27-Dec-2006 Marty Weintraub
3 Tips for Effective Landing Pages |
| 1) Worry About Landing Page Quality Score and PPC There is a huge amount of buzz regarding the search engines' migration to quality score indexing for PPC landing pages. Previous incarnations of Google™ , MSN™, and Yahoo® advertising platforms allowed advertisers to simply bid there way to the top, irregardless of the relevance of the destination landing page. This is no longer the case. Landing pages are now subject to ranking criteria similar to traditional Search Engine Optimization values. In providing SEO Services to our clients we consistently advise them to pay careful attention to landing page relevance. The reason behind this revolution is simple: landing page ranking and limiting an advertiser's ability to drive traffic to a page unrelated to the customer's search phrase improves the relevance of the search engine's results. Give customers the content they search for. As a side note, requiring advertisers to provide content well-related to the search results they are buying limits the gray hat SEO practice known as arbitrage. Arbitrage is the practice of driving traffic to dedicated Google AdSense™ and, Yahoo® content match sites purchased from a second tier engine like Look Smart® (or low-cost words on major engines). These arbitrage sites offer little or no content value and only serve as resellers for Google™ and, Yahoo® ads for commission. Fortunately it's getting harder to market unrelated junk by bidding to the top with irrelevant landing pages. |
Google™ and MSN™, adopted PPC landing page relevance scoring early in 2006. Yahoo® followed suit in it's release of Panama, the new paid search advertiser marketing platform. |
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3 Tips for Effective Landing Pages
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AimClear is a search engine optimization (SEO) Internet marketing firm in Minneapolis and Duluth offering Website Promotion and Minnesota Internet marketing strategy nationally.
Panama even reveals it's relevance score for your ad's landing page within the PPC interface. Further complicating the matter is is a "black box" component to the relevance algorithm. Google tells you the basics: use your keyword in the title, make the content authentic and valuable to the customer. Make sure the page can be effectively spidered. When I create PPC landing pages I optimize them like any other page.
2) Place the Call-to-Action in the Landing Page
In the early days we deployed our clients' PPC landing pages to the site's homepage. Soon after we directed the traffic to interior content-specific pages and conversion increased significantly. It makes sense that responding to a customer's search with contextually relevant information would increase conversion. Now we place the call-to-action on the landing page.
If our strategy is information request marketing there is a "Request Information" form embedded in the landing page. Here are some examples: Institute of Production and Recording, The Inn on Lake Superior. If e-commerce is your objective then make the "add to cart" button as close to the surface as possible. Ideally the landing page should have the sales mechanism embedded in the page. And option for first-click after the landing page should always be the sale itself.
3) Treat Every Page Like a Landing Page
Paid Placement (PPC) allowed advertisers to dictate the destination page for a search engine result listing. This was revolutionary in Internet evolution because (for a cost) we could finally purchase the exact gateway page a potential customer takes into our website. For instance opticsspot.com purchases the keyword "Nikon binoculars." The landing page is designed to be apparently all things Nikon binoculars. Most of us have learned that increasing the topical specificity of a landing page in relationship to the search phrase increases conversion. It also serves to validate the customer's decision to click on our ad. They feel as if they made the right choice in choosing your site.
We take the lessons learned from PPC landing pages to the next level and treat every page we touch as a landing page, even if we do not direct PPC its way. All pages in a well constructed website have the possibility of being indexed and ranked by search engine spiders. Therefore every page is a potential gateway to your site. Treat every page as such. Subscribe to traditional Search Engine Optimization values and best practices. Do authoritative keyword research and generate valuable content which responds to the customers' search with contextually relevant information that serves an ethical purpose.
