Advertisers can write engaging and clever ads that entice users to click, but ad copy can only do so much. It’s the landing page that must encourage the user to stay, interact and convert.
When referring to landing pages for PPC, many people talk about creating a paid advertising landing page per a specific set of best practices (limited navigation, form fields, CTA button, testimonials etc.). A paid advertising landing page is something I highly recommend and is the preferred option, but whether you’re using a landing page or an existing page on your website, there are other important elements to consider. When you think about
landing page optimization for SEO, things like page speed, content/keywords and mobile-friendliness come to mind, but paid advertisers must pay attention to these factors too and here’s why.
Page Speed
Why It’s Important for SEO
Page speed has been one of Google’s ranking factors since 2010. A slow loading page can be negatively impacted on search results pages.
Why It’s Important for PPC
If the page that a user is directed to upon clicking your ad does not load quickly, the user may abandon the page out of frustration, which results in lost conversion opportunities and wasted advertising dollars. Additionally, landing page experience is one of the factors that impacts
quality score, which can affect your
ad rank. When it comes to page speed,
Google specifically states:
“If it takes too long for your website to load when someone clicks on your ad, they’re more likely to give up and leave your website. This unwelcome behavior can signal to Google that your landing page experience is poor, which could negatively impact your Ad Rank. That’s why you want to make sure your landing page load time is up to speed.”
How to Improve It
Google’s
PageSpeed Insights is a great tool for identifying the issues that are hindering page speed.
PageSpeed Insights Help Part 1: The Speed “Fixes” explains each of the recommendations provided by the tool.
Content
Why It’s Important for SEO
One of Google’s
top ranking factors is content. Substantial quality content that includes the keywords and phrases that you would like your page to rank for is an SEO must.
Why It’s Important for PPC
Two of the components of Quality Score are
ad relevance, which is how closely related your keywords are to your ads, and landing page experience, as previously mentioned. One of Google’s tips for improving landing page experience is making sure “your landing page is directly relevant to your ad text and keyword.” Therefore, having consistency from keywords to ads to landing pages is very important. Additionally, if users see that your ad is relevant to what they searched and the landing page is relevant to the ad, they will be less likely to abandon the page because their expectations are being met, thus reducing bounce rate.
How to Improve It
If you create a paid advertising landing page, make sure the content is directly related to what you are offering in your ad and focuses on encouraging users to perform the desired conversion action. Too much content can be distracting or can cause the user to get bored. Unlike content optimized for SEO, paid advertising landing page content should be a little more concise and tightly focused on the conversion.
Mobile-Friendliness
Why It’s Important for SEO
About a year ago, Google released a mobile-friendly ranking algorithm that improves rankings in
mobile search results for pages that are mobile-friendly. You may have heard this event referred to as “mobilegeddon.”
Why It’s Important for PPC
More and more, people are interacting and searching on their mobile devices throughout the day. Over half of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. If a user clicks on an ad on their smartphone directing to a non-mobile-friendly landing page that is difficult to view and interact with, the chance of page abandonment increases. In this mobile world, your paid advertising landing pages should be mobile-friendly and make it easy for users to convert.
How to Improve It
Now that you are aware of how important page speed, content and mobile-friendliness are to your success in not only organic search, but paid advertising as well – go forth and optimize!
Need help with
landing page optimization or
PPC campaigns? We can help. View more information about
Marketing Mojo services here.
Questions or comments? Continue the conversation below.
