What is a best practice for optimizing a landing page for Google Ads?
Landing page experience is a tricky subject. Most experts will have varying opinions in regards to best practices.
One reason it’s so hard to nail down what’s best for landing pages is that it touches many areas of expertise including sales, psychology, Google Ads algorithms… etc.
And while it is very important in B2B lead generation to have an optimized landing page, you’ll notice in my posts, I like to keep it simple.
So for me, optimizing at the beginning (if you’re lost) means meeting a minimum standard and working from there.
Having a good product, business model and Google Ads strategy are much more important priorities.
Also, don’t listen to anyone who is 100% certain about what a good landing page is.
There is no perfect landing page. There is only optimization. In Google Ads, you have the perfect opportunity to optimize your landing pages over and over with A/B testing.
So if you don’t read the rest of this, do just that: start simple and A/B test with purpose.
First, you must understand what the user is thinking when they reach your landing page. In most SaaS B2B Google Ads cases, the user who searched your low-funnel term like “calendar software for small business” has already done their research.
That’s the point of low funnel keywords, to target users who know what they want, now you just want to stand out against your competitors.
The best Google Ads landing pages are made to target specific keyword themes. In SaaS that often means targeting the features that searchers are looking for.
Again, in terms of B2B landing page best practices, I keep it simple.
If what you have works, just tweak it. If you have to make a similar page to your competitors as a first step, do it.
Get something out there and start testing it.
Here are some guidelines on some early optimizations to help that first-draft landing page:
This one cracks me up. I prospect a lot, so I see a lot of headlines that say something abstract in an attempt to be inspiring. I get the temptation.
The headline is where the user first determines if this click met their search intent.
So instead of “Changing The Way You Manage Social Media,” say what it is that you actually offer.
“Flexible Whitelable Social Media Management” is more on the nose.
No it’s not creative, it’s not flashy, but for a user who has looked at 3 other options already and just wants to find the solution that meets their needs.
You might be able to write something better in the long run but start with this.
Then elaborate in the sub head. Don’t over-clutter that first glance, the user knows to scroll if the are intrigued.
Keep the user who clicked your low funnel term focused!
The first glance should have everything they need to know they’re in the right place.
The first scroll should quickly give them social proof and valuable benefits.
Don’t have multiple calls to action, focus your buttons and content on one call to action. You can test others later.
Is it better to keep the user focused or to give them the tools to research your company by clicking the about page?
Honestly, you should be able to fit everything valuable about your B2B SaaS on the first or second scroll of your landing page.
That being said, I’m not sure that I buy into the fact that having the navigation at the top hurts.
A happy medium that I see is linking your logo to your home page .
Most startup SaaS companies only really have one page, it’s their home page.
And it’s normally a beautiful page, with important information and a call to action (either a form, meeting schedule embed or pricing/purchase action).
So start with that. Let your successful keywords guide you for your next moves, but for now, structure your keywords around your main offerings and bring Google Ads traffic to your home page.
B2B lead generation landing page optimization is executed rather easily. You can test different landing pages with ‘ad variations’ on Google. Just make sure you have tracking set up on both.
When you see data flow in, whether it’s keywords that are doing well or a search term that you noticed is getting tons of volume or a general theme that’s working, tailor your landing page to that.
It really is that easy…
A key part of my iterative process is keeping an eye on my competitors.
The first thing I do when figuring out where my client’s landing pages might be lacking is comparing to competitors.
Just search one of your main low-funnel terms and click the first relevant B2B SaaS ad you see.
What do you notice first, is it easy to understand? What’s their call to action? How much information do they pack on the first look.
What’s the first info when you scroll?
It’s important to have respectful skepticism for your competitors. They might have more historic data than you and can help guide your decisions.
Of course, sometimes your competitor is using bad landing page strategies!
Whether you are trying to analyze a competitor or figure out what to put on your landing page, here are some key components of good landing pages.
Perfect might be an overstatement, but these are common modules used all over in the B2B SaaS world.
What’s valuable to your business, pick one. Varying CTAs will confuse your messaging and confuse the user. Keep it simple.
Are you currently getting unqualified form fills? Ramp up what you’re asking for. You might be asking for too little information.
Not getting enough leads? Look at what keywords are bringing the most traffic. Are those the searches of someone ready to give you their information? Are you asking too much?
Does your CTA make it apparent what value is being offered in exchange for the user’s information?
Above is a great example of a CTA I DON’T really like. “Let’s Talk About Your Project” and “Send” as the CTA are not very inspiring words. And they are pretty focused on the end goal rather than the user.
I’d prefer to see “get a free project quote” paired with “Get Quote” as the CTA.
This goes hand in hand with CTAs. If you’re asking for a user to book a demo, give them a field to tell you what they are interested in. Or you can tell them how long it’ll be until you reach out and what will be covered in that email/meeting or whatever it is.
Tell them what your newsletter covers. Explain what a free trial entails. Lay out what they’ll get from you if they fill out that “contact us” form.
Social proof is an easy way to gain trust. Reviews, testimonials, quotes from articles are all good things to put up high on your landing page.
Landing pages with testimonials can have an image of the client, a review and a case study all in one and can be a very compelling and concise way to sell.
Another form of social proof can be showing a list of reputable companies you work with. This works well normally but will work better if you have a regionalized clientele (or high profile companies).
Creating little case studies cards that highlight important achievements with clients can be very influential.
I’m not here to argue between features and benefits and what works better.
But I do know that the features/benefits can sell your product over the competition. Especially in B2B SaaS where there is heavy competition, high value of sale and/or high search volume.
Stay away from overwritten content if possible. Lists work really well and are easily digestible, especially when mixed with product imagery.
Having badges and awards on your landing page is becoming standard practice. In most cases, people won’t really notice if you don’t have badges and whatnot but it can be impressive if you do.
Speaking of product imagery on landing pages. Your user needs to see your B2B SaaS product. Usability is important and it helps them digest your content with context.
Use product images with each of the previously discussed modules.
At the end of the day, your campaign and landing page should be relevant to each other.
For the most part, a mediocre landing page won’t be the reason your campaign isn’t successful.
But if it’s below that minimum threshold, it can start to hurt you.
Landing page optimization in B2B SaaS is just that, an optimization. Think of it as a way to take your account to the next level once you’ve reached initial success.
One technical aspect that your landing page can help with is with Google Ads quality score.
If Google Sees that your Keywords, Ads and Landing Pages are similar, it will give you a higher quality score.
The algorithm is arbitrary and wishy washy so you may think you have a consistent message and Google could just not recognize it. It’s not worth worrying over.
However, better quality scores let you show further up in the search results with a lower bid, so if you can improve them, it can pay dividends in your account.
Thanks for reading!
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