Google Ads can bring a steady flow of potential customers to your website within days, as long as your landing pages are ready for them. But every click costs money, and what happens after the click decides whether that money is well spent. One of the most common mistakes we see is ads that send every visitor to the homepage, leaving them to hunt for the information they searched for.
A dedicated landing page, built for a specific ad campaign, almost always does a better job. Here is how to create one.
Why the homepage is usually the wrong destination
Your homepage has to speak to everyone: every service, every type of customer, your story and your news. Someone who searched for “emergency boiler repair Hull” wants to know one thing: can you fix my boiler today? If they have to scroll past your company history and five other services to find out, many will press the back button and click the next ad.
Match the page to the search
The most important principle is message match. The headline of your landing page should echo the words in the ad, which in turn should reflect what the person searched for. If your ad says “Same-Day Boiler Repairs in Hull”, the page should say the same thing at the top, so the visitor knows instantly they are in the right place.
This also helps your ads perform. Google assesses landing page experience as part of its Quality Score, alongside expected click-through rate and ad relevance, and a better Quality Score can mean paying less for the same position.
What a good landing page includes
- A clear headline that matches the ad and states the benefit.
- A short explanation of what you offer and who it is for.
- Proof: reviews, ratings, recognisable clients, accreditations or before-and-after photos.
- Answers to the obvious questions: price guidance, areas covered, response times and what happens next.
- One main call to action, such as a call button or a short form, repeated down the page.
- Fast loading on mobile, because paid visitors are often searching on their phones.
Photo by Kate Trysh on Unsplash
Remove distractions
A landing page has one job. Many businesses simplify the navigation or remove it entirely on campaign pages, so visitors are not tempted away to unrelated parts of the site. Every link that is not the call to action is a potential exit.
One page per theme
If you advertise several services, create a landing page for each, rather than sending all of them to one general page. A plumbing business might have separate pages for boiler repairs, bathroom installations and leak detection. The more closely the page matches the search, the more likely the visitor is to get in touch.
Because landing pages are often similar to each other and to your normal service pages, many businesses set them to “noindex” so they do not compete with the main pages in organic search. Your service pages remain the version Google indexes, and the landing pages are used purely for advertising.
Track what matters
Set up conversion tracking so Google Ads knows when a click turns into an enquiry, a call or a booking. Without it, you can only judge campaigns by clicks, which says little about results. With it, you can see which keywords and ads bring in real leads and move budget towards them.
Test and improve
Once a landing page is getting steady traffic, try changing one element at a time, such as the headline, the form length or the main image, and see whether enquiries improve. Small changes on a page that receives paid traffic can make a noticeable difference to your cost per lead.
We design fast, focused landing pages that work hand in hand with your ad campaigns. If you are spending on Google Ads and want more from every click, talk to us.
