Landing Pages for Google Ads and PPC: Best Practices

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” This expression is applicable in many examples throughout the marketing world, but it especially rings true when it comes to having effective paid search ads with an ineffective landing page.

While writing compelling ad copy and ensuring targeting is optimal are the keys to getting traffic and clicks from any Google Ads or other paid search campaign, the work doesn’t stop once a search engine user has clicked on an ad. No matter how much the ad content spoke to or was relevant to that individual, being directed to a landing page that is poorly designed or difficult to navigate is a surefire way to turn a potential lead into a guaranteed “leave.” In this article, we will go over some of the key traits and best practices of having an effective landing page for Google Ads and PPC.

Design and Content

Whether using a standalone landing page or a service page on an existing website, nothing will turn away a potential customer faster than an ugly or poor design. The purpose of a landing page is to drive leads, but that doesn’t mean that the landing page needs to be all substance and functionality with no flair. A well-designed landing page will have all three: relevant content, functionality and ease of contact, and visual appeal. Except in rare circumstances, a user is not going to engage with a landing page that is effectively just a form. Most users will feel more engaged and willing to reach out if the content and context of what they are seeing on the landing page is in line with what they are looking for.

Ease of Contact

Aside from aesthetics, the landing page needs to be optimized to meet your goal as a company. If the goal is to drive phone calls, then the phone number needs to be clickable and prominently displayed as much as possible without hurting the overall design. Likewise, a focus on form submissions should be met by having at least one contact form or contact link on the page above the fold (the area of the website visible before needing to scroll down). If the user has to go searching for a way to reach out, the odds are high that they will leave and go to the next ad. Additionally, forms should be easy to understand and not overly complicated or containing excessive fields to fill in. If your company is more discerning of potential clientele, then a more complex form is fine, as long as the understanding is there that it will negatively affect the overall lead volume.

Standalone vs. Subpage

Many marketing firms will insist on creating a standalone landing page for PPC ads, touting those over using service or practice area pages that already exist on the site. There are good reasons to do a standalone page, such as:

• The marketing company will have limited access to the main
• The page will focus on a good or service that is not a standard offering of the
• The standalone page will fulfill the desire to have a more lead-oriented page without making the company’s main website look and feel too “salesy.”

However, the limitations of a standalone landing page are that they don’t supply as much information to the user, often lack the design and appeal of the main website, and lack navigation to find that information. They can also be an extraneous cost to the company if the service pages are designed and optimized for lead generation. On the flip side, service and practice area pages are ideal for PPC if your marketing team is also your website design team, allowing both sides to work together to create an informative, actionable page that works on all levels.

Conclusion/Our Philosophy

At PaperStreet, our marketing and design teams work together to ensure that all of the websites we create are optimized for conversions out of the box. In most cases, the service or practice area pages perform as well or better than most standalone landing pages. That said, we will also create standalone landing pages as needed using custom templates that are tried and tested for optimal lead generation. We understand that the website and landing pages are the lifeblood of every company’s internet presence, and we always ensure that our sites are 100% catered to the needs of our clients. If your company’s ads or landing pages aren’t meeting your expectations, contact us for a free evaluation today.