Pay-Per-Click Mistake #1 – Sending Shoppers to Your Home Page

When new local advertisers first begin using tools like AdWords or Overture, they usually grab a bunch of keywords, fill in a pay-per-click (PPC) ad, activate the account and wait for the new visitors to start showing up on their website and requesting their service. Rare is the advertiser who succeeds with such a simple, unrefined campaign.

There are several steps involved in creating a winning PPC campaign. Among them, detailed keyword research and well thought-out PPC ad design. But even if those 2 things are done exceptionally well, your chances of success still hinge entirely on your landing page. A landing page is the web page that shows up when a potential client clicks on your ppc ad. For most new advertisers that page is the home page of your website. Unfortunately, most home pages don’t make suitable landing pages.

A good landing page is one that fulfills the specific promise of the PPC ad. When a client clicks on your ad, they need to immediately find–in obvious fashion–whatever it is they wanted when they clicked on your ad. What that means is that if you create an ad for $20 off carpet cleaning, you need to send them to a page that’s all about having their carpet cleaned for $20 off. Not the home page of your site that has information about carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, pet odor removal, water extraction or anything else. The key is you want to eliminate distractions, and make it easy for your visitor to respond to the offer you made in your PPC ad.

Creating a new and improved landing page doesn’t require a major overhaul of your website, or special programming (in most cases). Usually you can just add a page or redo the one you’re already using. Don’t make the mistake of sending your visitors to your cluttered, distracting home page. Simple is good.