Are Google Ads Landing Pages Necessary or Can I Just Use My Homepage?

Trying to decide between a specific Google Ads landing page or sending traffic to your homepage? It’s a common problem facing contractors, and we’ll show you which option is right for you and how to get more from your next PPC campaign.

Imagine you run a brick-and-mortar business selling power tools.

To get inside your store people could use the front door, or a side window.

The best possible way for people to come into your store is through the front door, that way they can see all your shiny power tools on the wall, and see your friendly face behind the counter.

If the front door was locked then people would need to come in through the side window.
They’d still be able to make their way to you, but they’d have to go through a handful of unnecessary rooms first, they’ll end up distracted and frustrated at having to squeeze through the window, and by the time they see your tools they might be thinking of going to a store that’s easier to get in.

That’s what happens when you run a Google Ads campaign without landing pages.

Your Google Ads need to direct people somewhere and most contractors send their traffic to their home page. But your homepage isn’t designed to turn traffic into leads.

In this article, we’ll explain why your homepage isn’t the best place to send Google Ad traffic, uncover our approach to Google Ads landing pages, and leave you with our proven framework for generating more leads.

First, let’s cover why a homepage isn’t helping you get more work.

Your home page is a hub where people can explore your site. It distracts Google Ad traffic. People are looking for the needle and you’re giving them the haystack.

This is great if they’ve found you on Google, because it gives site visitors the freedom to browse at their own pace. They’ll be able to look for reviews, check out your project gallery, or explore your services when they’re ready.

But traffic from Google Ads doesn’t want to browse every page.

They’ve clicked on a specific ad, for example ‘London tree lopping services’. If the page they land on isn’t about tree lopping services in London, they’ll get frustrated and may leave.

Wouldn’t you do the same?

If you clicked on an ad for cheap workwear and the page you landed on was about the history of the manufacturer, you’d consider going back to Google and clicking on another ad that took you straight to a workwear store instead – which is what you were looking for in the first place.

Google Ad traffic should be directed to specific landing pages built for your campaign.

These pages aren’t typically accessible on your website, but they do live under your normal URL, so potential customers can still see who you are.

The purpose of your custom landing pages is to simplify your message.

As valuable as your home improvement website is, it’s also packed FULL of information and content. People can click on your phone number to call you, but they can also click on your services to learn more, click on your latest blog, click on your gallery to browse pictures, click on the link to your insurance partners to read the fine print on your policy.

They can pretty much click on anything – and that’s not great for a sale.

Your customers are easily distracted, for no other reason than the fact they’re human. The more options you put in front of a site visitor, the less likely they are to click on the ONE button you want them to.

Creating specialised landing pages means you can focus on ONE problem and offer ONE solution.

This depends on your trade business. But generally, it’s the button that turns a site visitor into a lead.

For a plumber or electrician, this could be the ‘CALL NOW’ button. For a kitchen benchtop installer or roofer, this could be the ‘REQUEST A QUOTE’ button.

No matter what trade you specialize in, you want to convert as many visitors into inquiries as possible. Landing pages remove distractions and help your site visitors see that you understand their problems, and have a ready-made solution.

Wondering how many leads you’ll get through Google Ads? Get the facts and figures.

You could hire someone on Fiverr to build your landing pages. And you could also demo your own unwanted patio with your bare hands.

Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you can do it more effectively than someone with the right tools.

A bloke on Fiverr might have some design skills, and your landing page could have all your business info and all your business colors – but is it designed to increase your conversions?

There’s a huge difference between a landing page that’s been designed to look nice, and one that’s been designed to bring in more inquiries and quote requests.

So far we’ve covered conversions and how Google Ads landing pages simplify your sales process.

Landing pages are also crucial in creating relevance between your ads, and your content. Not only do your customers want to see relevant landing pages (no one wants to click on an ad for a commercial electrician and land on a page about a domestic electrician), but Google uses the relevance of your landing page when determining your Quality Score.

Since your Quality Score can make your ad clicks cheaper, it’s worth building landing pages that are directly related to each ad campaign you’re running.

Find out how to use your Quality Score to grow your trade business

We’ve spent over $2.3 million dollars running our own Google Ads campaigns so we’ve learned a few important lessons along the way. We also made plenty of mistakes that you DON’T have to make (since we got them out of the way ourselves).

Our strategy is based on our own P-C-D framework.

• Psychology
• Content
• Design

Once you know how your target audience thinks and what problems they face (psychology), you can create landing pages centred around those problems in their own words (content) with features designed to increase leads, like free reports, verified badges and carefully place call-to-action buttons (design).

Using the P-C-D framework we’ve been able to increase conversion rates across 200 trade industries, and generate over $200 million worth of leads for local tradies.

Wondering how we’ve generated $200 million in leads? Discover what Tradie Digital does differently

In other words, landing pages are crucial for Google Ads because they remove distractions and give people exactly what they’re looking for.

When you implement our proven P-C-D framework, your landing pages become more effective by outlining your audience’s problems, offering solutions, and making it easy to get in touch with you for help.

Curious about launching your own contractor Google Ads campaign?

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