Google Adwords Campaign Troubles? It's the Landing Page, Stupid

By George Curtis

It wasn't a well-performing Google Adwords campaign that got a president elected in the 1990's, but it was the ability to focus in on what his competitor was not focusing on. And "It's the economy, stupid" is the mantra that swept Bill Clinton into office in 1992, while his opponent was centering on other issues.

How about a sure-fire way to absolutely dominate your competition in the Google Adwords game? Focus on your landing page. It IS the landing page, stupid...and many companies have stupidly taken the advice of so-called Google Adword experts and played the game all wrong.

While your competitors are focusing on things like keyword research, writing good ad copy, attractive headlines, and worrying about what to bid on keywords, YOU should be focusing on your landing page. Oh, yes, focus on the other aspects of running a successful Google Adword campaign, but never lose focus of the most important piece of the whole puzzle...your landing page.

So what is a landing page? Let's start by defining what a landing page is not. A landing page is not the home page. It COULD be, but in most cases we have found that the best page in a website for the customer to "land" when they click on your ad is the page that has the information that the searcher was looking for.

For example, if you are a legal firm that offers a wide variety of services, and a prospect types in "accident attorney" doesn't it make sense to send that prospect to the page in your website that talks about your services for accident victims? What if you sell all different types and colors of widgets and your prospect types in "green widgets", would you send him to your home page or to the page that has pictures and pricing of the green widgets that you sell? Duh.

In fact, having the wrong landing page is perhaps one of the most common mistakes that newbies and (unfortunately) the "pros" make. I challenge you to do a search in Google and click on some of the ads that display for that keyword and notice how many times you end up on a page that has absolutely nothing to do with what you searched for. Chances are that you will have to do some clicking around to find out exactly what you want. Not good.

There are also ways to take advantage of captivating the searchers attention by using a little "keyword magic" on your site, where the keyword that the prospect searches for is automatically inserted into the headline. For example, let's say that someone types "defense attorney" into Google and you had bid on that keyword. Your ad appears, the prospect clicks on your ad, and they land on your website. Now imagine a huge headline that says, "Looking for a defense attorney?" The prospect is now overjoyed because they easily found exactly what they were looking for.

But in the next moment another prospect types in "malpractice attorney" and your ad appears because you offer those service as well. When the prospect clicks through to your site they see a headline that says "Looking for a malpractice attorney?" Same site; same landing page, but different headlines. Wow! With the proper tools and the right expertise, this "magic" can easily be accomplished.

There are other things that must be done to a landing page in order to help you get more conversions. A few of them are as follows:

1. Keep it simple. Remove anything that would distract your prospect, such as excess navigation links.

2. Have a clear call to action. If I had to guess how many websites using Google Adwords have clear calls to action, my guess would be about 2-3% of them. Trust me. LOTS of money being wasted here.

3. Judicious use of audio or video on the landing page. Using audio or video you can easily satisfy requirement #2. Not only can you give your visitors a sense of warmth, but you can tell them exactly what to do in order to contact you so that you can help them.

Of course, there are MANY more things a proper landing page should include, but you are starting to get the picture. Proper Google Adword campaign management may begin with good research and a good ad, but that's not where it ends. "It's the landing page, stupid," and if you are having trouble, then get professional Google campaign management.

Adwords Management can be very tricky to master, but did you know you can actually spend far less in Google Adwords and get even more clicks! George Curtis, a respected expert in google adwords management is giving away a free video on "The Secrets of Adwords Management" where you'll discover how to make your adwords campaigns be Super-Profitable. Claim Your Free video now!

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