Optimising landing pages for social media and Google Ads: best practices for conversions

Why do ad landing pages matter for Google and social media ads?

Picture this: you’ve been looking for a new outfit for a wedding you’re going to soon. You’re scrolling through social media, the perfect outfit pops up on your timeline as a social media ad, and you’re ready to purchase.

You click the link, which takes you to the website’s home page. This means you need to browse their catalogue with hundreds of other clothing items to find the outfit you saw advertised and thought you were clicking on.

The moment of inspiration passes, and you decide not to buy the outfit as you can’t be bothered trying to find it on the company’s website.

Suppose you had instead landed on the product page with engaging content that aligned with the social media ad and a well-placed “Buy Now” button. In that case, it’s far more likely your click-through to that page would have resulted in a purchase.

The landing page matters because no one wants to spend money on social media or Google Ads only to have their bounce rates go up, their website authority go down, and also receive poor ROAS (return on ad spend).

How to optimise an ad landing page for conversions

Key content points for a high-converting landing page:

• Align content between ads and the landing page
• Use prominent CTA’s on the landing page
• Carefully consider hero headlines for the landing page
• Reviews build trust – add these on the landing page
• Use video on landing pages if you can
• Keep website pages simple

Align your social media and Google ads with your landing page content

Inconsistency in the user experience will create a lack of trust in your business or product and ultimately will stop your ads from converting.

Inconsistency between your ads and your website landing page can look like different imagery, logos, colours, and tone of voice.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re reading an article online about going on holiday to the East Coast.

You see a Google Display Ad promoting luxury accommodation with professional pictures of this accommodation.

You click on the ad and land on a website that uses none of the imagery you saw in their display ad.

Instead, it’s got lots of low-quality imagery.

Because their ad and website didn’t align well, you don’t trust the website and leave without booking their accommodation.

Landing page and ad content alignment checklist:

• Logo
• Colour
• Photography/imagery
• Tone of voice
• Headline
• Video content
• Product match

Align your content by ensuring content elements like headlines on your ads are on your landing page, or keep the tone of voice consistent. If your ads are conversational, your landing page shouldn’t read like a legal textbook.

Or look at the imagery used on your ad and replicate those images on your dedicated landing page.

Creating consistency is about aligning the content between ads and the landing page. It might feel repetitive; however, that’s precisely how your brand becomes trusted and memorable.

It should look like a highly relevant landing page compared to your Google Ads, social media ads and all other advertising directing people to that page.

Use a CTA to help optimise webpages for conversion

A landing page optimised for Google and social media ad conversions will always include a well-placed CTA (call to action). A CTA is the action you want the person landing on your page to take to be considered a conversion. Sometimes this is an email sign-up, other times it’s a phone call, or a product purchase.

A CTA looks different depending on your business type and what part of the marketing funnel the Google or social media ad was set to optimise for. The most common being for users to make an enquiry for service-based businesses or a purchase for e-commerce businesses.

Without a CTA on your landing page, there’s much less chance of converting a customer.

People’s attention spans are short; the more steps you add to the user journey, the more drop-off you’ll inevitably have. CTA’s work best when they stand out from the rest of the web page’s content and when the user doesn’t have to scroll down the landing page to access it.

Create a powerful headline for the landing page

When copywriting to optimise a landing page, if there’s one piece of copy to spend time on to convert more customers, it’s the headline. It should be one of the most prominent attention-grabbing elements on the page and will make or break the conversion in seconds.

It’s also important to consider the Google or social media ad headline and how it matches or connects to the landing page headline. If they feel disconnected or the tone of voice doesn’t match, consider how it can be revised to ensure a seamless transition from the social media or Google Ad to the website landing page.

Reviews help convert on ad landing pages

Another critical area of content on a landing page that can help optimise Google Ads and social media ads is a customer reviews section.

Rooted in the psychology of humans, social proof helps convince people to trust your product or service.

Google reviews is a great place to start collecting reviews to repurpose on your website as social proof. Do keep in mind it’s always good to reference the source of the review to enhance the credibility of the review on the landing page.

Add video to Google display or social media ad landing pages

The marketing world is becoming more competitive. One of the reasons for this is that video technologies are more readily available to content creators of all skill levels.

Video marketing is now one of the key ways to enhance Google Display Ads and social media ads.

Video can also be used on your landing page to make your paid ads click through boost conversions.

Again, keeping consistency between the social media or display ad video and the landing page video/content will help enhance potential customers’ clicking your call to action button.

Simple landing page designs work to convert

Keep your landing page simple. Cluttered content will confuse people, and you’ll lose those landing page conversions, resulting in worse ROAS. Working with an experienced website designer can make a massive difference in landing page conversions.

While web page design deserves its own article, the key is ensuring the end result is a simple, user-friendly page layout that doesn’t overwhelm customers.

Landing page user experience

Key landing page user experience points:

• Ensure your landing pages load fast
• Secure your website with HTTPS
• Optimise for mobile users!
• A/B testing for continual improvements

Page load time

Page speed is where technical SEO makes a real difference to your business’s bottom line. According to Fast Company, “Amazon’s calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year.”

That’s 1.6 billion from every second over ten years ago, so that number is likely to be much higher in 2024.
The takeaway is that the slower a website page speed is, the more likely a potential purchaser is to walk away.

Here’s another example:

Imagine going to the mall and waiting 10 seconds before you can pick up an item to inspect it.

Any store making you wait 10 seconds for an item will have customers walking out left, right, and centre.
It’s the same for a website landing page.

There’s an expectation that clicking a link should load a website page almost instantly.

Maximise the return on your investment in Google Ads, social media ads, and other online marketing by ensuring that your website page loading speeds are as fast as possible.

Secure HTTPS to enhance the landing page experience

While it’ll also boost your SEO, a secure HTTPS website has quickly become an industry standard for all websites. Without a secure website, users are less likely to trust your website.

Customers will be much more cautious of entering their personal details into an unsecured website as they won’t feel their information is private.

This will result in fewer conversions from Google and social media ads.

Secure your website to ensure it is optimised to convert customers landing there via your digital ads.

Mobile responsiveness is non-negotiable

A mobile responsive website is crucial when using Google and social media ads to drive traffic to a website page.

In our experience, there are very few industries left that have more computer-based users than mobile users on their websites. Even businesses with slightly more computer users still see high volumes of mobile-based traffic through their websites.

Mobile-optimise your website to ensure your mobile-based click-through from Google Ads and social media ads are well-spent.

A/B testing for continuous improvement

Ultimately, sometimes it’s best to let your customer decide. It’s not always clear what’s working best on a landing page to convert sales or other conversions.

A/B tests are one of the best ways to hand the keys over to your target audience and let them decide what features, headlines, CTA’s, and other web page improvements are converting Google and social media ads into more business.

Use A/B testing to let your customers tell you how to optimise your site for conversions.

Tailor landing pages for different ad platforms

When you launch a campaign, your digital advertising will likely include Google Ads, Google Display ads, Facebook/Instagram ads, and other social media ads.

Including a landing page update aligned to your campaign can be an easy way to optimise the landing page for your advertising campaign push.

How to check the landing page update:

1. Place your website alongside your digital ads in a campaign mock-up document.
2. Check links on your ads to see how well the landing page aligns with your campaign.

Google Ads

Because Google Ads are search-based and only include text, check that the page text, title, headline copy and other text-based information on the website landing page align well with the Google Adwords text.

Google Display ads

Imagery/video and headline cohesion will be essential for Google Display ads connecting to the landing page.

Facebook and Instagram

Aligning headline, body copy, and imagery/video to the landing page will all be important factors for Facebook and Instagram ads to ensure an optimised landing page.

Social media ads

Whether it’s LinkedIn, TikTok, or another relevant social media platform, the key is to look at the content used and ask how that content can be aligned with the landing page on your website to maximise the likelihood of conversion.

We’re here to help

If you still have questions about landing page optimisation or any of the above-mentioned techniques to make the most of your ROAS, contact our team at White Chalk Road.

We’re passionate about all things SEO and digital. We’d love to advise you on how to make the most out of your ad spend and ensure your business meets its conversion goals.