Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Optimize Your Landing Pages

When managing a pay per click campaign, monitoring click through rates is a good way to assess the effectiveness of your ads. Another important measure is conversion rate as it can be used to assess the effectiveness of your landing pages. Optimizing your landing pages is the best way to increase your conversion rates and lower your cost per acquisition. Here are a few tips to improve landing pages:
  1. Relate the headline to your ad copy
    Something in the ad inspired the user to click on it. The landing page should convey to the user at first glance that they are in the right place.
  2. Keep it simple
    Don't try to impress anyone with fancy graphics all over the place. Keep the page as simple as possible so the user is not distracted from the call to action. Outline the value proposition in a few bullet points rather than in paragraph form.
  3. Use buttons with a strong call to action
    Don't use words like "Submit" on the action button. Instead make the button a call to action with a phrase like "Try It Now".
  4. TEST
    Don't expect to launch the perfect landing page on the first try. Layout a few different versions with slightly different layouts, headlines, or calls to action. Test these landing pages using the same keywords and ad copy to see which one converts the best.