Landing Page Experience

6 replies
  • PPC/SEM
  • |
I subdivided some keywords into more detailed longer tail keywords and created some landing pages to go with them, in order to hopefully improve QS and all that.

All I did with the landing page was:

1. make minor changes to some text
2. changed the metatag stuff (not even sure that's important for adwords landing pages but did it anyway)
3. saved as new url with the keyword in url

Google is hitting all my new landing pages with "landing page experience = below average". I NEVER have had this issue before.

Is this something that will work its way out and go back to average or above average over time?

Should I make no changes but rename and resave and see if adwords likes the next version?

Really confused on this one.
#experience #landing #page
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi paultaylor,

    Are you selecting the most appropriate landing page for each ad group? If you are pointing all of your ads to the website homepage, that might be a negative on your QS.

    Have you checked the page load speed for your landing pages? Slow loading pages can cause below average landing page experience.

    There are 3 things that AdWords is looking for on your landing pages:
    1. Relevant, useful and original content
      • Make sure your landing page is directly relevant to your ad text and keyword.
      • Provide useful information on your landing page about whatever you're advertising.
      • Try to offer useful features or content that are unique to your site.
    2. Transparency and trustworthiness
      • Make it easy for visitors to find your contact information.
      • If you request personal information from customers, make it clear why you're asking for it and what you'll do with it.
      • Distinguish sponsored links, like ads, from the rest of your site content.
      • Openly share information about your business and clearly state what your business does.
    3. Ease of navigation
      • Don't make people hunt around for the information they might need.
      • Make it quick and easy for people to order the product mentioned in your ad.
      • Don't annoy customers with pop-ups or other features that interfere with their navigation on your site.
      • Make sure people can easily find information to learn more about the advertised product

    Source: Understanding landing page experience
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    • Profile picture of the author solarwarrior
      Originally Posted by dburk View Post

      Hi paultaylor,

      Are you selecting the most appropriate landing page for each ad group? If you are pointing all of your ads to the website homepage, that might be a negative on your QS.
      How to Choose the Right AdWords Landing Page - YouTube

      Have you checked the page load speed for your landing pages? Slow loading pages can cause below average landing page experience.

      There are 3 things that AdWords is looking for on your landing pages:
      1. Relevant, useful and original content
        • Make sure your landing page is directly relevant to your ad text and keyword.
        • Provide useful information on your landing page about whatever you're advertising.
        • Try to offer useful features or content that are unique to your site.
      2. Transparency and trustworthiness
        • Make it easy for visitors to find your contact information.
        • If you request personal information from customers, make it clear why you’re asking for it and what you’ll do with it.
        • Distinguish sponsored links, like ads, from the rest of your site content.
        • Openly share information about your business and clearly state what your business does.
      3. Ease of navigation
        • Don't make people hunt around for the information they might need.
        • Make it quick and easy for people to order the product mentioned in your ad.
        • Don’t annoy customers with pop-ups or other features that interfere with their navigation on your site.
        • Make sure people can easily find information to learn more about the advertised product

      Source: Understanding landing page experience
      Hey dburk,

      I can do better.

      Understanding landing page experience


      Landing page experience refers to how good we think someone's experience will be when they get to your landing page (the web page they end up on after clicking your ad). You can improve your landing page experience by:

      -providing relevant, useful, and original content,
      -promoting transparency and fostering trustworthiness on your site (for example, by explaining your products or services before asking visitors to fill out forms sharing their own information),
      -making it easy for customers to navigate your site (including on mobile sites), and
      -encouraging customers to spend time on your site (for example, by making sure your page loads quickly so people who click your ad don’t give up and leave your site prematurely).
      -Your landing page experience affects not only your Quality Score, but also your Ad Rank and advertising costs.

      Why landing page experience matters

      Landing pages are kind of like cars – make sure they're tuned-up properly, and you'll likely get better performance and savings out of them down the road. Get more mileage out of your landing page by making it easier for visitors to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or do other things you want them to do on your website.

      Improving your landing page experience

      We use a combination of automated systems and human evaluation to determine landing page experience on your site. Your ads may show less often (or not at all) if they point to websites that offer a poor user experience. If you're trying to improve your landing page experience, it might be time to give your landing pages a tune-up. Try reviewing the general guidelines below to help you think of ways to improve your landing page experience and get better performance out of your landing pages down the road.

      Relevant, useful and original content
      -Make sure your landing page is directly relevant to your ad text and keyword.
      -Provide useful information on your landing page about whatever you're advertising.
      -Try to offer useful features or content that are unique to your site.
      Transparency and trustworthiness
      -Make it easy for visitors to find your contact information.
      -If you request personal information from customers, make it clear why you’re asking for it and what you’ll do with it.
      -Distinguish sponsored links, like ads, from the rest of your site content.
      -Openly share information about your business and clearly state what your business does.
      Ease of navigation
      -Don't make people hunt around for the information they might need.
      -Make it quick and easy for people to order the product mentioned in your ad.
      -Don’t annoy customers with pop-ups or other features that interfere with their navigation on your site.
      -Make sure people can easily find information to learn more about the advertised product.
      -The AdWords system visits and evaluates landing pages on a regular basis. If you've made significant changes to improve your landing page experience, it could lead to higher ad quality (and higher Ad Rank) over time. You might not see an immediate impact, but you may see results within days or weeks.

      How to Choose the Right AdWords Landing Page
      Learn how to go from clicks to customers by directing visitors to the right page of your website. Find out what a landing page is, how to select the right landing page for your ad, and get tips on creating landing pages that win you customers. For more on understanding landing page experience:
      http://goo.gl/AC71vb
      Subscribe to AdWords Help on Youtube: Google Ads - YouTube
      Your landing page loading time

      If it takes too long for your website to load when someone clicks on your ad, they're more likely to give up and leave your website. This unwelcome behavior can signal to Google that your landing page experience is poor, which could negatively impact your Ad Rank. That's why you want to make sure your landing page load time is up to speed.

      Here are a few tips to help improve your load time:
      -Make sure your landing page loads quickly once someone clicks on your ad, whether on a desktop or mobile device.
      -Help customers quickly find what they’re looking for by prioritizing the content that’s visible above-the-fold.
      -Learn how you or your webmaster can use PageSpeed Insights to measure the performance of your landing page.
      -Excluding your landing pages from review
      -Mobile visits to your landing page
      -Viewing your website's landing page experience

      You can view an estimate of the landing page experience for any of your destination sites by going into your Keywords tab and placing your cursor over the speech bubble next to the status of any keyword. The landing page experience could be:

      Above average or Average: If you see either of these two statuses, you're in good shape – your Quality Score won't be negatively affected by your landing page experience.
      Below average: This means that your landing page experience may be in need of improvement, and your Quality Score might be lower as a result. You might want to consider some changes to improve your website's landing page, using the factors discussed in this article as your guide.
      Landing page experience vs. Site policies

      When we review landing pages, we sometimes come across pages that don't follow our Advertising Policies. For example, if your landing page happens to contain malware (like a virus), that's a pretty bad landing page. Rather than giving you a "Below average" landing page experience status, you won't get a score at all. Instead, you'll see "Not applicable" as your landing page experience status, and any keywords or ads pointing to that website will get a "Site suspended" status. This status means that your website can't be advertised with AdWords because it doesn't follow one or more of our site policies.

      Site policies refer to the Advertising Policies that must be followed on your landing pages and website in order to advertise on AdWords. If your landing page or website contains something that we don't allow, like malware or illegal products, we might suspend your website to protect our customers. When a website is suspended, that means you won't be able to advertise that suspended website until all policy violations have been resolved.

      Everthing is from here.
      https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2404197?hl=en
      Next time please google it.
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      • Profile picture of the author paultaylor
        I respect you guys, and I wouldn't bring questions here unless it was something I've already spent hours reading everything online I possibly could and testing different solutions and not getting anywhere.

        To summarize:

        Been running ppc for a couple years. Never had issue with Landing Page experience. The landing pages I've used have been specially made for ppc keywords. Let's say for example, I had 20 landing pages I was using for all my keywords, divided up into 20 categories. All fine. All the landing page experiences were mostly average, with maybe 25% above average and 10% below average. I create 100 new landing pages, to break down my keywords into more detail, ie 100 categories instead of 20. These new landing pages are EXACTLY the same as the previous ones. Same images, same text, same loading time, same links, same everything except for a few minor variations in text, title, and metadata. Now ALL my landing pages are rated below average.
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        • Profile picture of the author emaillist
          Originally Posted by paultaylor View Post

          I respect you guys, and I wouldn't bring questions here unless it was something I've already spent hours reading everything online I possibly could and testing different solutions and not getting anywhere.

          To summarize:

          Been running ppc for a couple years. Never had issue with Landing Page experience. The landing pages I've used have been specially made for ppc keywords. Let's say for example, I had 20 landing pages I was using for all my keywords, divided up into 20 categories. All fine. All the landing page experiences were mostly average, with maybe 25% above average and 10% below average. I create 100 new landing pages, to break down my keywords into more detail, ie 100 categories instead of 20. These new landing pages are EXACTLY the same as the previous ones. Same images, same text, same loading time, same links, same everything except for a few minor variations in text, title, and metadata. Now ALL my landing pages are rated below average.
          what niche are you in landing page?
          what is the ROI with your technique?
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          • Profile picture of the author paultaylor
            Originally Posted by emaillist View Post

            what niche are you in landing page?
            what is the ROI with your technique?
            IT services. It's a good ROI, at least good enough that it's profitable for me to use. It's for my own business. I'm the business owner.
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        • Profile picture of the author dburk
          Originally Posted by paultaylor View Post

          I respect you guys, and I wouldn't bring questions here unless it was something I've already spent hours reading everything online I possibly could and testing different solutions and not getting anywhere.

          To summarize:

          Been running ppc for a couple years. Never had issue with Landing Page experience. The landing pages I've used have been specially made for ppc keywords. Let's say for example, I had 20 landing pages I was using for all my keywords, divided up into 20 categories. All fine. All the landing page experiences were mostly average, with maybe 25% above average and 10% below average. I create 100 new landing pages, to break down my keywords into more detail, ie 100 categories instead of 20. These new landing pages are EXACTLY the same as the previous ones. Same images, same text, same loading time, same links, same everything except for a few minor variations in text, title, and metadata. Now ALL my landing pages are rated below average.
          Hi paultaylor,

          PPC advertising is a competition. You will always have competing advertisers that are looking to best you. You cannot keep doing things exactly the same and not expect to get left behind at some point. It sounds as if that is what has happened in your case. It is likely that your main competitors have improved their landing page experience to the point that your techniques are now "below" the average, even though you haven't changed. You have simply been left behind by competitors that have upped their game.

          In your post you seemed to be focused on just the first of the 3 key areas I mentioned in my previous reply. If you have the relevancy aspect taken care of then look at the other 2 important aspects of landing page experience.

          Take a look at Transparency and trustworthiness issues on your main competitors' websites and look at your own in comparison. Are they more transparent than you? Do they include more forms of contact information than your your website? Do they provide details about who is behind their website, and how to contact them, than you do? Do they provide Secure SSL while you do not? Do they have transparent domain ownership details while you hide the ownership behind proxy services?

          What about terms and conditions of your offer, are you competitors terms more clear than yours? Do your competitors offer money back guarantees while you do not?

          What about trust symbols, and affiliation disclosures? Are your competitors members of BBB and industry associations while you are not? Do they disclose affiliations while you do not?

          After examining those issues and comparing your website to the main competitors in AdWords, next take a look at your navigational and general user experience issues, How do they compare to the competition?

          I have a feeling that if you take these issues serious, and make the proper adjustments, you might be able to move from below average to above average.
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