PR 20/20 Blog

4 Tips to Writing Effective PPC Landing Pages

By Keith | Posted Oct 30, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Advertising, Internet Marketing
So your pay-per-click advertisement offer of “free shoes with the purchase of every shoelace” caught the attention of a search engine searcher. They’ve clicked on your ad, Google charged your account the $5.50 you bid for the term “shoe fastening devices,” and the potential customer is on your site. Now what?

What can you do to your site to encourage customers to take the desired call to action? Below are a few tips that may help to improve the effectiveness of PPC landing pages.

1. Align the Keywords

Align the keywords you purchased with the content on your page. Make sure your keywords are scattered throughout the copy, specifically headlines, so the visitor knows right away that they are on a site that covers “shoe fastening devices.”

2. Searchers Don’t Like to Search

Put the most important information front and center, so visitors don’t have to look around for it. The easier you make it for them to find the information they are looking for, the longer they will stick around. Bold face or enlarge the main points and keywords on the page to allow for quick scanning. Also, images of the product or service are a good idea because they draw attention easier.

3. Clearly TELL Them What to Do

A quick, clear and concise call to action is easier to understand than a wordy one. “Click Here to Purchase” puts the action as the first word, leaving little confusion on how to purchase the product. “If you would like to purchase shoelaces, click here,” isn’t as powerful and doesn’t give the same type of urgency.

4. Above the Fold (Unlike this)

A main point to remember is that the call to action (CTA) should be above the fold. The fold refers to the bottom of the page that isn’t visible without scrolling down. The most common spot for a CTA is at the top of the right-hand column, but check out the sites that you frequent and see where they put theirs. You can also test the best place for a CTA with A/B testing. Put the CTA in two different locations on the Web page, and then study the analytics to see which version customers responded to better. Google offers a great, free A/B testing tool.
3 Simple Ways to Optimize Landing Pages

By Keith | Posted Sep 11, 2008 | 0 Comment(s) | Filed in: Internet Marketing
I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual, someone who if put in a locked room and given the key, would eventually find my way out after the claustrophobic panic screams subsided. Well, during the 2008 Inbound Marketing Summit I had the pleasure of sitting through a session about Optimizing Landing Pages that made me question this assumption.

The session was hosted by David Reske, managing director of Nowspeed Marketing and he discussed several best practices on how to structure a landing page to encourage more visitors to take the desired call to action.

There were three points he talked about that left me scratching my head. Not in the “I’m confused” or “my shampoo doesn’t moisturize” kind of way, but in the “Why didn’t I think of that?” kind of way. They are genius in their simplicity and now that I’m aware of them, completely obvious.

1. Show Pictures of the Offer

I didn’t really appreciate the impact of this tactic until I saw an example (below). The example site was promoting a white paper, and included an image of the white paper with a quick, clear call to action (Free White Paper) on a button. The image (the only one on the screen) immediately caught my attention. Within 2 seconds I knew exactly how to get to the white paper.

[Note the white paper image in the top left.]

2. Remove the Internal Links to Other Pages

How often are you on a web page with a lot happening, when you get distracted from the reason you went to that page and click on an unrelated link?

Reske suggests that you take away the distraction and limit the visitors’ ability to go to another page by limiting the links on the page. On specific product or service pages, only include a link to the home page and your call to action. If they want to go to a different page, they still have the back button, or can go to the home page, which includes links to all the site’s other pages.

3. Include Your Privacy Statement

If you’re like me, you’re a little hesitant to freely give away your information, especially credit card information, to a Website that you know relatively nothing about. The thoughts of “spam emails” and “identity theft” scamper through your brain, giggling their mischievous little giggles.

Why not put your customers at ease by including your Privacy Statement clearly on the page that asks for their information. As soon as you get their business, hopefully your customer relations and product service will keep them coming back, but that first sale is going to be the hardest. Take every step possible to help them trust you.