Where Should Your PPC Ads Take Customers?

As you plan your pay per click campaign, whether your budget ranges from fifty to several hundred dollars a month, it is important to consider the destination of potential visitors via Google AdWords, Yahoo Search, or anywhere else you set up shop. The saying holds true, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. You can bid on the most common keywords relevant to your business, wow browsers with a compelling ad, but if the resulting website is confusing or unrelated to the pitch, you risk losing the sale and repeat business.

It can be argued that from this line of thought the concept of "landing pages" became popular with site owners. Create an ad campaign around a specific product that represents one part of your overall site, then mock up a special web page relevant just to that information. Say you run an online sporting goods store and wish to promote baseball equipment because it's your biggest selling line. Rather than direct potential buyers to a general front page, you might want to construct an all baseball category showcasing the equipment and lead visitors directly there. This saves potential customers time in searching through your site, but it can also help you with your advertising budget.

As prices on keywords fluctuate, you will find you will pay one price on a keyword depending on it's popularity and the relevancy of your site content. Particularly with Google AdWords, this holds true. Optimize a landing page to match the content of your ad, and you increase the chances for a high quality score with Google. In the long run, this could make your PPC budget more manageable, and you'll get more for your advertising dollar.

How much information goes on a landing page geared for click-through visitors? Optimize it as you would any normal page on your site. Especially if you are in e-commerce, you want the point of sale positioned no more than a click away from the main content. You have captured your audience with this content, and you do not want to lose them through a endless series of unnecessary linkage.

Plan your PPC campaigns as you would plan the creation of a whole new site. Keep landing pages for your ads topical and easily navigable. Attract the customers and land the sale.