by Claudia Bruemmer

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is an essential tactic used by many B2B marketers. A successful campaign requires skills in both ad creation and campaign management. Not only do you need to create compelling ad copy to get the click, you also need to create effective landing pages that convert. This article will discuss the elements of landing pages that translate into sales.

Your PPC landing page must be specific to your offer and dedicated to providing the information your buyers seek, making it easy for them to get what they want. A PPC landing page should be simple in design with few options and a distinct call-to-action that tells prospects how they can easily contact you, subscribe to your catalog, download information or purchase product directly from your landing page. Below are some landing page tips that can help B2B marketers generate more leads and improve the quality of those leads.

The fastest and easiest way to increase your sales without spending more to increase traffic is to optimize your landing pages. With landing page optimization, you can get four times more customers for the same advertising budget. The most successful B2B companies test the most important elements in their landing pages.

Start by reviewing your website statistics (or log files) to check your landing page performance. You’ll likely find the largest percentage of visitors leave within 0-8 seconds after briefly viewing your landing page. The next largest percentage of visitors leave when they decide your landing page is not compelling or it’s not what they are looking for. A small percentage of visitors attempt to convert and fail; some may call if you provide a phone number. A small percentage of visitors actually convert. You want to minimize the number of visitors that leave without converting by testing your landing page conversion elements.

Listed below are the top six conversion elements that can be tested, improved and re-tested to increase your conversion rate.

1. Headline: The headline is the first thing your visitors see, and it gives you the best opportunity for improving your conversion rate. Create headlines that clearly state the best benefit(s) your product/service offers. Tell them exactly what they get.
2. Offer: Your offer is the call-to-action that compels visitors to act (buy, download, opt-in, etc.). This is your second best opportunity to improve your conversion rate.
3. Lead: Your first paragraph lead is the third best opportunity to improve your conversion rate. Leads must include strong benefits that grab your visitors’ attention and makes them want to continue reading.
4. Benefits: The benefit bullet points are the fourth best opportunity to improve your conversion rate. List benefits in order of value to your target market, starting with the strongest benefit first.
5. Images: Images have a huge impact on conversion rates. Use images that clearly demonstrate the most important benefit your product/service offers. Research shows product images work best when placed to the left of your product description (lead paragraph) because people read copy from left to right. People like to read captions under images, so create powerful captions and make your images clickable to the order or sign-up page.
6. Look & Feel: Studies show 46 percent of Internet sales are lost on websites lacking elements that build value and trust. The number-one reason given for not buying from a website was that it had an unprofessional look and feel that lacked credibility and trust. Create landing pages with a professional look, and add trust-building logos like VeriSign to help convert more qualified visitors.

Additional conversion elements you can test include:

• Buttons: Button text, color, look, etc.
• Pricing
• Page Elements formatting and placement: images and copy
• Navigation links vs. no navigation links
• Press Quotes
• Testimonials

In conclusion, a focus on simplicity, buyer benefits, compelling call-to-action, urgency and accuracy will increase both the number of leads and your lead quality. The key to success is to test and re-test to determine the best elements for converting customers on your landing pages.