When running Google Ads for clients we often times find ourselves talking about putting together a landing page specifically for the Google Adwords campaign. If you have experience with Google Ads, especially if you have worked with an agency, you have probably heard this before. This begs the question, why do you need a landing page for Google Ads?
While there is a multitude of reasons that the landing page is important, some of the most important I will list below. Bear in mind that there are some circumstances where you may not need or want a dedicated landing page, but for most cases, it can really help in a variety of different ways.
Google Quality Scores
First and foremost, having a dedicated landing page can really help your Google Quality Scores. A higher quality score can really take your ad placements to the next level, both increasing impressions and decreasing CPC (cost per click), but why is this?
Well in the most simple of terms, Google is very concerned about UX (user experience) with the ads platform. In order to be sure that the ads are effective and being served to the correct audiences, it is important that the ads and the landing page are about the same topic.
For instance, we have clients that offer many diverse products or services and have taken over Google Ads campaigns that were all identical and headed to the homepage of their website. If you have one product or service this may be an ok approach, but most businesses do not operate with one service or product. In an ideal situation, you would want a landing page and a separate ad for each individual product or service or at a minimum each category of product or service. Reason being again to create continuity between the ads and the landing page to push up quality scores on your Google Ads campaigns.
Conversion
As digital marketers, we are constantly trying to get people to take a specific action that we seek for our own business results. Whether it’s a phone call, an online purchase, or an email capture, we are hungry for conversions. With dedicated landing pages you have a bit more control over the action that the user will take. One of the concepts of a landing page is to funnel people into taking the action that you want them to take without getting distracted. When you land on the homepage of a website there is a multitude of different options to navigate to different areas of the website, whereas with a landing page there is normally a CTA that smacks you right in the face, like “call now” or “buy now”. Keeping your user in the area of the website that creates conversions for you is super important and a dedicated landing page can really help with this.
Page Load Speed
Another big advantage of dedicated landing pages is page load speed. While this can help in a few different ways, ultimately it will help with conversion. A landing page can be built in a way that it loads fast (2 seconds or less), which is crucial to maximizing your advertising efforts. Many websites are too slow and anything over 3-4 seconds fully loaded time can really hurt your advertising efforts. If you are not sure whether your website is fast enough, visit GTMetrix for a free scan and recommendations to speed up your website.
Wrapping It Up
Long story short, using a dedicated landing page for Google Ads is almost always a good idea. By doing so, you may reduce your CPC, increase your conversions, and in turn increase lead flow and sales. There are many great providers that make it simple to build a landing page these days and I assure you the extra effort will be well worth it. Hope it helps!