The 8-part landing page formula that turns clicks into leads
Before a stranger will convert to a lead they need to believe four things.
Landing pages
A high-converting landing page gives you options: You can bid more, compete for tougher keywords, scale your campaigns, or earn more profit from the same advertising budget.
Over the years I've spent thousands of hours working on improving conversion rate. I've been lucky enough to have been able to test my ideas across pages that have cumulatively generated more than 2,000,000 leads.
But it was only after almost 18 years of working with Google Ads that I asked.
Why don't more visitors convert into leads?
I think I came up with a solid answer...
Before a visitor will make contact they must believe:
- That you do the thing they're looking for.
- That you're able to do what they want.
- That working with you is likely to be pleasant.
- That you'll respond to their enquiry.
The design, the layout, the words are important, if they're done wrong it'll hurt conversion rate. But even the best executed page won't convert as well as it could unless it fosters these beliefs.
How you do that is down to personal preference. I've set out my approach in the first article below.
Start here
Latest articles
The hook-to-page rule
You get the best results when you match your ad's hook to the landing page
The 8-part landing page formula that turns clicks into leads
Before a stranger will convert to a lead they need to believe four things.
How I Make Writing the Company Profile Section of Landing Pages Easier
Coming up with ideas for an interesting company profile is hard. Here's how to avoid staring at an empty screen.
Can 2FA Reduce Contact Form Spam, and Should You Use It?
2FA can reduce contact form spam—but it adds friction, risks real leads, and opens the door to scams like SMS pumping.
The Missing Piece on Most Service Business Landing Pages
When people are looking into a product or service they rarely need they need to be confident about three things before they’ll work with you: That you actually understand what they need. That you have the competence to do what they need. That working with you won’t be a nightmare.
A Fix for Low Conversions: Separating the Sale from the Paperwork
I consulted with six businesses that handle complex paperwork for their clients - such as travel documents, business registrations, and tax filings etc. Here's how we improved the conversion rate.
Why I Was Wrong About the 'About Us' Page (And What I Learned)
In the past, I thought About pages were just filler because marketing should be customer-focused. I was wrong.
How Many Landing Pages Do You Need for a Google Ads Campaign for an Immigration Lawyer or Consultant?
The answer is always: it depends. In this case it depends on what services you advertise. It'll be clearer with an example from a US law firm I work with.
Being "the best" is lazy.
I’m talking about describing yourself as "the best" on your website. It stops you from thinking about what actually makes your business the right choice.
Why experts sometimes have terrible conversion rates.
Experts often have poor conversion rates because the words on their landing pages are all about them. Here's what you can do to fix this.
How I improve conversion rate for long booking forms
Complex lead intake or booking forms offer opportunities for improving conversion rates. Here are a few...
Why book-an-appointment conversions are so difficult with Google Ads
Why wasn't this wedding photographer getting calendar bookings from Google Ads?
How I help my clients get great testimonials
Most people don't have a library of great testimonials. They either don't ask for them, or the testimonials they get aren't very effective. Here's how to fix this.
How to get more phone call leads.
Most businesses who advertise online to get leads struggle to contact people who filled in an enquiry form. One way to improve this is to get leads to call you.
Will using technical terms and industry jargon on a landing page improve conversion rate?
Landing pages have to be written for both the expert and non-technical user because you get both expert and non-technical visitors. Here's how to do that.
Why I never use reCAPTCHA on Google Ads landing pages
Nobody wants an inbox full of spam, but preventing fake leads from submitting your form is wrong if you’re paying for online advertising. Here's why...
Improve conversion rates with visitor-focussed headlines
High-converting headlines are about what the visitor cares for, not about the characteristics of the business. Here's how to check your headline for visitor focus.
6 Critical Mistakes You're Making with Your Landing Page
Amy Hoy wrote a brilliant article titled 6 Critical Mistakes You're Making with Your Landing Page. She makes a really interesting observation which resonated with me: Landing page design is actually a usability exercise.
CAPTCHA is like putting barbed wire in front of your shop
Don't make it difficult for your customers to contact you. Businesses with the smoothest processes will attract (and keep) the best customers.
Do long enquiry forms get more qualified leads?
If your enquiry form asks for much more than contact details you're losing qualified sales leads. Read on to learn why...
How I got landing page load time down from 0.8 seconds to 0.2 seconds.
Here’s a quick tip for improving landing page speed. As you know, nobody likes a slow website. Load speed is strongly correlated with the conversion rate: Fast website = more leads.
How long should your landing page be?
How long should your landing page be? The answer isn't a number.
How to craft high-converting headlines, even if you have the copywriting skills of a turnip.
If you’re anything like me, starting is the hardest part of writing. It's like I'm staring at the screen waiting for someone to unblock the idea pipe. That struggle is over.
How to improve landing page conversion rates by increasing visitor motivation
Here's how I doubled the conversion rate on some Google Ads lead generation landing pages by improving visitor's motivation.
How to improve landing page experience.
Improving page speed helps improve landing page experience. Google's guidance is broad, not specific. That makes it hard to know what to do. Google does provide one specific set of instructions, following these will improve landing page experience and boost conversion rates.
Improve conversion rates by adding extra calls to action.
Need to improve your conversion rate? Here's a tested approach that takes only a few minutes.
Landing pages: Click-to-call or contact form?
You get the highest conversion rates from landing pages that concentrate on convincing visitors to do just one thing. Offer visitors too many choices and they bounce. But what if there are two equally good things your visitor could do?
Length is a liability; value per page is an asset.
This is a quote from Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick. His advice is perfect for lead-generation landing pages.
Use HTTPS for your landing pages or kill your conversion rate.
The number of website enquiries you get is going to fall off a cliff after 24th of October if your website doesn't use HTTPS. After the 24th of October 2017, Google Chrome will warn people that web pages with forms are insecure unless they’re served over HTTPS. Here's how to fix this.
We read websites like we did 100 years ago
Even though the internet is infinitely more ubiquitous now. Even though we've had a generation grow up with Google. Even though 2-year olds have iPads . The way people read websites hasn't changed...
What's your landing page's first job?
It’s not to convince someone to buy from you, establish trust, build your brand or educate your customer. Those things are important but they're not the first job. The first job is ...
I’m paying for clicks but I'm not getting enough leads.
Read on to learn how your website could be sabotaging your advertising. And, what you can do to get more leads from your the clicks you've already paid for.
Improve website conversion rates with autocomplete
Autocomplete makes filling forms faster and easier. Here's how to set it up.
Available topics
Agency insights
Thoughts and lessons on client selection, burnout, pricing, and modernising legacy accounts, from someone who's run a Google Ads for years.
Conversion tracking
Understand what happens after someone clicks your advert. Subjects include offline conversions, CRM integration, attribution, auditability and marketing instrumentation.
Essays and thinking
Articles about marketing, engineering, AI and problem solving that don't fit neatly into the other topics. These are some of the ideas and experiences that have shaped how I think.
Google Ads for lead generation
Learn how to use Google Ads to generate profitable leads. Subjects include campaign strategy, bidding, targeting, optimisation and the challenges of running lead generation campaigns.
Landing pages
Things I've learned about high-converting landing pages. Subjects include copywriting, page structure, forms, trust, conversion rate optimisation and user experience.
Lead quality
Understand why some leads become customers while others don't. Subjects include diagnosing poor leads, qualification, filtering junk leads and improving the feedback you send to Google Ads.
Sales Process
What happens after a lead has been generated determines if Google Ads is profitable. Subjects include first contact, follow-up, quoting, lead nurturing and turning more enquiries into customers.
Most Google Ads Problems Aren't Google Ads Problems
If my writing resonates with you, I'd like to give you a copy of my book, Profitable Google Ads. The book was written for business owners, but many PPC professionals have found it valuable too.
Before you download it, what describes you best?
© 2026 Pete Bowen