One page, one audience, one thing to do. Built for campaigns where you're paying for every visitor and can't afford to send them somewhere that answers a different question.
Someone clicks an ad about one specific thing. What they see next either confirms they're in the right place or makes them start looking again.
Ad to homepage
They searched for an emergency and arrived at a company introduction. Nothing here confirms you handle same day call-outs, so they go back and click the next result.
Ad to a matching page
The headline repeats what the ad promised. No menu to wander into, and the way to get help is the first thing they see.
This matters most when you're paying per click. Every visitor who leaves because the page didn't match cost you money and told the ad platform your page wasn't relevant, which over time pushes your costs up further. It's the cheapest fix available in most paid campaigns.
It isn't a normal page with less on it. It's a page where everything either helps someone decide or has been deliberately removed.
Removed
The main navigation
Every menu item is a way to leave without converting. You paid for this visitor, so don't offer them nine exits.
Everything you also do
They came for one service. Listing the other six adds doubt about whether you specialise in the one they need.
Company history
Founded in 1998 helps nobody decide. Credibility comes from specifics about the work, not the founding date.
Secondary buttons
Download the brochure, follow us, read the blog. Each one splits attention away from the thing you want.
Added
The exact promise from the ad
Repeated in the headline, close to word for word. Recognition is what makes someone stay past the first second.
The objection that stops people
Whatever your sales team answers on every call. Cost, timing, whether you cover their area. Answered before it's asked.
One action, repeated
The same button at the top, the middle, and the end. Not three different things, the same one three times.
Proof close to the ask
Reviews, credentials, or guarantees placed right beside the button rather than in a separate section further down.
Removing the navigation makes people uncomfortable and it's usually right. The exception is a high-value purchase where people genuinely need to research you before committing, in which case a link back to the main site is worth including. That's a judgement call rather than a rule.
Most people never scroll past the first screen. Everything after it exists for the ones who did and need one more reason.
The headline mirrors the ad. Underneath it, one line on what you actually do and who for. That's the whole job of the top of the page.
Some people are ready on arrival and making them scroll to find the button loses a share of them for no reason.
Reviews, accreditations, or numbers. It sits directly under the button because that's where hesitation happens.
Usually price, timing, or coverage. This section is written from your sales calls rather than invented, which is why it needs your input.
The same action, worded the same way. Anyone who read to the bottom is interested, and they shouldn't have to scroll back up.
A landing page is one of the few things in marketing where you get a clean answer, so it's worth setting up to actually get one.
Form submissions and calls recorded as conversions, tied back to the campaign. Set up before the page goes live, not after someone asks how it's doing.
The number that matters is what a lead costs, not what a click costs. A page that halves the click-through and doubles enquiries is a win.
Usually the headline first, since it does most of the work. Changing five things at once tells you the page improved and not why.
One caution on testing: it needs enough traffic to mean anything. At forty visitors a week, a difference between two versions is mostly noise, and acting on it is worse than not testing. Below a reasonable volume we'd build the page carefully and leave it alone rather than pretend a test told us something.
Three situations where a new page won't change the numbers, and something else will.
If the ads are reaching people who were never going to buy, no page converts them. Fix the targeting first and the page second.
If your price or terms don't compete, a better page just tells people that faster. Presentation can't fix a proposition.
Enquiries arriving and sitting unanswered for two days is the most expensive problem on this page, and building a new one won't touch it.
One per thing you're advertising, roughly. If your campaigns cover three services, three pages, because each one needs to match a different promise.
Splitting further by location or audience only pays off when the message genuinely differs. Twenty near-identical pages is a maintenance problem rather than an advantage.
Sometimes, and it's worth trying before paying for anything new. A well written service page with a clear action does a reasonable job.
The difference shows up at higher spend. Service pages are built to inform and be found in search, landing pages are built to convert one specific visitor, and those pull in different directions.
As long as it takes to remove the doubt. An emergency service needs almost nothing because the decision is urgent and simple. A large purchase needs considerably more.
The rule isn't length, it's that every section either helps someone decide or shouldn't be there.
Fewer than you want. Every field costs you some enquiries, and most forms ask for things nobody needs until later in the conversation.
There's a real trade though: fewer fields means more enquiries and more unqualified ones. If your sales team is drowning, adding a qualifying question is the right call.
Not if they're handled properly. Pages built purely for ads are usually kept out of search results, so they don't compete with your service pages.
Where it goes wrong is dozens of near-identical pages left indexed. We'd decide that per page rather than by default.
On your site, on your domain, in almost every case. It keeps everything in one place and means the page belongs to you rather than to a subscription.
Separate landing page tools are useful for very high volume testing. For most businesses they're an extra monthly cost for something the site already does.
Usually built alongside the campaign rather than on its own, since the page and the ads have to be written together. Pricing sits on the main web design page.
Related services
Thirty minutes on where your ad traffic currently lands and what it's costing you.
Or email hello@culmen.digital