Google grades your Landing Page - here's how to pass

Make sure your landing page is high quality, or Google will raise your Pay-Per-Click costs

Google's made quite a stir among some Pay-Per-Click advertisers with recent changes it made to its Adwords bidding system. Now more than ever, the landing page of your ad is going to factor into your per-click costs. "Poor quality" landing pages - as defined by Google - will find their ads are suspended unless the advertiser can afford extremely high bid prices. $10/click is the bid most commonly required to get your ads back in play.

Google is doing this because it says it wants to provide the highest quality experience for its users. Some advertisers claim instead it's a simple money grab. But in fact, Google has apparently shut down quite a few campaigns that were previously profitable to the engine. So it's unclear how this would be a money grab - few advertisers will be able to afford the drastic bid increases, creating a net drop in Google's short-term revenue. Google seems to be betting on long-term revenues through enhancing user loyalty.

Discussion of the landing page requirements appear on all the major search marketing forums, such as Search Engine Watch, Webmasterworld and DigitalPoint. Jennifer Slegg has an excellent article on what you can do to rescue your landing pages from $10-bid hell. There are literally dozens of recommendations for landing page fixes, coming from SEM professionals as well as Google itself.

Once the landing page is fixed, Google may re-adjust your bids back down to their former levels. However, there is no specific timetable - days, weeks, perhaps a month. There is an appeals process but it's too slow and subjective, according to some search marketers. Green Media's recommendation is to have a close prior relationship with a team of Google reps, who can help fast-track approvals and guide advertisers through the change. Having reps gives agencies and large companies a distinct advantage over individuals or small businesses.

Google uses a combination of human and algorithmic methods to gauge not only the landing page itself, but the rest of your site. So now more than ever, it's crucial that your search campaign incorporate web usability design best practices. This has always been the case for achieving maximum ROI from your visitors. But now usability expertise has become mandatory to even qualify to run ads in the first place.

Green Media has been fortunate to avoid any change in our clients' bid prices based on landing pages. It took some proactivity on our part: When we heard the change was coming, we worked with our rep to make sure all our clients' landing pages and sites complied. In fact, since we designed many clients' landing pages ourselves, the sites were already in compliance and required no changes for ad campaigns to continue running as before.