How to Use Landing Pages to Increase Web Advertising ROI
There are a growing number of advertising options small businesses have to choose from today. But while we see an increase in these advertising choices it unfortunately doesn’t coincide with an increase in our budgets. That’s why it’s crucial for small business to make the most of that budget and increase ROI however possible. One of the best ways to do this is by using landing pages for each and every advertising campaign you invest in.
When discussing advertising and marketing a landing page refers to a standalone web page separate from your main website that is designed to focus on one subject with a singular objective.
This page is focused on conversion only, it removes things like site navigation and links to other information as these things dilute visitors attention and takes focus away from what you want that person to accomplish. Most businesses want to have a visitor perform a certain action, maybe you want them to fill out a quote form, call you or register for an event, whatever the action is you want, a landing pages one goal is to persuade a customer to do it.
But, in order for you to actually begin to persuade these visitors and get the conversion rate lift you desire, we’ll have to go over a few things that every quality landing page should have.
Have a Single Message
Most advertising campaigns drive traffic by targeting a set of keywords or promoting a special offer, either way, when a visitor clicks on your ad they expect your pages message to match the ads copy. Most visitors will leave your site within a few seconds if they don’t see exactly what they’re expecting, that’s why sending visitors from ads to your homepage or even a more on-topic interior page on your normal website doesn’t provide enough initial message focus to significantly reduce visitor bounce rate. Your main websites navigation and other off-topic link areas can also create wandering funnel paths that steer users away from the intended conversion area reducing your campaigns overall ROI.
When it comes to Adwords, having a landing pages content focused around each keyphrase can also significantly improve your Quality Score and Ad Rank reducing your cost per click and improving your ads position.
Have a Single Goal
Decide what you want a visitor to accomplish on your site that makes the most sense for your business. I used a couple of examples earlier (fill out a quote form, call you or register for an event), these simple calls-to-action (CTA) are going to be the focal point of your page. Always make sure that your CTA is large, stands out with a contrasting color to the rest of the page and is above the fold so that it’s very easily seen.
If you have multiple CTA’s that you would like to try, make two pages and test them versus each other rather than adding both to the same page. You can add your phone number along with the CTA but only put your designs emphasis on one of them. This makes sure the visitor can clearly determine what the page is asking them to do reducing any chance of confusion.
If your CTA requires a user to fill out a form, only add fields that are essential for them to enter. Nobody likes complicated, for every field you require someone to fill out the less likely they are to do it. If you sell a complicated product or service allow them to fill out a basic information form and let them know you’re going to follow up soon with more questions.
Add Trust Factors and Social Proof
Trust is one of the most significant factors when someone is deciding if you’re a company they want to do business with. To portray that on your landing page here are a few things to consider doing.
Use real images. Make sure to use real images, take pictures of your product, place, or your service in action and display the ones that match the topic on your page. Using stock images or no images at all is a sure way to lose potential customers. Real images allow people to connect and gain a level of comfort before contacting you.
Add trust seals and badges. If you’re a member of a business group or organization, have a special certification or anything else that helps build credibility, make sure to prominently display these. If you do B2B sales add the logos of some other notable businesses you’ve worked with in the past. By doing this you add another level of comfort and possibly differentiate yourself from competitors that don’t have them.
Add customer testimonials. If you’re not asking your customers for reviews yet, here is a gentle nudge to incorporate that into your plans. If you do, make sure to display a couple of the most authentic sounding ones. If you have a bunch of reviews on popular review sites, show off the sites logo with your star rating and review totals. Having high-quality authentic reviews is a powerful persuasion tool on today’s internet, but beware, if you don’t have reviews make sure not to write some yourself, it’s amazing how easy it is for visitors to see right through an unauthentic one and begin to doubt all of your other trust signals.
Good landing page designs are different for all companies but by incorporating these basic principles you will be off to a good start. But, once you have found a landing page that works for you the job isn’t done, you should always be testing and optimizing your page to try and get better results. Having separate landing pages that you can optimization on the fly allows you to constantly be trying to improve your conversion rates and grow your ROI.