Derek — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 12:13:54 +0000

But there is a difference between deeplinking PPC ads into the most relevant part of your site (which makes sense to the customer) and creating a campaign-specific landing page (which might seem too 'salesy' and doesn't add the trust element ie that the ad is from a 'proper' and trustworthy site).

The only reason I'd create a landing page like that is for a particular special offer or competition type of thing.

My site has 4 different potential audiences so my PPC campaign is deeplinked to the 'homepages' for those audiences within my site - the main home page has 4 distinct sections which lead to the more specific pages

Vahid — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 14:49:25 +0000

A webmaster realized me that you should have landing pages for the PPC traffic:

The advice to send ppc traffic to an interior page is a good one. If someone clicks on an ad (or any link really) you want them to land on the page that closest matches what they would expect to find.

Say you have a site that sells clothing. You sell men's, women's, and children's clothing. You also sell accessories like handbags and cologne and perfume. If you run an ad for men's cologne someone who clicks that ad had better land on a page that has something to do with cologne.

Ideally they'll land on the page selling the exact same cologne you mentioned in your ad.

If you take them to your home page you probably just spent money to have some click the back button in the browser.

Pay per click isn't used to optimize your site. And even if you are optimizing your site it doesn't mean your home page is the one you have to work the most on.

I'm not sure why you think running ppc ads to a page other than your home page hurts the home page at all. It doesn't. You always want to direct any link to the most relevant page for that link.

Having links go to pages other than the home page doesn't hurt the home page at all. It helps the other pages, helps the site in general, and ultimately helps you sell more products.

Monkeyboy — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:41:01 +0000

I don't really know anything about SEO but I generally wouldn't buy anything from a company without finding out something about it first. This information is usually on the Homepage or directly linked from it (an 'About us' page for example). I for one would always visit the home page anyway for any e-commerce site.

Also though, if you're searching for a product rather than a service, you really need to be linked to that products page/description. Nobody want's to click a link for a product, get taken to a homepage, and then have to navigate through the site to find the product again.

I guess it depends on the situation. Obviously the homepage should be optimised for general traffic (which in turn generates sales). However I think a landing page depends on the pay per click advertisment. For a specific product then a landing page is useful, for a general service then the homepage is probably better.

Ultimately however to get from the landing page to the homepage is one click. To navigate from the homepage to a specific page in a site can be several clicks. The majority of web users out there would perhaps not be inclined to mess about too much.

I could just be talking rubbish however