PART 7 - Successful Landing Pages

This is Part 7 of a 9 part series dealing with the planning and steps required to build a successful Sponsored Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay-per-Click (PPC) campaign. In Parts 1 through 6 we explored and identified:

• Your products/services,

• Your main target customer group and what they want from your site/products/services,

• Your main online competition,

• Your main sponsored SEM campaign goal, and

• Your campaign keyword list

• Your campaign budget and strategy

In Part 7 we will be exploring those factors that make for an effective landing page, identifying the existing pages on your site that are a ‘match’ to your individual keywords, and identifying additional landing pages that will need to be created. Note: a large number of books and articles have been written about effective landing pages – this article barely scratches the surface. You are encouraged to learn as much as you can about this essential Search Engine Marketing tool.

RELEVANCY

Based on your knowledge of your target customer, your products/services, your unique selling feature, your online competitors, as well as your search engine marketing campaign goals and strategy – you have already chosen RELEVANT keywords for your PPC/Sponsored Search Engine Marketing campaign.

In Part 8 of this series you will learn how to create ads for your chosen keywords that will lead your target customer to your site. However, before you can create truly effective ads, you need to decide exactly where on your site your PPC/Sponsored visitors should be landing for each of your chosen keywords to ensure that what they find there will be RELEVANT.

“you need to know exactly where on your site you PPC/Sponsored visitors will be landing for each of your chosen keywords – and that what they find there will be RELEVANT.”

For example:

If you are a bakery bidding on the keyword ‘Belgian chocolate truffles,’ your ad for this phrase should take your PPC visitor to a page about Belgian chocolate truffles rather than a page about lemon meringue pie.

Do you remember the last time you searched on a term and were directed to a webpage that had little, if anything, to do with your search term or the listing you linked on? Conversely, do you remember the last time you searched on a term and were directed to a page that was exactly what you were looking for? Which of these types of experiences do you want your site visitors to have?

Successful PPC Landing Pages

A successful PPC landing page should motivate your visitor to perform a desired action(s).

If a landing page is about selling a product/service to a visitor – it should do just that – sell. This means that the page should grab and keep the attention of the visitor, it should only contain the content (usually benefits) necessary to make a sale, and it should follow your company’s proven selling process adapted for online use.

One of the best ways of getting and keeping your PPC visitor’s attention is to prove immediately that your page is relevant to their search by having a page headline that ‘matches’ the search term used to find your site. An example for the search term ‘Belgian chocolate truffles’ would be a landing page with the page title ‘Belgian Chocolate Truffles’ as opposed to a more generic title ‘Chocolate From Around the World.’ Of course to keep their attention the page would then have to be specifically about Belgian chocolate truffles and should be written with your target audience in mind.

The quantity and style of content required will depend on a number of factors including your target customer’s needs, and the product/services you are selling. In general, the content on a selling page should be more about the benefits to the site visitor rather than just the features of a specific product. Your understanding of your target market, your products, your online competitors and your unique selling feature will allow you to make more informed content decisions.

For some industries/products the selling process will have to be done over several pages and may require several visits to the web site and/or direct contact with the web site’s Sales force. The selling process should walk your PPC visitor through the steps necessary to make a buying decision, providing reassurance and calls to action at all the appropriate spots. Your understanding of your target market and your product will assist you in making informed landing page decisions.

Identifying Existing Landing Pages for PPC Keywords

Begin by looking over your existing site pages and carefully match them up to your chosen keywords.

While it is normally preferable for specific landing pages to be created for PPC campaigns, it may not always be possible. If that is the situation you find yourself in, then you will need to go through your website to match your existing web pages with all of your chosen keywords. Take great care, and where possible avoid sending PPC ads to your home page. You may also need to make some changes to the existing landing pages to make them consistent with the successful landing page recommendations above.

Once your search engine marketing campaign is up and running, you might be able to create one or two custom PPC landing page and run simple A/B sequential tests to prove their effectiveness.

Note: Many new online marketers believe that their sponsored search campaign will do best if all of their PPC/Sponsored visitors are always sent to their home page. Your visitor’s choice of search terms has told you what they want see – respect your visitors and take them where they want to go.

Imagine going to a department store and telling the clerk at the front door that you want to buy golf clubs – but before she will take you to the sports department she insists on walking you through the whole store. Wouldn’t you have been happier/more likely to buy if the clerk had listened to you and taken you straight to the golf club section of the sports department?

Your PPC/Sponsored visitors want to be listened to.

Identifying PPC Landing Pages that Need to be Created

Once you have matched your chosen keywords to your existing web site pages, you may discover that there are a number of keywords that do not have suitable pages to land on. You may need to create (or have created) PPC Landing pages for those chosen keywords that do not have suitable landing pages on your main site.

When you are creating PPC Landing Pages that do not contain totally unique content, it is best to put them in a website folder that does not have search engine spider access and to not have any pages on your main site linking to the pages in this folder. These simple precautions will allow you to use existing content on your site (where possible) and not be penalized by search engines for having a site with duplicate or mirror content. For example, you may find that a PPC landing page for widget-123 can reasonably have much the same content as a landing page for widget-124. This will represent a substantial saving in the cost/time of a new page - however, this is only effective if the content is RELEVANT.

Once your landing pages are created and running on your campaign you will need to run ongoing tests to ensure that you are making the most out of your landing pages. We will be discussing testing in Part 9 of this series.

Summary

You have now identified/created the landing pages you need for a successful sponsored search engine marketing campaign.

In Part 8 - PPC Ad Creation – you will be learning how to create successful PPC/Sponsored ads.

**PART 1 - Campaign Goal Building, Focus and Product Identification
**PART 2 - Target Audience – Identification and Understanding
**PART 3 - Online Competition & Your Unique Selling Feature
**PART 4 - Setting Campaign Goals & Success Metrics
**PART 5 - ‘Best’ Keywords for Your Campaign
**PART 6 - Campaign Strategy
**PART 7 - Successful Landing Pages
**PART 8 - Successful Sponsored/PPC Ad Creation
**PART 9 - Campaign Management - Monitoring Your Success