Reach Local: How to Create a High-Converting Local Landing Page

Are you a local business owner?

Are you using landing pages for your local business ads?

Before sitting down to write this article I did some research on local businesses advertising in my area. From what I saw, most businesses were using local search ads to promote themselves (great!) but these ads pointed to their home pages.

I was shocked. The ads I clicked on were for larger, long-standing local businesses with significant resources, yet were only converting a tiny percentage of their visitors and leaving money on the table.

This article will explain why a local business needs to use landing pages for their local business ads and how they can create their very own.

Check out our complete guide to local marketing for more local marketing strategies.

Why use landing pages for local business ads?

If you’re paying for ads like Google search ads or Facebook ads your goal should be to squeeze every last drop of performance out of those ads right?

Using landing pages for your ads is considered a best practice because landing pages present only one conversion goal for visitors; as opposed to your homepage which leads to all the corners of your website, and diffuses the value of each visitor.

The brilliant part about using landing pages is that they can be tailored to match the buying intent of the visitor whose clicking your ads. For example, a landscaping business advertising online can have a landing page dedicated to their lawn maintenance service for anyone searching for local lawn maintenance services. While their gardening service can have a separate landing page for their local gardening service ads.

Takeaway:
The use of dedicated landing pages for your advertisements increases click-through-rates because landing pages are better suited to match the intent of the person clicking on your ads.

How can I get my landing page discovered by more locals?

According to the most recent Moz marketing expert survey here were the top 10 most influential factors of local search ranking:

1. Domain authority of website.
2. Quality/ authority of inbound links to domain.
3. City, state in landing page title.
4. Click-through rate from search results.
5. Topical keyword relevance of domain content.
6. Diversity of inbound links to domain.
7. Geographic keyword relevance of domain content.
8. Physical address in city of search.
9. Quality/Authority of structured citations.
10. City, state in most/all website title tags.

While not all of these factors can be adjusted without a practiced SEO pro by your side, many of them can be easily taken care of. Having your location in your page title and headings for example. Or using the relevant and correct geographical keywords in your landing page content.

These key SEO factors are definitely something to keep in mind while optimizing your landing pages, but your results may vary depending on the industry you’re in and what’s being promoted.

There are, of course, industry landing page best practices to follow:

• Ad copy and text. Perfectly matching ad and landing page text is a match made in heaven. Your goal here is to make your landing page match the context and intent of the person clicking on your ad.
• Page headlines. Along with an eye-catching visual, your headline is the first thing your visitor sees. Your headline should clearly and concisely present your unique selling proposition (USP) and entice your visitor to continue exploring your landing page.
• Product features. After capturing your visitor’s attention you’ll proceed to outline your product/service and what you offer. Make sure you detail the benefits and advantages, as well as all the features, that make your business different.
• Product benefits. Now we can draw special attention to the benefits that directly help your target audience. Really dive into how your product/service can solve a problem or pain point for your audience.
• Location map. Since your business is local we’ll want to highlight your exact location with a simple google map embedded on your landing page.
• Call to action (CTA). Your call to action should stand out on the page, after all that’s the goal right? We’ll need a strong and specific call to action like, “Get Started” or “Get My Free Quote” so that your visitor knows exactly what action they’re accomplishing.
• Social proof. A little social proof goes a long way. Place strong testimonials and reviews you’ve received here to add credibility to your landing page.
• Your team. Here’s where you can give you visitors a tiny bit of insight into the beautiful people behind your product/service. It helps to show the human side of your company for your visitors to know that there is a human being on the other end if they need any sort of assistance.

So then, what makes for a perfect local landing page?

I created a little infographic checklist, pictured below, to help illustrate the anatomy of a perfect local landing page.

Click here to download your own copy of this infographic!

Putting This in Action

If you’re a local business that is advertising online then you need to be using a landing page optimized for your local area.

Imagine you need to book a reservation at a restaurant in your area. You type into Google, “[the restaurant name] reservations”. A search ad pops up that takes you to a page where you can only book a reservation, nothing else. Now imagine that ad taking you to the homepage instead where you’re free to explore the other 30 pages of the site. Which ad do you think would result in more reservations?

Remember that landing pages differ from your homepage and only present visitors with a single conversion goal. This will increase your conversion rate and maximize the ROI you’re getting from your advertising efforts.

Every local business can benefit from using landing pages if they want to make the most of digital advertising. Landing pages are made to work perfectly with local business advertisements to drive down your ad cost and raise your conversions.

How are local business ads performing for your business? Have landing pages made an impact for you?

Share your story with me in the comments and weigh-in!

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