A driving instructor in Dublin runs a search ad for “intensive driving course”. The click lands on the website’s home page, which opens with a welcome note, a menu of eleven items and a gallery of the instructor’s car. The course appears on the third screen. The visitor looked for one thing, did not find it in a few seconds and went back to the results.
That is a page design problem, not an advertising problem. Whether the traffic comes from ads, a newsletter or a QR code on a van, a landing page works when it picks up the thread the visitor already has and makes the next step obvious.
Start from the promise, not the page
Google Ads help describes landing page experience in terms of how useful and relevant the page is, how easy it is to navigate, and whether it matches what the visitor expected from the ad. Its advice is to make sure the page delivers what the ad promised and to build it around the same action the ad asks for.
In practice, write the page after the ad, or at least with the ad open next to it. The headline should repeat the offer in the ad’s own words. If the ad says “fixed-day boiler service”, the page headline should say so, not “Welcome to Murphy Heating”. One page per offer, one action per page.
The anatomy of a page that asks for one thing
Order beats decoration. A reliable top-to-bottom sequence looks like this:
- Headline and one supporting sentence that confirm the visitor is in the right place.
- The action, visible without hunting: a short form, a phone number to tap or a WhatsApp button. Google’s advice is to put key information near the top.
- What you offer in plain terms: what is included, who it is for, how it works.
- Evidence, such as genuine customer reviews, photos of real work or credentials you can show. Use only what is true and current.
- Answers to the usual questions about timing, area covered and what happens after the visitor gets in touch.
- The same action again at the bottom, in the same words as the first.
Keep the form as short as the job allows. Every extra field is one more reason to stop, so ask only for what you need to reply.
Take the exits away
Google’s guidance on landing pages recommends simple menus, limited links and no clutter or pop-ups that make visitors hunt for what they came for. For a dedicated page that usually means removing the full site menu and keeping only your logo and a contact option in the header.
That is a choice for campaign pages. Your main website should keep normal navigation. If you are unsure which pages on your site should act as landing pages and which as general information, our notes on the structure of a small business website help separate the two.
Phones first, and quick
Google tells advertisers to design for small screens because many visitors arrive on phones, and to test how fast the mobile page loads, since delays cost visitors. Use the benchmarks web.dev publishes: a Largest Contentful Paint of 2.5 seconds or less, a Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less and an Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, measured for most real visits.
- Make the main image a compressed file with width and height set, and do not lazy-load it, because web.dev advises loading images in the first screen eagerly.
- Keep the tap targets for the call and form buttons large and spaced apart.
- Check the page on a real phone on mobile data, not only on your office Wi-Fi.
Decide what counts as success before you launch
Name the action in advance and count it: a form submitted, a tap on the phone number, a click on the WhatsApp button. Set up tracking for exactly that event, and look at the figures by traffic source so you can compare the ad with, say, a link in an email.
Resist the urge to change the page every day. Make one change, note the date, and compare like with like once there are enough visits to tell a pattern from noise.
If you advertise on Google, the Quality Score report offers a hint. It rates landing page experience as above average, average or below average compared with other advertisers for the same searches over the previous 90 days. Google describes Quality Score as a diagnostic, not an input in the ad auction, so use it to spot weak pages and do not chase the number itself. The budget side is covered in our piece on Google Ads agency cost.