The saying “ A picture is worth a thousand words” is something I’ve always taken for granted and never thought much about … until now when I was surprised at my own reaction to an excellent landing page combined with an unfortunate picture.

The Search for a Gentle Leader Head Collar

Recently I decided to do some research on Gentle Leader Head collars. Truman, our 8 month old black Labrador retriever pup, has become a handful on our daily walks, so a friend suggested that I look into a Gentle Leader Head Collar for him.

Since we’re running some PPC advertising and we’ve been working with clients on matching their PPC advertising to their landing pages I thought I’d check out how well the companies advertising Gentle Leader Head Collars matched their ads to their landing pages.

I did a Google search and came up with these PPC Ads:

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Next is the Landing Page for SitStay.com PPC Ad:

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Landing Page for Amazon.com PPC advertisement:

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And Finally Landing Page for Petco.com PPC Ad:

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And the winner is….

After looking at the four PPC ads and their landing pages, I was surprised when the page that should logically have been the clear winner was knocked out because of a picture.

I thought the Petco Landing page was the best structured landing page.  It offered something for everyone – the person who wants to make a quick decision, the person who wants to know what others think about the collar and the person who needs more information and directions for fitting and using the collar…. But the picture of the unhappy dog just dominated the page for me.  All the thoughtful design features of the page were completely overshadowed by the picture.   Actually I was surprised, because I tend to be a pretty logical person… but I guess when it comes to my dog I’m pretty emotional and I just couldn’t get away from those sad eyes fast enough!

The SitStay.com landing page did the best job of drawing me in.  The picture of the happy Golden Retriever gave me a good feeling about the collar.  The environmentally friendly collars and leashes were a real positive match for me.

Even though logically, the Petco landing page should be the clear winner, the pictures were the deciding factor and the SitStay.com landing page was the winner for me.

Creating a Good Landing Page

Creating a good landing page for your PPC advertising is about several things.  It’s making sure that the product or service being advertised is prominently displayed on the landing page.  It’s about making the landing page inviting and easy to navigate.  And it’s about making sure that the visual images on the landing page reinforce and tie together the advertising message and the copy on the landing page.   If the ad has done its job by getting the visitor to click through to the landing page… then the landing page must do its job of making it easy for the visitor to say YES, that’s exactly what I was looking for.

Do you have a landing page development guideline in place?  Do you test landing pages? Leave a comment or let us know what is working for your landing page optimization.