When you think of improving your Google ranking, you probably think of your SEO, Google My Business listing, and blogs. Do you consider your landing pages as well? While most landing pages are generally used to serve a specific advertisement campaign and keyword, they can be essential to improve your Google ranking as well! 

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a micro-website that is often attached to an advertisement. They’re usually single-page websites that are designed to sell a very specific product or service. The kicker? Landing pages are everywhere. 

To find one, simply Google a service, like “leak repair near me.” Click on the first advertisement you see (it will be marked with “ad” next to it), and chances are, you’ll find yourself on a landing page! 

What is a Google Ranking?

A Google ranking is simply the position of your website on Google’s Search pages. For example, a website on Google’s first page will be ranked 1-9. The higher your ranking is, the further away you are from the first page. 

You can see your ranking by using online tools such as Ahrefs, or simply by Googling your targeted keywords (not your business name!) in Google’s Incognito mode.

Improve Your Google Ranking Using a Landing Page

As we stated before, landing pages are usually targeted for a specific advertisement campaign, a specific audience, and a specific keyword. Looking at our earlier example, when you Google “leak repair near me,” you’ll likely trigger a set of ads that are targeting keywords such as: 

• Leak repair near me
• Leak repair
• Leaky pipes
• Plumber pipe repair

All of those keywords will be relevant to the ads you see and, therefore, to the landing page it uses. 

Keep in mind that not all landing pages need to be tied to ads. Some of them can be tied to your website for increased traffic and can be built to inform your audience about a specific service or product. 

Build Landing Pages Around a Specific Keyword

If you want to improve your Google ranking via landing pages, the first thing you need to do is decide what keywords you want to target. To use the plumbing example, you could target any of those aforementioned keywords to draw in an immediate audience. However, if your goal is to inform and raise awareness, you may consider targeting keywords about the causes of leaky pipes. 

Once you know what keyword you want to target, you’ll need to design your landing page around that keyword. Will it be short-form (less than 300 words) or long form (more than 750 words)? Will it be heavily-designed or minimalistic? Will you use stock photos or custom imagery?

All of those will affect how the page ranks on Google! Longform is better for SEO, but short-form is (generally) better for user retention and conversion. Stock images are fine, but your landing page likely won’t stand out to your audience. Heavily-designed landing pages always have their place in the market, but keep in mind that you don’t want to overdo it. 

WIth all of that settled, you can start writing! Here’s what you need to know to create an optimized homepage. Is your keyword in…

• Your SEO title, meta description, URL, and image alt. Text?
• Your first headline?
• In a secondary headline?
• Found at least 3 times in your main content? 

If yes, then great! You’re one step closer to having your landing page improve your Google ranking for your chosen keyword. 

Secure Backlinks to Your Landing Page

SEO is a notoriously slow process. If you want to speed up the process, we recommend allocating some time and budget toward link building. See that link? That’s link building! Well, technically that link is called a backlink and we’re building a network of ways for people to find content from backlink.io. 

The short of link building is this: Google will rank your landing page higher if you have more backlinks pointing toward it. 

The process of link building is fairly simple, especially if you have a pre-built network for sites that accept guest posting (blogs written by others). These networks are hard to build, though they can be time consuming to grow! 

Additionally, link building is a numbers game. The more high-quality backlinks you get, the faster your landing page will rank higher on Google. It takes more than one backlink to get to the front page — depending on the keyword, you could only need 10, or you may need 500. This is why using tools like Ahrefs to do keyword research is important, so you know what keyword is viable for you to target! 

After your landing page is created, here’s what you do: 

Step One 

Find a relevant site that accepts guest posts. These can be found through Google Searches! Some sites advertise that they do/do not allow it, though it’s always a good idea to contact the site owner via email first. 

Step Two

Once the site owner approves you to write a blog, get writing! The blog should follow their requirements and you’re usually allowed to insert a link that points back to your landing page in it. Your blog might look like this one — it has useful information and links to better your experience

Step Three

Be patient! Link building can take a week or two before you start noticing a difference. 

Improve The Loading Speed

Our final tip is to improve the speed at which your landing page loads. Loading speed is not only essential for user experience, but Google as well. The longer a page takes to load, the less Google (and customers) are going to trust it. You’ll want your landing page to load in under 3 seconds on both desktop and mobile if you’re going to snatch up one of Google’s coveted front page locations. 

Thankfully, finding out load speed for your website and landing pages is simple with Business Warrior! Our free tool automatically times how long it takes to load your website and landing page and gives you tips on how to improve the speed! Sign up today for free! 

If you follow all of these steps, then your landing page will start ranking higher on Google in no time. If you need a little help getting to the front page, Business Warrior can help as well with Pro+. We’ll build, optimize, and launch a landing page for you! Check out the service online to learn more!