An Expert’s Guide to the Top 7 Google Ads Landing Page Best Practices

Last Updated on: 16th April 2024, 07:07 pm

A great PPC campaign can’t increase your profits unless your landing page does its part. I’ve seen my fair share of Google Ads directed to the homepage or a non-optimal landing page. So today, I’m sharing the 7 best practices for Google Ads landing pages that have helped my clients increase their ad revenue by over 135%!

Google Ads Landing Page Best Practice #1: Check Your Foundations

When I first started running Google Ads for my own businesses back in 2008, I looked at my competitors:

• Which services did my competitors offer?
• What did their services include? Did they offer bonuses? 
• How did they differentiate their companies from others?

Google Ads is like any other form of advertising: it’s not enough to say: “We do X, and you need to buy it because of Y.”

You need to prove why you’re the best company for the customer’s job.

Do You Have a Unique Selling Proposition?

Your USP is the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors.

Start from the pain point and then tell your visitors how you help.

Is Your Google AdWords’ Landing Page Hero Section Strong?

I’ll tell you a secret: most visitors won’t scroll past your hero section.

Your landing page hero section needs to immediately tell visitors:

• What they get
• Why they should choose you
• What they should do next

They’ll scroll down to learn more if your hero section entices them. But if you lose them in the hero section, you’ve lost them for good.

Forget Vague Scenarios: Offer Detailed Landing Page Social Proof

A vague testimonial will only make visitors click away, especially if it doesn’t speak to their specific pain points.

Your testimonials should be as detailed as possible. Include:

• Names
• Use cases
• Locations (or – in B2B – company names)
• Specific aspects reviewers liked
• Challenges you helped them resolve

In B2B, it’s also good to reference metrics. For example, if you were a sales training provider, you’d mention how much you helped the clients increase their revenue.

Google Ads Landing Page Best Practice #2: Narrow Your Focus with Dedicated Landing Pages

You can’t be specific when addressing a room full of people. 

But when you speak to an individual (or an audience segment), your ad and your landing page will be able to address their specific challenges and pain points and tap into their core converting reason. 

For example, suppose you’re addressing marketers in general. You’ll need to talk about marketing challenges (and there are quite a few). 

But if your landing page addresses performance marketers, you’ll know to speak about the challenges of running PPC campaigns.

Go granular:

• Divide keywords into separate ad groups
• Create a dedicated landing page for each ad group

As any PPC consultant worth their salt will tell you – a dedicated landing page will increase your ad’s relevance and Quality Score, which decreases your CPC (Cost per Click).

In the example above, your landing page will be hyper-relevant to people choosing between pool types instead of creating a landing page for everyone interested in getting a pool.

Making your landing pages specific is also a great way to ensure you don’t see the “Destination Mismatch” error.

Make Your Ad & Landing Page Messaging Match

Golden rule: if you promised A in the ad, you should reinforce the promise of A on the landing page. 

See how Monday.com does it?

Google Ads Landing Page Best Practice #3: Add a Conversion Fail-Safe

Most prospects need multiple touchpoints to convert, but you don’t have to lose them because they’re not ready to purchase yet.

Instead, add a conversion fail-safe:

• Alternative CTA for a low-stake offer at the bottom (e.g., mailing list signup)
• Form to request more information
• Exit intent pop-up

Google AdWords Landing Page Best Practice #4: Track Your Visits and Conversions for Remarketing

Set up your tracking framework before running Google Ads campaigns so you can use smart bidding strategies and recapture lost leads through remarketing.

Yes, setting up tracking takes time (unless you hire a professional PPC management expert). But don’t penny-pinch on conversion tracking; Google’s algorithms learn from your campaigns and send more profitable leads your way.

At the very least, you should have the Google tracking pixel, and Google Analytics installed.

Then, when the time is right, identify the highly-qualified lead segments and reach out with remarketing to remind them of your offer. 

Track Your Google AdWords Metrics to Optimise Further

Know how visitors behave on your site to optimise your landing page experience. 

Are they hesitating at a particular section or spending more time reviewing your benefits than your offer?

Capture that data for future A/B testing.

Google Ads Landing Page Best Practice #5: Adjust Your Landing Page to the Conversion Stage

Your landing page should correspond to the keyword search intent and the visitor’s conversion stage:

• Are the prospects unaware of their problems? Your landing page needs to educate. Offer a lead magnet as a conversion fail-safe to add prospects to your funnel.
• Are the prospects aware of problems? Your landing page needs to make the problems salient (use the PAS copywriting formula) and present a benefit-oriented solution.
• Are the prospects looking for solutions? Your landing page must convince them you’re the best option by differentiating your USP from competitors. 

Podia’s landing page is an excellent example of a landing page designed to convince prospects who are shopping for options.

Google AdWords Landing Page Best Practice #6: Use Visual Cues and Emphasise Key Points

Your landing page needs to motivate visitors to take action. You’ll use the landing page copy and the design to do that.

For example, use visual cues like arrows, bold colours, and black & white contrast to make the landing page more dynamic:

Want to help your visitors see you’re the best option? Don’t forget about comparison tables.

On the copy side of things:

• Emphasise the most important points by using bold letters
• Use bulleted lists
• Use short paragraphs (1-2 sentences)
• Keep the sentences to 10 words maximum

Most people skim – they won’t read your copy word-for-word.

However, they will look at the bolded points.

Google AdWords Landing Page Best Practice #7: Don’t Penny-Pinch on Speed or Design

Yes, Google Ads can make you money. 

But suppose your landing page experience is so poor that visitors immediately click the “X” button. In that case, you’ll pay more for each click, get fewer conversions, and perhaps give up on a profitable lead generation channel.

Landing pages don’t have to be expensive.

You can build beautiful landing pages with a plugin like Elementor or a tool like LeadPages. You can even use ChatGPT to help you create them!

Typically, I hire a designer to design landing pages for my Google Ads clients. However, some clients went on Fiverr, asked a designer to create a template, and then reused it for different campaigns.

Before launching your campaign, check the page speed with PageSpeed Insights. Visitors will bounce if your page takes too long to load, and your Quality Score will decrease.

Even if you want to allocate all your funds to the Google Ads campaign, remember that your success doesn’t just hinge on your CPC. 

Your landing page is the convincing factor.

Make it good!

Ready to launch a successful Google Ads campaign in 7 rapid steps? Get your copy of my best-selling Google Ads book! Or get in touch with me for personalised PPC help that has helped 1000+ business owners scale their Google Ads ROI to new heights!