It is quite apparent to SEO marketers now that site speed is a major player in building successful campaigns and achieving favourable rankings. Tools such as Pingdom, have now made it possible for us to monitor speeds and begin to grant them the importance that they command. What many professionals and marketers fail to understand is the importance of site speed in PPC.
Whilst the connection is not so widely recognized, it does stand to reason that there should be a natural linkage. Google’s dominance of the search engine market also stretches to PPC with its Adwords service with has monopolized its marketplace, as such there are some important connections and similar considerations for both platforms.
User Experience
Essentially, in the same way as user experience affects SEO, it also applies to PPC. A huge part of user experience is slow site speed. High bounce rates are heavily influenced by the relative load speed of a website, and thus a poor load speed equates to a poor user experience.
Google said specifically of site speed: “If it takes too long for your website to load when someone clicks on your ad, they’re more likely to give up and leave your website. This unwelcome behavior can signal to Google that your landing page experience is poor, which could negatively impact your Ad Rank. That’s why you want to make sure your landing page load time is up to speed.”
In much the same way as Google search ranks sites based on their user experience (as well as a plethora of other important contributory factors), ads rank in less favourable positions for landing pages with poor user experiences.
What Makes a Good Landing Page?
Good PPC is as much about the location as it is the quality of the advert. A good landing page needs to consider the end goals and expectations of its audience, and be built with the user in mind.
The key rules to remember are as follows:
• Provide Relevant, Useful, Original Content
• Be Transparent and Trustworthy
• Be Easy To Navigate
• Encourage Customers to Spend Time on Site
Think beyond just the performance of your advert, your customers have to go somewhere and this should the first priority on your list.
To see how StrategiQ can help with your PPC campaigns, get in contact today.