The DEATH of ppc landing pages. (r.i.p.)

[chris casab]

Hi guys. About one year and a half ago, when I started digging into I.M., I learned ,as well as many of you also did , about how a good L.P. for ppc should be:

-One Single page, not to short, not too long. Better said, according to the price of the product, right?
-A couple of seductive and catching headings, telling briefly what your product and it´s top and unique benefit.
-A hero picture on the top.
-A List spotlighting the benefits and then the features of your product.
-A few well visible "call to action" buttons all along the page sendin visitors to your aff. link.
-Some testimonials.
-A contact-us button
-A disclaimer or terms of service page.
-And a MUST: NOTHING ELSE that could distract the visitor from the main goal of the page, which is warming him up in order to send him already pre-saled and willing to read more, to the merchant´s purchase page.

Sound familiar? If so, forget it. At least if you want to do Adwords.
I´ve been recently slaped by G with a 1/10 quaility score for my L.P., also being my page a part of a larger site holding a blog which visitors can go to via a link on the bottom of my page in case they wanted content for free!
I wrote to adwords help to fin out what was Soooo wrong with my page, and read their guidelines again. And what I´ve got is that the landing page Google wants is exactly the perfect opposite to the model I described above. They really want a landing site:

-Huuuuuge site with tons of pages.
-Lots and lots of original, relevant and quality content, obviously FREE.
-No testimonials at all.
-Small attempts to sale something, (if none at all, much better!) like discreet buttons or links BELOW the main free content (if possible, out of the screen).
-Links to other sites (where potential customers are invited to leave your site)
-A full description of your "company" and it´s activity. (in my case, the corporation is just me, a desk, a chair, and a notebook)

So, my friends, I´ll put my well designed L.P. and my days and months of time developing something nice and catchy, somewhere... (some ideas on where can that be?)

Ok guys, sorry but I´m doing some catharsis and releasing a little of my anguish and frustration with you , and also telling newbies what NOT to do if they don´t want to lose time, work and monney.

Now please, may some experienced guys here help me and tell me how to go with my campaign? I´m absolutely lost like if my plane falled in the middle of the jungle, looking here and there without knowing exactly witch direction to start walking to.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who could help!!

[PhilipSEO]

I feel your pain, Google's quality scores can be intractable and unfair. However, you seem to think that the quality score is mostly determined by your landing page. I am not sure where you have got your idea of Google's criteria for the ideal landing page/site, what's the evidence? You say you wrote to AdWords help. So what exactly did they say? Can you paste their response verbatim, without paraphrasing? That would be interesting and helpful to all involved.

To improve your quality score, be aware that the quality of your landing page itself is a fairly minor factor. Most of it is CTR, the clickthrough rate. Make sure that each keyword that you are targeting appears (exactly) both in your ad and on the landing page (preferably more than once on the latter). But most especially, create an ad that has a high CTR. (This may not be optimal for your sale, because you end up paying for visits that don't necessarily result in conversions. The true art of PPC lies in balancing optimal CTR and conversion rates.)

[affiliatecoachlandon]

If you got slapped then chances are its manual review of your LP.

Some things to keep in mind. A few years ago, CTR was around 20%. Now the same keyword would yield Google only 2%. If i'm Google, I'm either scared sh*tless or i'm selling my shares

[Fenshon]

Internet marketing changes happen sooo fast that it takes doing things together, having many eyes and ears watching out for the latest changes and informing others. This is the best way to make money online nowadays.

[GuerrillaIM]

You can still make a good landing page but it must follow a format. Have your landing page with opt-in box, bullets and a paragrpah of ontopic info, but have a text link at bottom of page saying "or click here to continue onto website". Have that link pointed at your info rich website.

This will keep your quality score high and also keep conversions high.

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by chris casab

They really want a landing site:

Now please, may some experienced guys here help me and tell me how to go with my campaign? I´m absolutely lost like if my plane falled in the middle of the jungle, looking here and there without knowing exactly witch direction to start walking to.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who could help!!

Been saying that for ages and shot down by some that looked at me sideways, a free guide in my Sig that looks at setting up land sites and the pages needed. (probably only one of many ways)

it may help. Delete not pause your campaigns, re build land sites and re float.

caution, no amount of land site will fix a non preferred G site such as snake oil medicines, fix my broken heart love doctor remedies, or make a bazillion dollars in 2 nano second sites. Use alternate traffic methods for these sites.

[chris casab]

Good tip Guerrilla. Thanks!

[chris casab]

Thanks again to all u buddies. All of your replies are of great help. The only trouble for me is that all indicates i have to start from scratch all over again...

[FrankBowman]

Originally Posted by PhilipSEO

The true art of PPC lies in balancing optimal CTR and conversion rates.)

This is exactly my issue with Google. Why does Adwords have to be an "art"? Their revenue model is set up as an auction, yet they require advertisers to jump thru hoops to get a good QS. If its an auction the highest bidder should win.

It should not have to be an "art". This is business, with metrics, expenses, profits etc. I don't see why G tries to make us learn the "art of ppc" which they do.

Whatever, I dropped most of my ppc advertising long ago..........I'd rather be in the top 3 on page one and get free traffic.............its actually cheaper, sometimes, than ppc.

[steveniam]

You would not be in the top three on page one especially for competitive niche. The top three are occupied by Google Adwords and it has eaten into the traffic of the top ranking organic sites.

One of my site is in position one of organic sites but with the top three positions occupied by the Google Adwords, the traffic is lessen than it used to be.

Originally Posted by FrankBowman

Whatever, I dropped most of my ppc advertising long ago..........I'd rather be in the top 3 on page one and get free traffic.............its actually cheaper, sometimes, than ppc.

[FrankBowman]

Originally Posted by steveniam

You would not be in the top three on page one especially for competitive niche. The top three are occupied by Google Adwords and it has eaten into the traffic of the top ranking organic sites.

One of my site is in position one of organic sites but with the top three positions occupied by the Google Adwords, the traffic is lessen than it used to be.

I'd rather be in the top 3 in the organic results than pay for a top three adwords ad. I know I might get less traffic, but I'm not paying a dime for what I do get.