Pay-per-click and paid search advertising

Landing pages are a key element of your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Each ad group should lead to its own landing page, which should be tailored to match the ad copy and keywords. Using your home page or a busy page may lose the buyer and mean you have paid for a wasted click.

Using the keywords you have chosen for your ad group in both the ad copy and on the landing page is an effective way of making your ads relevant. Search advertising providers give ads a 'relevancy score' based on how closely related their keywords, ad copy and landing page are. Having a good relevancy score will reduce the cost of your advertising and improve how highly you rank on the search engine results page.

Conversion

Aim for a high conversion rate. A conversion rate is the percentage of users who take a desired action, such as download a brochure or make a purchase. If the quality of your page or a poorly targeted ad lets you down, the user is less likely to convert. Make sure the page has a clear call-to-action, eg 'sign up for the newsletter' or 'buy now'.

E-commerce landing pages

If you are selling online, your landing pages will often be pages for particular products or closely related groups of products. Use keywords on the landing page to explain what the product is, how it works and how to order it. You need to keep the user's attention so they don't follow any links away from the page. Your provider will give you the tools to monitor and evaluate your results. If your ads are getting good click-through-rates, but you're not converting potential customers (eg generating sales), you can quickly cancel the bid for that ad and set up a new landing page or revamp the existing one. You can then re-bid and monitor results until you reach your optimum conversion rate.