When using Google AdWords to generate leads, most people focus on website clicks. However, it’s not enough to just drive traffic; you must also convert the traffic that visits your Google AdWords landing page.
You see, the digital marketing equation for generating leads goes like this:
Traffic x Conversion = Leads
To simplify, if you’re getting $1 clicks (Traffic) to your website and converting 10% (1 out of 10 visitors), then your cost to generate a lead is ($1 / 10% = $10).
Now, in order to drop their Cost per Lead, most people will simply focus on trying to reduce their cost per clicks.
If you focus on reducing your cost per clicks from $1.00 to $.90, then your new cost per lead is $.90 / 10% = $9). However, while it’s not easy to drop your cost per click (CPC) 10%, it may be simpler to improve your Google AdWords landing page conversion by a greater percentage.
Let’s say you improve your conversion from 10% to 20% while keeping your CPCs at $1, then your new Cost per Lead would be ($1 / 20% = $5). It can be much easier to dramatically improve your conversion rates than it is to significantly reduce your cost per clicks!
By implementing some simple, basic fundamental improvements to your Google AdWords landing pages, you can quickly reduce your Cost per Lead!
Top Tips For Improving Your Google Adwords Landing Page
Maximizing the performance of your landing pages is going to come down to 2 things: speed & design. Here are some helpful tips for each of these crucial factors:
Improve your Google AdWords Landing Page Speed
Let me first ask you this question: How long does it take your landing page to load?
If you don’t know the answer (and most people don’t), you can find out by running a simple test thru a third party website speed test, such as pingdom.com. Simply visit the site (https://tools.pingdom.com), enter in your landing page url, and it will show you in the ‘Load Time’ box how fast your website loads. If you’re under 3 seconds, you’re in good shape. If you’re over, you can scroll down under ‘performance insights’ to find out why… and then contact your developer to fix!
Why is page speed load time important? Did you know that, according to Google, 53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load? Even more incredible, most mobile sites miss that mark by 19 seconds!
Simply reducing your load speed from 19 seconds to 3 seconds can dramatically impact your conversion rates (and lower your Cost per Lead)!
BONUS Tip: Create an Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) version of your landing page. Faster landing pages typically lead to more conversions, and AMP allows you to create pages that load quickly. These mobile sites are designed for speed. Browsers have an easier time interpreting AMP HTML code, therefore, they will appear to load faster to the user. You can learn more about AMP landing pages here: https://developers.google.com/adwords/amp/landing-pages
Design Your Google AdWords Landing Page To Be Mobile Friendly
Is your Google AdWords mobile landing page mobile friendly? The average person wouldn’t know. The good news is that it is quick and simple to find out!
Why is this important? Today, everyone has smartphones with them, constantly communicating and looking for information. In fact, in the U.S., Google states that 94% of people with smartphones search for local information on their phones. So if your site isn’t mobile friendly, then you’re missing out.
All you’ve got to do is run Google’s Mobile Friendly test here: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly.
Enter in your URL and it will tell you if you’re mobile friendly. If not, then it will tell you what you need to do to make it mobile friendly and you can once again forward this information to your developer.
The easier your landing page is to use, the more likely you are to maximize your conversions.
The Importance Of Testing
According to Google, optimized landing pages with targeted, relevant messaging will generally drive more conversions (and provide higher return on ad spend) than those that don’t.
Google Optimize is a great tool for testing the effectiveness of Google AdWords landing pages by making it easy for you to create A/B multivariate tests. This testing allows you to test just about anything on your site (from font to color to copy to CTA buttons) and quickly determine the impact on customer behavior.
Watch the video below to learn more from Google on how Google Optimize works and how you can set up experiments in less than 7 minutes.
Summary of How To Optimize Your Google AdWords Landing Page For More Conversions
When it comes to the lead generation equation, the casual user of Google AdWords will mostly focus on keyword optimization to minimize the cost of sending traffic to their website. However, it’s equally important to focus on the conversion aspects because it does you no good to send 100 people to your site if no one opts in, calls, or buys anything!
By focusing on improving your site speed, making your landing page mobile friendly, and constantly testing (using Google Optimize as a tool), you can dramatically increase your conversion rate and decrease your cost per acquisition.
How is your landing page performing? Sign up for a FREE Google AdWords Audit to see what improvements can be made to your site’s traffic and conversion components.