discover How Our Agency Can Drive More Leads and Sales To You
SEO - increase traffic and leads from Google
Content Marketing - from a data-driven topic strategy to awesome content
Paid Ads - Google Ads and Paid Social Media
