A Few Good Reasons Why Your Paid Search Campaign Needs a Landing Page Now (Think ROI)

You spent a good deal of time and attention to build an amazing website. You followed all the best practices out there. You’ve tested the contact forms, content subject, keyword selection, page titles, color combinations, and navigation usability to come up with the best customer experience.

So why is your search marketing team telling you that you need a “landing page” to send your paid search prospects to? Can’t you just send these clicks to that perfect website that you put so much time and sweat into?

First of all, it helps to understand what a landing page is. We define a landing page as a single web page that a user “lands on” after clicking a link or an advertisement. The landing page is intended to maximize user conversion, however that conversion is defined: sale, lead or branding. The most common conversion goal is data capture, getting the page visitor to complete an online form to generate a marketing lead.

So you know what a landing page is, but the question still exists - why do you need to create a separate landing page, or pages, for your search engine marketing?

Well the quick answer is, you don’t. But to maximize your return on investment (ROI), it is an issue you should take into important consideration.

When you dump your paid search visitors onto your website (especially the home page), they are in control of how they navigate your site, what information they consume, and how they leave. It is in the hands of the visitor as to whether they click on that link, or read that paragraph, or discover that phone number. Even worse: they could get lost. They could have trouble finding the offer or idea that brought them to you, and might give up. You’ve paid for this visitor to be on your site. You don’t want them randomly browsing anywhere the whim might lead them. You want them to respond to your specific offer! Enter the Landing Page.

The landing page lets YOU control the outcome of a visitor’s click as much as possible. It lets you create specific content that encourages the visitor to do exactly what you want them to do: fill out this form, purchase this product, call this phone number to learn more, etc. You can custom-design the landing page to fit the exact goals of whatever advertising or marketing effort got the visitor to land there in the first place.

Custom landing pages for different promotions or communications can make an astonishing difference to results. Choosing and designing a suitable landing page simply gets more people to take the desired action.

P.S. Visit our blog again soon to learn how to build and design the most effective landing page for your campaign…

Tags: landing pages, paid search