PPC Landing Pages, Part 1: What Are They, Why Do You Need Them?

Photo courtesy of Nyul

Law firms new to pay-per-click advertising often think an appealing ad and a link to a Web site’s homepage is all that’s necessary for a successful campaign. However, a law firm’s homepage needs to appeal to a wide range of visitors, from those looking for a specific service to those casually searching for information. A PPC ad campaign, on the other hand, targets a specific segment of your audience, and your PPC landing page should speak directly to them.

What is PPC Advertising?

PPC ads are the most popular way to advertise online today. Most PPC ads consist of two lines of text and a linked headline. Advertisers “bid” on keywords for which their ads will appear, and they pay only when someone clicks on the ad. A sample ad could be:

Chicago Truck Accident
Consult with experienced IL truck
accident lawyers with big case wins
www.prstruckinglaw.com

If the keyword phrase “Chicago truck accident lawyer” is chosen, the above ad will show at the top or along the right side of the search results page when that keyword phrase is searched on.

What is a Landing Page?

In broad terms, a landing page is the first page a visitor “lands” on when arriving at your site. A PPC landing page is the page to which you send people who click on your PPC ad. Landing pages should expand on the message in the ads, and every ad campaign should have its own landing page. If you create a group of ads for a campaign about trucking accidents, it’s ok to use the same landing page for them all, since the message will be similar for each.

Why Do You Need a Landing Page?
If you send clicks from your PPC ad to your homepage, visitors may not be sure what to do once they get there. Many firms offer legal services in more than one area of practice, so the typical law firm home page will cover more than one topic or specialty. Web surfers are impatient, and they want to find what they are looking for without extra effort. Therefore, if visitors land on a page without a clear call to action that does not mirror the words in the ad, they may get confused and leave.

A well-designed PPC landing page delivers that immediate satisfaction. Visitors to these pages are more likely to convert, because they can easily see what they came to find. Using the ad above as an example, a good landing page headline for that ad would be “Chicago Truck Accidents Lawyers.” All content on the page should be focused around truck accidents.

If you’re concerned that PPC campaigns for legal services are different from those for physical products, don’t be. PPC for lawyers is no different from PPC for the clothing boutique next door. A successful PPC advertising campaign will have an eye-catching ad and a landing page that captures visitors’ attention, guiding them to the next step.

Part 2 of PPC Landing Pages coming soon!

Related posts:

1. PPC: Landing pages, Part 2: What should they look like, what info should they contain?
2. Optimize Your PPC Landing Pages in Six Essential Steps
3. PPC Ad Management: Cost-Effective Campaign Settings, Part 2
4. PPC Ad Management: Cost-Effective Campaign Settings, Part 1
5. PPC Copywriting – Writing PPC Ads