I'm getting frustrated. What makes a good landing page for PPC?

I've proven I can write a good ad, and get some clicks. Now I have to make good on that user's trust and deliver good content. That's where I'm failing. I think I have good content, but the numbers don't lie. I have a large number of bounces, depending on landing, and even the users that stay don't stay as long as those that arrive organically.

The relevant organic visitors tend to stay around 10-12 pages, and PPC 3-5 if I'm lucky. It's the bounces that drive me crazy. For example, I'm trying my mls search page, www. northofthesavannah . com / idx as a landing page for phrase matches like 'mls augusta ga' or 'augusta ga mls' (which strangely enough, those phrases differ in value by almost $1.50 a click, but that's another discussion.)

I've got to try a different landing page- they bounce off that MLS search page like rubber even though I've delivered them to the best MLS search they could possibly find for that keyword.

Thankfully I'm using a very small budget (less than $5/day) until I can tune in the campaign. Can someone pass on some landing page tips? Please?

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Lydia Taylor, Realtor & Broker

Augusta GA Real Estate | North Augusta SC Real Estate | Augusta GA Home Search

IMO:

1) You need two pages per community. One is a PPC landing page with nothing but immediate home search results for that community. No (or very little) community info. No search form to fill out. Just all the homes for sale, thank you. If the inventory is large, maybe a simple page with links to 8-10 searches pre-coded by price range. Just enough bare bones text that AdWords QS is "Great". No need to SEO this page. Your Summerville page is close, but still too much community stuff at the top. The 2nd page would have all the community info stuff. That one is primarily for organic results and SEO.

2) Have a very prominent link at the top of your community info pages to the appropriate community specific search and results. Don't make them have to click a menu link to get there. Don't make them read to the bottom of the page. Don't make them have to fill out a search form, at least not yet.

PPC bounce rates will always be higher than organic. If only 5% of your PPC visitors ever register, that's a pretty good return. My PPC landing pages have been running at about 65% bounce rate. Many browse a few listings, try a basic search, then go away. Some never come back, but some do, if they have a good experience. Those that come back later may look like organic search results, not PPC visitors, so they may be skewing your stats as well.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy

Ronnie, I have set up a sample 'landing page' for Augusta as I think you described. Can you review it for me?

Most of the 'search links' are non-functional, but I think it gives you an idea what I had in mind.

www. northofthesavannah.com/augusta-real-estate-2.php

Any advice would be helpful and welcomed!!

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Lydia Taylor, Realtor & Broker

Augusta GA Real Estate | North Augusta SC Real Estate | Augusta GA Home Search

Very good advice Ronnie, Lydia if I could throw my .2 cents in here. Not sure if you have plans on doing this already but you need to also have landing pages directly to each particular subdivision imo. By the looks of your site it appears you intend to.

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Brandon Florida Real Estate
Tampa Real Estate Blog
Tampa MLS

Looks pretty good! I like the simpler format of the various price range searches as the actual PPC landing page though. If you replicate that format on the "all listings" page, and make that the PPC ad's landing page, I think you'll ready for PPC business! Be careful about repeating the same initial text on multiple pages though. Dup content means supplemental index for most of those pages. Been there, done that. From a site menu perspective, you may also want to create a sub-menu link for each price range search under each community's existing main page link, and point that to the custom idx page for that price range.

The list of subdivisions is also very intimidating. If you can build a single custom idx page with nothing but that subdivision list for each major city/community, and the active listing count for that subdivision, like you have for the price range search links, that would be pretty sweet! Then link to it from the other price range search pages and from the community's main search page.

The other result of what you have started to build is lots & lots more pages for Google to find and index.

Don't forget that important link to your "all listings" page at the very top of each of your community info pages!

I would also suggest more integration of your local websites links as contextual links within your community info pages.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy

Ronnie, I just wanted to thank you for your suggestions and to let you know that as time permits I've been working on implementing them. My bounce rate for clicks like 'mls listings' has not just dropped to zero, I'm averaging lots of pageviews for that type of click!

I'm also starting to rank organically for those pages too, so I'm benefiting both ways.

Excellent advice from you as always!

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Lydia Taylor, Realtor & Broker

Augusta GA Real Estate | North Augusta SC Real Estate | Augusta GA Home Search

I'm glad it seems to be working for you!

I don't see "Georgia" anywhere on the price range search pages. I also see exact duplicate title tags and blank meta descriptions on all of the price range search pages. These need to be customized for each page so G doesn't see them as duplicate content.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy

Strangely I seem to rank higher for 'augusta real estate' than for 'augusta georgia (or ga) real estate'. So I've been slightly shifting my strategy to optimize for the term without the state. I dunno why because they are at least 25 cities named augusta.

On the individual search pages, referring to the title and meta descriptions... That's how REW set them up, I couldn't change that without getting to implement a more random (or targeted) title, and input meta descriptions. I'll look into that.

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Lydia Taylor, Realtor & Broker

Augusta GA Real Estate | North Augusta SC Real Estate | Augusta GA Home Search

Another reason for high PPC bounce rate is the content network. This is where they run your ad on their affiliate sites. Huge waste of money.

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Serving all your Outer Banks real estate needs and for the latest OBX events visit the Outer Banks Community Forum.

It's easy to turn content network ads off, and avoid that issue. Content network CTR is so low, though, that it probably doesn't affect bounce rate that much. Plus, there is no way to separate bounce rate of AdSense ad clickers vs. AdWords clickers.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy