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  • Effective Landing Pages: Converting the User to a Buyer

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    Posted on February 16, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    Here is the situation: I’ve convinced my team and management to move forward with an SEM campaign. I’ve carved out money in our budget for the pay-per-click ads, determined the services I want to promote, finalized keyword groups and ad copy, and have given Google AdWords the greenlight to start. But, assuming everything goes according to plan—the user enters a keyword in the Google Search box, they click on my text ad on the right side of the screen and now, SUCCESS, they are on my site! How do I make the user a buyer? Google AdWords tells me how many people have visited each page and which keywords are successful and which are not. But wait…am I actually getting new business?

    The success of any SEM campaign relies heavily on the final destination page. You’ve spent the money to attract the user, but once the user is on your site, is s/he receiving the information they want or need? Think about your common Google searches. Depending on what you are looking for, have you ever clicked on a link and then looked at the page you were redirected to and said “this isn’t what I’m looking for”? Your users are thinking the same thing. They’ve entered the keyword and read your ad copy, but when they reach your landing page those words need to be front and center, reassuring the user that s/he has come to the right place, THEN you can sell them your services. The landing page needs to capture attention, prove your services are the best, demonstrate past success and if possible, capture the user’s information. Follow these rules when updating your landing pages:

    • The keywords you are paying for need to be prominent in the first sentence or headline of the landing page (not only to comfort the user, but also Google–they’ll lower your ad’s ranking if the almighty algorithm thinks your page isn’t relevant to the keywords).
    • Ad copy the user clicked on should also be reiterated on the page.
    • Once a user is on the page, give them a clear call to action. Where can I go to get more information? Who can I call?
    • Demonstrate your expertise and experience—past successes, client testimonials, etc.
    • Trade thought leadership for user information—capture the user’s email address by trading a white paper or other publication for the user’s email address.
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    Comments

    Comment from mindxstudio February 19, 2011 at 8:15 am

    Thanks for useful information about landing page conversion.

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