There has been a bit of chat on various forums over the last couple of days about Google AdWords tweaking its landing page algorithm, see here and here.
So with that in mind I thought I would publish a guide on how to create a landing page that will comply with Google's guidelines. I've been marketing online using landing pages and Google AdWords for around 6 years now. Over that time I've seen many developments and changes and have been in constant touch with various members of the AdWords team directly. Below are the results of my experiences. They may work for you and they may not, but if you follow them, you should be able to market effectively using landing pages.
First things first though, experience tells me that landing pages are no longer an effective way of marketing on AdWords. So why am I writing this then? I hear you ask. Well, traditional landing pages that contain a few links, a paragraph or 2 of pre-sell text/product reviews are dead and buried. Don't even try it, Google will catch up with you eventually and raise your bids to silly prices. Take this example of one of my old landing pages, Google banned this about 18 months ago.
If Google thinks the only reason your landing page exists is to funnel users to another site then its a landing page, and they will penalise you accordingly.
Landing pages now have to be incorporated into a fully functioning web site with lots of original content. So yes, you can still market with landing pages but the landing pages must be within the context of a full site. Here's the rules as I see them:
Your landing page website should contain the following pages as standard:
1. Sitemap - this should be accessible from all pages of your site.
2. Privacy Policy - lots of resources on the web to create one of these, just Google "privacy policy". If you are in the UK then consider applying for the Data Protection Act. It only costs around £35.
3. Terms and Conditions - as above, here is a good resource.
4. Contact Us - with full physical postal address and telephone number.
5. About Us - description of what the purpose of the website is and the business operating it, i.e. you.
OK now that you have these basic pages, consider adding these pages too:
1. News - add a page where you regularly update with newsworthy stories related to the niche you are promoting.
2. Blog - like a news page but you can also add editorial comments here and opinions.
3. How To or What Is Guide - pages/pages with detailed unique content describing the product/service you are promoting and how they work. I.e. if you have a coupon site then add some pages describing what coupons are and how they work, an idiots guide really.
4. FAQ's - think of every question related to the product/service you are promoting then list them and answer them here.
5. Glossary - every industry has its own terminology, create an A-Z of industry specific jargon here and define it.
6. Deals/Offer pages - again everyone has specific deals and offers, so list the ones relevant to your product/service on their own page.
7. Individual product/pages - likewise the chances are that your product/service will have different components. I.e. a certain brand of credit card will have a gold card, platinum card, reward card etc. So build pages for each product containing very detailed information, more so that you would find on a traditional landing page.
8. Submit your review - offer your users the opportunity to submit their own product/reviews. Not only does this create stickiness but it gives you free content.
So, you now have the structure of what the site should look like. Now for the landing page, first thing to do is to look at the AdWords guidelines for landing pages, it contains some good advice:
Link to the page on your site that provides the most useful and accurate information about the product or service in your ad.
If your site displays advertising, distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content.
Try to provide information without requiring users to register. Or, provide a preview of what users will get by registering.
In general, build pages that provide substantial and useful information to the end-user. If your landing page consists of mostly ads or general search results (such as a directory or catalog page), you should provide as much information as you can beyond what your ad describes. For example, if your ad mentions1. Create unique product/service reviews for whatever you are promoting. Do not just cut and paste text straight from the merchants site.
2. Include some users reviews on the page too, as well as your own.
3. List some comparable products/services from competitors.
4. List some special offers, unique discount codes on this page. This is perceived as extra value to the visitor.
5. Add some links to other products/services that are related but not the same as you are promoting. So lets say you are promoting Plasma TV's. Add some links to DVD players, specialist cables, remote controls etc.Thats it really, as I have said there is no magic formula and the landing page doesn't have to be that complex. It simply must contain original content and be of value to the visitor. So a landing page with the above 5 elements that is presented within a full site of other original content will withstand the Google AdWords algorithm. Noy only that but you will have actually built a decent quality website that you can maintain and build up with content for years to come. You never know, it could even end up being indexed well with the natural serps so you don't even have to rely on AdWords for traffic!
Almost forgot, with regard to affiliate links and masking them, my advice is to always mask them. The main reason for this is to avoid certain anti-virus software which has been known to make them invisible. I don't think it has a major effect on the AdWords algorithm but I would say to mask them, just in case.
Below is a screen shot of my broadband providers site. Despite not containing all of the elements I mentioned above it has been passed by Google and meets all of their landing page guidelines.
I do hope this guide has been useful, please leave a comment below if you have any thoughts or further ideas on how to make a successful landing page for Google AdWords.
What I'm listening to right now: Digital Underground - "Doowutchyalike" - anyone remember this from 1999?
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other stuff. I have no idea why I'm blue on this photo though but I like it!
Hello
Very interesting information! Thanks!
Bye
This is probably a stupid question. I’m not an affiliate marketer, and I’m just getting started using adwords. Can’t an affiliate just put in their affiliate link into the ad rather than use a landing page? What is the point of a landing page?
do you suggest just throwing up a CMS system? Seems like the easiest way to go. Use drupal or something similar. Can get what you’re up describing up in a matter of minutes other then the unique content. Ugh I hate making unique content
Also are you testing stuff before you put up a site of this capacity? Seems like a lot of work to put in for a niche you don’t know is going to convert or not.
Pingback: The Very Heart Of Affiliate Success Is Simplicity Itself
Applying the landing page commandments right away…
Vijay
CodeSaint
Thanks Kieron seems like is further updating their algo as i just got slaped after 3 smooth months
Great guide but there is something more to it though. I have implemented most of the listed suggestions long time ago but it did not help me to lower the minimum keyword bids. I guess there are niches/products that Google does not like and would not lower the bid prices even though all the guidelines are satisfied. My 2c.
Hi Nikolai,
If you implementated all the changes but your min bid is still high i suggest you move to a new domain.
Sean
Pingback: Want To know more about landing pages - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums
Pingback: Adwords hiking up prices! - Affiliate Marketing
Pingback: Avoid the google slap - Young Entrepreneur Forums
One of the best article I’ve read about a landing page. Bravo!
Pingback: Broadband on Adwords - Affiliate Marketing
Pingback: The Best Money Making Blog Post of 2007
Pingback: Ask Kirsty - I’m Making SEO Cash, Can PPC Increase It?
Pingback: What’s Better Than a Super Affiliate? » Uber Affiliate Marketing Guide
Pingback: Affiliate Marketing is Bullshit. Jason Calacanis Affiliate Summit speech Las Vegas February 2008
I am been making the edits you recommend and I appreciate all your suggestions. My site is similar to your broadband site in the fact that I draw people in via adwords and then direct them to external links from my landing page. My clicks have gone up over the past year since all the changes and I am trying to mask my links using iframes and I and running into some issues with IE7 not carring the data over correctly. I was curious how you have masked your domains on your site.
thanks, Jeff
Very interesting info, with some great little tips. Thanks!
Pingback: Do domains have Quality Scores? - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums
whats to stop us from using other services such as Yahoo or MSN to create simple landing pages? Do they have the same policy?
I am building a website with all the standard stuff that you mentioned, but th epage that my ad will go to will contain eight text / adverts, do you think that this will be okay?
Pingback: Adwords Quality Score | Doug's mouthpiece
I’ll be honest.. I didn’t read all the comments, before posting this question, but.. What if you used a blog post as your landing page? So it’s a full website, shows content and in the post you do some sort of review?
Can that be considered a landing page and would that pass google rules?
Pingback: How much shall I sell BroadbandGuide.co.uk for?
I was wondering how you put a landing page out there. I’m not too good at this. I enjoyed your article.It’s like a website,but you don’t pay for the domain,because it’s part of your site? If so,how do you break them apart,I’m a bigginer,if this is annoying I’m sorry.I’ve built websites in the past,and all this is new to me. If you could send me to a site with more info,I would really appreciate it,thankyou for your time,Sincerely Darren Taylor.Or if you hae a moment to explain,Thankyou Kieron
Yeh, thanks, Kieron, it’s quite a task these days to create a landing page which leads me to wonder, if I am going to all this trouble just to market an affiliate product why am I not in business with my own product for myself? And then let others do my affiliate marketing for me!
I still think you can’t beat the good old-fashioned promotions of ezine ads and emailing your own opt-in subscriber list for affiliate products. Just a simple “I use this, it’s great” endorsement still goes a long way.
Word-of-mouth recommendation will always be the top marketing strategy in the world.
Pingback: 8 » How I make $300/day using PPC - Resources Useful for All Members.
Pingback: Adwords Articles
Seems Adwords doubled their bids overnight for a lot of search terms. Great post.
Thanks for the awesome advice Kieron. That old cliche about content comes to mind again.
Kieron,
This post is truly invaluable.
My only request: can we see an example of what the landing page should look like? I want to know how to effectively place the 5 elements with the actual offer on the page. This is where I don’t understand.
Say if I was to enter the dating niche. Would I place a image of a couple at the top which would go to the merchant’s offer with the 5 elements underneath the image?
Please I need help here.
I hope I made myself clear here. I just need to see a visual of what it should look like.
Thanks in advance!
George
Pingback: Did Google Slap Your Landing Page? - Affiliate Manifest
WOW!!! Great post. I am still not sure that my landing page is needed and I am still thinking about getting rid of it. I just can’t figure out how to make the language of my page change automatically for the country that it’s accessed in. IE; going to google.com in Japan goes to the Japanese page automatically. Any ideas?
Great post. Just wondering if I should ditch my page now or keep it. What would Brian Boitano do?
Geez, now I know why… I feel a little STUPID now… but, on the other hand, gratefull.. I am going to change my pages right away. Thanks a lot. I will let you know of my results!
Thanks for your advices Kieron! Been new in affiliate marketing isn’t easy. Actually I was working in my first landing page when I found your post and It’s really great take advantage of your years of experience working with Google. Good stuff! Thanks again.
Good article, I had one of my campaigns suspended because of the lack of content. I couldn’t be bothered doing all the work.
I guess if you’re going to go about doing all that work, you should re purpose all the content for multiple campaigns.
Thanks for these stuffs… By the way “Is there any limitation links to a landing page? If so how many and why?”
This is very helpful. Do yo have any examples of landing pages? I need to build one for my site. Thank you.
Thanks again for your advices. They are coming in the right moment for those who are starting with google adwords and looking for success in their campaings.Good stuff!
Cesar
Great info, still very useful for any affiliate starting off in PPC
Thanks, the information is very helpful, im researching currently before entering the world of affiliate marketing and PPC and have taken on board that building up an actual site with landing pages and not single page sites seems the way to go.
Im glad il be starting off with the right approach thanks to the info here that ive read and at other blogs and forums too.
I’ve been away from the PPC side of things for a few years now (was always traditionally into organic SEO). Seems like this whole area has got really complicated now. Oh well, such is life. (Paul is feeling tired!).
This is actually a double edged sword though because while you do what to present the user with quality content and get them what they need, the argument is that too many distractions on a page will lead the user to bounce or not perform a conversion you need to make your revenue model work.
It’s a fine line to tread but I think google needs to recognize that you can still have quality targeted landing pages but still need to make some money at the same time.
Great article and just the information i was after as just had my quality score implode. Will try the things you have mentioned to see if they can help to reverse the collapse in the quality score and if not looks like yahoo not google will be getting my online marketing spend.
This is terrific explanation. I am so very impressed
after google said this i used this pages in my blog , actually it make my blog stronger and my visitors like the blog with ( Privacy Policy,Terms and Conditions and About ) i also put my sitmap link in my blogroll too for good SEO .
Excellent Article!
I will print it and post it to my board. It is an excellent resource, better than a lot of books about the same subject.
Thanks!
Alex.
online web stores
Being a newby to the Google Science School this thread and trackbacks has been hugely beneficial. I gave up with Adwords after continually being advised to up the budget. I never was priveliged to have a Google contact that was a real person! And actually, I don’t think I had a hot lead and money transacted even when I was hitting page 1. Thanks for helping us beat a monopoly.