If you have ever wondered if you should use multiple landing pages to coincide with your PPC campaigns, then you are already on the right track. The short answer is that there should ideally be one landing page per keyword (or per group of highly related keywords).
This may seem a bit excessive at first glance. But let’s take a look at how landing pages function in the whole scheme of things and why it might be better to use more than one.
Factors In A Good PPC Campaign
Three components that are important in a PPC campaign are: the keywords selected, the advertisement created, and the landing pages visitors click through to.
Of these three, we are going to focus on the landing page assuming that you have selected the most viable keywords and put together one or more enticing and eye catching PPC ads.
Make The Landing Page Meet Expectations
This is arguably the most important part of a good landing page – If someone is clicking on your advertisement for a hair growth serum that helps men with baldness on the crown of the head, they are going to expect to be directed to a page that shows the benefit of the product in relation to their specific problem.
Unfortunately, many times the website owner doesn’t develop a special landing page for this advertisement, instead directing the click-through to the main page of the e-commerce website. What the visitor finds there is general information – because that is appropriate for your main page. If he is truly ready to be convinced that the product is a great one, he will have to search to find the information he is seeking. Chances are you will lose him before a purchase is made.
Instead, develop a micro site or specific landing page that gives the man with male pattern baldness the exact information he is seeking. Don’t forget the call to action. This is the best way to convert that visitor into a sale instead of a bounce. Learn the elements of effective sales letter writing so that you can appeal to the specific needs of the visitor that noticed your keyword phrase and ad.
Make The Landing Page Relevant To Your Keywords
Suppose that you are using the PPC keywords “male pattern baldness”, “thinning hair solution”, and “hair loss product”. Each of these phrases refers to a specific problem. So, then, should the landing pages for each of these advertisements bring the visitor to a specific page.
In the first instance, the person clicking on the advert is a male looking for a way to grow hair, in the second instance, it could be a man or woman seeking a product that will help them grow thicker hair, and the third example is also gender nonspecific and aimed at people who are losing their hair.
Each one of these people is seeking something different. Each one has different expectations when they click through to the landing page. Give them exactly what they are looking for and you will achieve the greatest number of sales for your online advertising dollar.
Obviously the example shown is for only three keyword phrases. If you are bidding on 20, you do not need to make a separate landing page for each. Instead, group them into related campaigns.
If you are only using one landing page for each set of keywords and each advertisement you are running in a PPC campaign, chances are good that you are missing out on a large percentage of sales.
About Sean Rasmussen
Hi Sean,
I have not thought of “landing pages” yet as I don’t yet have my own product, I am working towards that end ,so I will be marking this page as one to refer to again.
Rita
Landing pages are also used for affiliate products. Google doesn’t allow you to use affiliate links in PPC ads so that is where the landing page comes in.
Hi Gee
Oh MY !!!! the more I learn the more I see I need to learn.
Nice Sean,
Your info is spot on, and something that many websites ignore (at their own peril). The user has clicked on your ad because something in your ad has appealed to them. It makes sense ensure the link they click on carries further information about the area of interest… rather than just linking to the home page.
It’s akin to promising standing at the doorway of your business spruiking a solution, then when someone expresses interest in the product telling them ‘sure, step through and take a look, I think the product’s in there somewhere – just go find it yourself.’ Congratulations you just paid for a lead that completely missed a sale.
Hello Sean,
There is nothing worse than clicking on a link to be taken to a page that is NOT related to where you wanted to go (for the information you are after). I will automatically close that blog/website and look else where. So its true that you can lose sales from not sitting it up right the first time. It sounds like you would end up with Multiple Landing Pages, but it would be better to have too many pages, then too few
Cheers
Lisa
Very good advise. When I have a very targeted ad placed with a very specific and catchy title but lead my visitors to a more general page where they have to search for the part they came for – not very customer friendly. Much better to have a landing page that is matched to the ad and lead on to the general page from there.
Sean, having this information available whether you are ready to start creating multiple landing pages or still deciding which product you which to sell, this article is interesting to read and it’s also great to know it will always be here for references. I’m not at the stage yet of needing to do this but I have read this and can tuck this information away for when I’m ready to do it.
I think the difficultly comes in if you have say a primary blog with review like articles or sales pages. You essentially have the one sales page – so how can you test multiple versions of that page?
Hi Cemil – You can do things like change the headline, change the picture, the call to action, the language of the post, the angle you’ve taken in the copy, to name but a few examples.
I think that your suggestion would work great if you are testing various landing pages, but for say a blog where you may be using pages for promote products, it may cause an issue if you have multiple pages per product.
If that makes any sense
Hi Cemil
Oh, okay, I think I know what you’re saying now. I think you’re right, in your example, you wouldn’t have multiple pages. I meant testing the one page, by changing the things I mention above.
Hi Sean – I don’t think one landing page per keyword is excessive at all. It seems to be a consensus in this thread that arriving at an irrelevant page is very annoying. Why risk annoying your visitor and having the leave? Give them what you promised in the PPC ad/meta description/summary or whatever you used to reel them in.
In order to round out my understanding of this multiple landing pages matter I would like to see a brilliant example in action that I could study. I can see Cemil’s point of view and it adds to my confusion. Without that understanding I am doomed to trial and error, waiting for that enlightenment, that aha moment. My initial venture into ppc only broke even. I will need more understanding before trying again.
That’s not bad, Wal, if you broke even on your first PPC campaign. People lose a lot of money because they don’t know even the basics of what they’re doing.
Hi Sean,
This is excellent advice. I will definitely use multiple landing pages for my PPC campaigns. It really makes sense to ensure that the landing page provides the information that the customer is seeking. Otherwise, why would they buy my product?
Great advice Sean,
It is all to often that I click on an ad or anchor text that does not deliver what is expected on the other end. I see how with delivering specific landing pages for targeted keywords would be much more likely to generate a sale than if you lead your customers to a broader type of landing page as you have described.