Most advice on landing page optimisation still trots out the same tired tropes:
- “Write a strong headline.”
- “Use a nice image.”
- “Keep it short.”
Cheers for that. Next tip: breathe oxygen and pay your hosting bill.
But if you’re building lead gen landing pages for cold traffic, visitors who found you through Google search or paid ads and have zero clue who you are, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. These people aren’t browsing your homepage or easing into the customer journey. They’ve skipped the small talk and landed straight on a service page, expecting immediate answers from your web page content.
That’s what we call a bottom-up landing page, and trust us, it needs to work a lot harder.
What’s a Bottom-Up Landing Page?
Typical website journeys start at the top: homepage → about → services → contact. But that assumes your website visitors are already interested.
Bottom-up landing pages are different. They’re built for users entering through the side door, usually from search engines or a PPC ad campaign, and they know nothing about you.
That means your landing page has one job: convert on first contact.
It needs to:
- Match the intent behind the search or ad text
- Build instant credibility (we’ll talk trust signals on landing pages shortly)
- Clearly communicate what you do and why it matters to your target audience and defined user personas
- Guide users to a single, focused CTA button
Why Most Pages Fail at Converting Cold Traffic
Here’s the cold truth: most landing pages fail not because they’re ugly, but because they’re confusing, vague, or irrelevant to the user’s needs or conversion goals.
So let’s walk through the PPC landing page best practices (that also happen to work brilliantly for SEO), structured with user experience and conversion in mind:
1. Build Trust Before You Sell
If you’re expecting someone to hand over their contact details, book a call or request a quote on first touch, they need a reason to believe you’re legit.
Use real trust signals:
- Client logos (real ones, not a graveyard of startups)
- Credible customer testimonials (with names, titles, photos if possible)
- Short success stories or impact metrics ("Increased conversion rate by 42%" > "We do great work")
- Add social proofs where possible - things like awards, reviews, or industry certifications
Cold users are sceptical. Don’t try to win them over with charm alone - prove it.
2. Match Search Intent Like a Pro
If someone’s Googling "ecommerce website design", don’t dump them on a page about general web services.
This is where match search intent becomes crucial:
- Reflect the visitor’s query in your heading and copy
- Speak their language, not your internal jargon
- Lead with their problem, not your process
This alignment is what separates pages that bounce from pages that convert. It’s the cornerstone of good conversion rate optimization and critical for optimising your clickthrough rate.
3. Focus on Landing Page UX
Forget storytelling. Cold users don’t have time. Structure matters:
- One clear headline that mirrors intent
- Subheadings and short sections (no essays)
- Bullet points for fast scanning
- Call-to-action buttons that are unmissable and mobile site friendly
Make sure everything important appears above the fold, especially on mobile devices. A bad experience on mobile is one of the fastest ways to lose potential leads and spike your page load time.
You’re not writing a brochure, you’re guiding a distracted user toward action. Think like a UX designer, not a copywriter. Use session recordings, scroll maps, confetti maps, or heat maps to understand what your users actually see and interact with. Tools like Optimizely Web Experimentation or MS Clarity are great for this.
4. Give Them One Thing to Do
A classic mistake? Giving users options instead of a direction.
Choose one goal:
- Book a call
- Download something
- Get a quote
And then repeat that CTA clearly, early and often.
Don’t pair it with “Learn more” or “See other services” - that’s a detour you can’t afford. Every link that doesn’t serve your lead capture or conversion rates is a potential drop-off.
If you're testing offers, use A/B testing, Split Testing, or even Multivariate Testing to refine messaging, layouts, and call-to-action text. You can also experiment with personalised CTAs and Dynamic Text Replacement to improve targeting and relevance.
5. Introduce Yourself (Briefly)
This isn’t your homepage, so don’t bury your brand story. Just a couple of lines will do:
“We’re Gecko, a UK-based digital agency specialising in Umbraco websites that convert. Fast.”
It’s enough to ground the visitor and build context, especially important for users coming in cold from organic search traffic or digital ads.
You can also enhance clarity with a short hero image, kicker text, and even a lead magnet or sign-up form to capture early intent, but keep it focused.
6. Use Paid Search Logic for Organic Success
Here’s the kicker: the principles that work for Google Ads also boost SEO landing pages.
- Highly relevant content = lower bounce rates
- Clear structure = higher engagement
- Strong CTAs = better conversion statistics
- Clean Meta description and Meta elements = better visibility
So if you’re investing in paid, your organic landing pages should follow the same PPC landing page best practices. This also strengthens your technical SEO and digital marketing strategy long-term.
Tools like Google Analytics, overlay reports, or session replay can give you a deeper look into user behaviour, so you’re not guessing what to fix. Run keyword experiments based on real keyword research, and watch your website traffic follow.
Still Not Converting?
Most landing pages don’t convert because they’re trying to be everything to everyone, or they’re built without a real digital marketing strategy.
If you're wondering, "Why isn’t my landing page converting?", we can help with that too.
Get a Gecko Landing Page Audit
We offer a sharp, no-fluff landing page audit service UK, looking at landing page elements like trust signals, structure, content, call-to-action strategy, and overall clarity. If cold traffic is bouncing, we’ll find out why and help you fix it.