Landing Page Mistakes That Kill Your Google Ads Conversions

Let’s talk about your ads! Some companies can afford to spend the equivalent of a small country’s GDP on Adwords campaigns and other such marketing efforts, while others have to be a little more careful with how much they invest in marketing.

But no matter where on the spectrum you are right now, it’s not the money that will dictate your ads’ success. It’s your conversion rate.

The term refers to essentially the number of people who acted the way you wanted them to after they’ve clicked on the ad, whether it’s buying your product, reading your article, or signing up for a newsletter. However, while a lot of people spend a lot of time structuring their ads and concerning themselves about targeting, there is one essential element they can overlook: the landing page.

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What Is a Landing Page?

A landing page is just the page a user ends up on after seeing your ad. It can be any sort of page you want to put out there, such as the page for a product you’re pushing to sell, or a new article people could be interested.

No matter how appealing your ad is and how quickly it gets a user to click on it, it’s the landing page that makes them decide if they will covert from a user to a buyer. As a result, you’d think a lot of people will strive to make sure they only use high-quality landing pages, right?

Well, it’s estimated that only around 2.3% of landing pages across all industries end up converting. Just imagine in practice what this means.

You spend money on Adwords campaigns, and your ads are shown in the search results. A user clicks on the ad, which means you have to pay Google for that click, but the user ends up leaving. Never mind conversion rates – you are literally not getting anything back from your ad campaigns. The same goes for social media ads. You may be running them to get more social proof, but the quality of that landing page will ultimately let them decide if your worth a follow.

Check your ad quality score right now. Is your landing page doing its job?

But you can fix that. Here are the most common landing page mistakes you need to avoid:

1. Misleading Copy

Your ad copy must be 100% in sync with your landing page copy. No matter how compelling your ad copy is, if the user ends up on your dedicated landing page and sees a different story, then they will not buy anything.

Sometimes it’s a simple mistake that needs to be corrected, like choosing the wrong link for a particular ad. Other times, the copy on your landing page may be too vague, or even misleading, which can leave users confused. Remember, in the ad you are basically telling them exactly what they can expect if they click the link. If the landing page falls short, they won’t convert.

2. You’re Using Your Home Page

A home page and a landing page are two different things entirely. Home pages are more generic and are meant to serve as an invitation to users to discover more and more pages. Moreover, it’s also the base of the entire website users can return to if they get lost.

Landing pages aren’t that at all. They need to serve a specific purpose or to cater to a specific need: to buy, to get informed, to see, etc. As a result, if your Google ads or Facebook ads tell them they may find what they’re looking for, but the link only gets them as far as the home page, it’s unlikely they’ll look through your pages themselves.

This is one of those rather common mistakes people make that ends up costing a lot. The home page is often the best page of a website, so it’s easy to understand why a lot of people would want that to be the first thing a new visitor sees. But in practice, it just doesn’t work.

3. You’re Not Preparing Your Page

Creating a landing page specifically for an ad or ad group is really the ideal solution because it allows you to structure the entire page based on the ad and what you want people to do after they click the link.

However, not everyone can do that, so most will simply choose a page they need to promote. Still, even if you’re not creating a landing page from scratch, you should still consider tidying it up a bit for the sake of your ads campaigns.

Just think of what you want users to do on your page, and make sure they can easily achieve that. You can:

● Modify your copy to reflect the idea from the ad;

● Create more enticing headlines;

● Accentuate certain elements that can help users convert easily.

4. You Have a Confusing Call to Action

A call to action is essential to help you increase conversion rates, so it pays to give it some thought. The problem with calls to action is that a lot of people tend to overuse them or rely solely on them to make a conversion.

Less is more here. Too many calls to action can distract the user. Instead, you should only have one, strong call to action, and remember to be specific about what that call will offer them.

For instance, if you are offering users a free trial for a service, make sure your call to action includes the “start, ” “sign-up, ” “try it” or other active verbs so that users know what they have to do in order to benefit from that free trial.

You explain the situation through your ad copy and landing page copy. The call to action is only meant to be the final step before the users convert, so don’t overcomplicate it.

Signing off

These are the most common mistakes when it comes to ads and landing pages, and if you avoid them, you can start seeing some positive changes in your ads conversion rates.

At Australian Internet Advertising, we can help you create some of the most effective Google Ads or social media ads that will let your business bloom. Get in touch with us today and let’s see how to make this happen!