Category: Google Ads
Picture someone in Wilton whose boiler has just packed up. They pick up their phone, search for “boiler repair Wilton”, and click the first advert they see. It’s yours.
They land on your homepage. There’s a large photo of a bathroom, a welcome message about your family business, a menu with eight options and a slider showing a kitchen, a heat pump and a shower. Somewhere further down, if they scroll, there’s a mention of boiler repairs.
Some people will find what they need. Plenty won’t. They’ll tap the back button, click the next advert, and call someone else. You’ve paid for the click either way.
Why the homepage is usually the wrong place
Your homepage has a hard job. It has to introduce your whole business to everyone, whatever they came for. That makes it a good starting point for someone who already knows you and wants to look around. It makes it a poor destination for someone who has just searched for one specific thing and wants an answer quickly.
When you pay for a click, you know exactly what that person searched for. Sending them to a general page throws that information away.
It also affects what you pay. Google looks at how relevant and useful your landing page is when it decides where your advert appears and how much each click costs. A page that clearly matches the search usually does better than a general one.
What a good landing page does
A good landing page picks up exactly where the advert left off. Someone who searched for boiler repairs in Wilton and clicked an advert promising fast, local boiler repairs should land on a page that says, straight away, that you repair boilers in Wilton and the surrounding area.
It should make the next step obvious. For most local businesses that means a phone number that’s easy to tap on a mobile, near the top of the page, and a simple way to ask for a quote or book a visit. If you answer the phone at certain times, say so.
It should give people a reason to choose you. Reviews from real customers, photos of real work, how long you’ve been in business, any accreditations that matter in your trade, and anything that sets you apart, such as fixed prices or same day appointments.
And it should load quickly and work properly on a phone. Most people clicking local service adverts are on their phones, often in a hurry. A page that takes several seconds to appear, or that’s fiddly to use with a thumb, will lose people before they’ve read a word.
Does every advert need its own page?
Not necessarily. You don’t need a separate page for every keyword. But you should have a page for each main service you advertise, so the people searching for each one land somewhere relevant.
For many small businesses, the pages already exist. You probably have a page for each service on your website. The problem is simply that the adverts point to the homepage instead. Changing the link in each advert to the right service page can be one of the quickest improvements you’ll make.
If you advertise in several towns, you might also consider pages that mention the areas you cover. They need to be genuinely useful rather than the same page with a different town name, but done properly they help people in Amesbury or Downton feel you’re the right choice for them.
Forms and phone calls
If your page has a contact form, keep it short. Every extra box you ask someone to fill in is another reason for them to give up, especially on a phone. Name, phone number or email and a short message is usually enough to start a conversation. You can ask for the rest when you speak to them.
For many local services, a phone call is what you really want. If that’s the case for you, make sure your number appears near the top of the page and can be tapped to call. You can also add your phone number to your adverts as a call asset, so people on a phone can ring you straight from the search results without visiting your website at all. For an urgent job, such as a burst pipe or a locked-out customer, that can be exactly what someone wants.
Keep the promise
Whatever your advert says, your landing page should back it up. If the advert says “free quotes”, the page should explain how to get one. If it says “same day call-outs”, the page should say so too, and ideally explain how that works. People notice when an advert promises one thing and the page says another, and they don’t trust it.
Measure it
Once your adverts are pointing to better pages, keep an eye on the results. Google Ads will show you how many people who clicked went on to call or get in touch, as long as conversion tracking is set up. Compare the figures before and after the change.
If a page still isn’t converting well, look at it with fresh eyes, or ask someone who doesn’t know your business to try it on their phone and tell you honestly what they think. It’s often the small things that make the difference: a phone number that’s hard to find, a form with too many questions, or a page that doesn’t mention the exact service in its first few lines.
As we said in our post on getting the most out of your PPC, being seen on Google isn’t enough on its own. What happens after the click matters just as much as the click itself.
If you’d like someone to look at where your adverts are sending people, the friendly, experienced team at Spire Digital manage pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns for businesses in Salisbury and the surrounding area. Give us a call on 01722 320 500. If your website needs new pages building, we work with our partner blue bee on design and development.