Search Marketing Special: Landing Page Optimization (Pt. 2)

Introduction

Yesterday’s blog post talked about why landing pages are so important in search marketing, mostly because they can increase your keyword Quality Scores and reduce your cost-per-clicks. We left you with some areas to think about when it comes to improving your landing pages, and today we’ll go into more depth about how they can make your search marketing efforts more effective.

Relevant and Original Content

It’s all about giving your user what your ad promised in a very short amount of time. Assure that your destination URL provides the most useful information about the product or service in your ad. If you’re selling something, direct users to the page where they can by the specific advertised product, rather than to a page with a description to several products. 

Search engines like Google want you to feature original content that you can’t find anywhere else. This doesn’t mean linking or redirecting traffic to another site or replicating the look and feel of another site. Give them the information they want - the stuff that they saw in the ad. For instance, if you sell umbrellas, you could add unique content to the page by considering customer reviews or product descriptions.

Transparency

Gaining the trust of your visitors can lead to repeat visits, and one way to gain trust is to be honest and transparent with your visitors. Transparency can help you improve your landing page and your relationship with your customers. Remember to be open about your business and clearly define what it is or does. A company privacy policy can answer these questions quickly. Also, honor the deals and offers you promote in your ad and don’t charge them for the products and services they ordered but didn’t receive. Lastly, distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content. 

Site Navigation

The key is to turn visitors into customers. This can be done by making it easy for users to find what they’re looking for. For instance, you could provide a short and easy path for users to purchase or receive the product or offer they read about in your ad. Avoid excessive use of pop-ups, pop-unders, and other distractions that could turn the visitor away.