In the nascent days of Google AdWords marketing campaigns, most businesses chose to send AdWords clicks directly to their home pages. The logic behind this was clear: if the ultimate goal is to spread the word about your brand, product or service to the widest possible audience, it makes a bit of sense to send potential customers to a location where you can control their first impression.

However, this technique has recently changed as more businesses are choosing to create dedicated landing pages for their Google AdWords campaigns. These AdWords landing pages can have a wide variety of elements like email opt-in, contact-us forms, phone numbers and strong calls to action designed specifically for lead generation.

Some sophisticated AdWords landing pages are actually micro sites with multiple pages of information that lead ultimately into the sales funnel. When creating the perfect Google AdWords landing page, you’ll always want to keep a few key things in mind.

Converting Opportunities

One great way to create the best possible landing page for your Google AdWords is to make it as easy as possible to convert traffic into leads. Not only do you have to provide ways for your traffic to convert but you also have to give potential customers multiple ways to do it. One email opt-in opportunity might be tied directly to a coupon or offer, for example. By providing their email address, a user can immediately get a coupon redeemable for 10% off their next order.

To convert traffic that wasn’t enticed by that particular offer, you may also include an email opt-in opportunity in exchange for some type of article or other piece of helpful content or a phone number that they can call to get more information. Each of these actions is catering to a different buyer archetype and helps to increase your conversion rates.   Allowing for multiple ways to convert traffic will help you cast the widest possible net when it comes to your incoming visitors.

Studies show that a 10% to 20% opt-in rate for a non-ecommerce conversion is about average, which means that your page content did not resonate with 80% of your paid visits. A great book  on the topic Landing Page Optimization is by Tim Ash. It is one of the seminal works in this arena.

To ensure that you keep your brand in front of the 80% who don’t take an action you should be using the AdWords Remarketing feature. If you’d like more information about Google Adwords Remarketing let us know.

Trust Symbols Help to Establish Authority

Put yourself in the mindset of a Google searcher. You type what you are looking for into the search engine and not only are youpresented with ten organic results, you are also presented with advertisers who want your attention. They make claims, and promises in their ads, but you don’t know who they are. The advertiser a complete stranger to you. Therefore it’s up to the advertiser to do everything that they can to build trust and credibility with the searcher within the first few seconds after they click. This can be established with “trust symbols” like a BBB rating, a reference to your Yelp 5 Star reviews or industry memberships (as long as the searcher knows the value in this membership) – these symbols are designed to support your argument (claim) that you have the right solution for the searcher and that they should take you up on your call to action.

It’s you job as an advertiser to convey as much compelling information as possible, in as little space as possible to position your company as viable option for the searcher. Remember, they have 19 other businesses that are just a mouse click away. Make them feel comfortable, handle their buying archetypes needs and objections with the goal of improving your opt-in rates.

Call to Action

Another hugely important element of a high quality Google AdWords landing page is the call to action. The call to action will vary depending on the specifics of your marketing goals. If your goal is to get customers to call your business in person to find out more information about your product or brand, entice them to do so using a call to action at the bottom of the page.

Enhanced Tracking

Even for a sophisticated Google Adwords advertiser, it’s a whole heck of a lot easier to track, report and understand the metrics involved in the conversion from a click to an opt-in if you only have to track the interactions on a landing page rather than on your entire website.

The key here is that it’s just math. How many clicks does it take to get an opt-in, how many opt-in’s does it take to create a valid lead, how many leads does it take to create a sale? The easier you make it to track this, the faster you can make the changes required to improve your conversion and your return on investment.

If you are interested in learning more about dedicated landing pages, buying archetypes or landing page tracking feel free to contact us.