It’s a question every PPC-er faces…
When should you send users to a page on the primary website you’re promoting, and when to use a separate – unconnected – landing page, without links to your main navigation and content….
Watch the video for a full run through the all the major pros and cons of each.
Or read on for the quick version….
Why would you send users to your own site?
- Trust
The user can see that you are established enough to have a full website (hopefully a professional-looking one) and has the chance to find out more about your business and services before committing to an action.
This is particularly important when promoting a ‘bigger-ticket’ item, where more buyer deliberation is expected.
- Secondary Promotion
Once users have been exposed to your site – and know your URL – they are more likely to talk about it / link to it / bookmark it / return to it. In practice this is a minor factor… but it’s still a real one.
- It’s Quicker and Simpler
If a usable page already exists, it is far quicker and simpler to link to it than to create a new one on a new platform.… (and if you don’t have a page on your site that’s specific to your product or service, and allows user’s to go ahead and convert – then you should probably create one… regardless of PPC.)
So, using your own site is quicker and easier to set up, generally looks more trustworthy and gives you the knock-on benefits of promoting your actual site and business, rather than standing out of the way as you try to sell your wares.
What are the advantages of using a standalone landing page?
- Focus
With no distractions (navigation and other content…) from the desired action you’re promoting, you can increase the chances of users taking that action.
- Relevance
You can design multiple landing pages to be ultra relevant to ads and keywords and can expect a Landing Page Experience boost for that.
But be aware that you will need to include enough content and detail to satisfy Google’s Landing Page Experience requirements – especially for contact information and a privacy policy.
- Flexibility
The freedom both to design a landing page exactly as you want it – without the restrictions of the website style or CMS – and to tweak and test changes more easily.
This flexibility is a particularly useful when advertising for a client, where having changes made (or even tracking tags inserted) can sometimes be a long process….
To sum up…
Standalone pages are a good idea if
- Your site is an eyesore
- You don’t have and can’t easily create appropriate specific pages on your site
- You’re running a straightforward lead-gen campaign for a service that doesn’t need much commitment or deliberation from the user
But if you have – or can create – decent landing pages on site, within your nav – then using your main site is the better approach, because of the integrated benefits you get from feeding the central hub of your business,.
It also simplifies your marketing operation…. and it doesn’t hurt to keep things simple when you can.
