Agencies can spend hours crafting an eye-catching and engaging pay-per-click (PPC) ad, but if the connected landing page isn’t well-designed, then they may miss out on converting a “click” to a sale—essentially wiping out the return on investment (ROI). The landing page is just as important as the ad itself, and if it doesn’t offer a simple method for customers to convert, the entire campaign is compromised.
When designing a landing page, there are many details to remember to improve the odds of making the sale. We asked 13 Forbes Agency Council experts to share strategies to help you figure out what to include in your landing page design.
Members of Forbes Agency Council share the best features of an effective pay-per-click landing page.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Autofill Forms
Many times PPC campaigns are for direct response programs. We know consumers access a majority of their content via mobile phones. If you have a form on a landing page, make it autofill where possible for consumers who have authorized cookies or use a social login feature to auto-populate the form. This optimizes the experience for all users—especially those on the go. – Gina Michnowicz, The Craftsman Agency, A Union+Webster Company
2. Original Images
Modern marketers can’t get by with great copy alone. We need great images and visuals that truly inspire and excite our consumers. Brands should set out to elevate their website content beyond traditional stock images. Eye-catching creatives that match the overall look and feel of the brand are the key to driving traffic and maximizing results. – David Shadpour, Social Native
3. A Single Message And Action
Make the landing page have one clear path and action to take. Save the navigation, additional links and paths for your main website and make your PPC landing pages focused on one single message and one single action. Remove all the distractions. – Ryan Short, MODassic Marketing
4. Mirrored Messaging
The best way to deliver on the promise and call-to-action from a pay-per-click campaign is to stay “on the script.” Keep the landing page messaging contextually relevant to the campaign with copy points, images and a clear path to purchase that mirrors the PPC campaign. – Patrick Nycz, NewPoint Marketing
5. Tied-In Keywords
Create landing pages that tie directly into the keyword itself. The content on a landing page should be curated to match up with relevant expectations from inbound PPC traffic. This will yield to better conversions for a call-to-action on that page. – Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile LLC
6. A Clear Vision Of The Next Step
Think critically about what you want the user to do next. When you’re spending dollars to send a user to your landing page, ensure you have a clear vision of the one thing the user should do. Don’t get lost focusing on the time spent on the site or multiple pages per visit. If the goal is to get a user to fill out a form, they likely won’t spend a lot of time on the site. – Donna Robinson, Nina Hale – Digital Marketing Agency
7. Mobile-First Design And A Follow-Up Plan
You need to think mobile first—now more than ever. Collectively our clients are seeing 70 percent of their traffic from mobile devices. Your landing page should be straight to the point and make it easy for someone to give you their information. The most important part is your follow-up. You need to have a method of communicating in the next 60 minutes or you have lost the value for that lead. – Ryan Sprance, Kaihatsu Media
8. A Transition To Purchase
You’ve already addressed the user’s intent with a click and an ad. They know what you do and maybe even a little bit of your differentiation. Now, help them take action and explain why they should. Landing pages are good but are an added “point of friction” where you could lose the client. Make sure you use the page as a next step in the user’s transition to purchase your service or product. – Jonathan Laberge, Reptile
9. An Easy-To-Read ‘Why’
Creating a PPC landing page can be tricky. It’s best to lead with a photo or video, followed by content that answers the “why” directly related to the PPC ad’s topic. In addition, be sure to include testimonials and related content to fill out the page. Design-wise it should be nicely formatted and easy to read, directing the viewer from topic to topic in a logical way. – Francine Carb, Markitects, Inc.
10. A Focus On Customer Benefits
The No. 1 mistake made by bad landing pages is that the copy is focused on the features of the company or the product instead of the needs of the prospective customer. Focus your copy on the prospect and the benefits they will get or the pains you will remove if they take the action you’re requesting. This golden rule of great copy that converts is to make it about them and not you. – Todd Earwood, MoneyPath
11. Speedy Performance
Post-click experiences tend to be hampered by poor speed, especially on mobile. While it’s not easy, speeding up the site as much as possible with your engineering team and being willing to compromise on design for performance improvements can have real impacts for conversions. Quick tip: Chrome DevTools is great for troubleshooting and testing performance iterations across devices. – Jacob Cook, Tadpull
12. An Irresistible Reason To Register
When someone clicks on a paid ad, their digital behavior is saying they’re intrigued. But to convert that interest into a sales conversation (what my professional service clients want), you have to offer them something they can’t resist, such as an insightful ebook. Tell them why they should register for it and what it will do for them, and your conversion rates will soar. – Randy Shattuck, The Shattuck Group
13. A Message That Passes The ‘Two-Second’ Test
There is one test I always run when writing ad copy and the landing page that aligns with it. I pull out my phone and run it by someone else in the room, showing it to them for only two seconds. After that, I ask them to summarize what the value prop or message was. If they can’t “take it in,” it is too busy or unclear—and it will be for my two-second-attention-span visitor who impulsively clicked as well. – Patrick Haddad, Oopgo, Inc.
