For the Google search “Scottsdale landscaping,” seven of the ten published AdWords ads were powered by Dex:…

Thanks for your comments. I agree with most of your points about the Dex landing pages. They are rudimentary in the sense that they display the content prospective customers are searching for, but I would not cite them as examples of landing page best practices.

In my experience, managing brand campaigns, the most effective landing pages are one page, entirely above the fold, featuring a unique value proposition, pleasant aesthetics, and utilizing 1/4 to 1/3 of the space to emphasize a clear call-to-action. These types of landing pages yield the highest quality scores and conversion rates.

You asked if I think Dex is able to treat these 7 landscapers that are competitors equally. In a sense they are treating them equally by serving the same blah format of a landing page. Do they provide great value to them all? Probably not. Ad positioning and creative may be the deciding factors here.

Also, I have enjoyed reading Dennis’ insights on local search in the past and I view him as a contributor to our industry.

Tom

I would like to point out that I don’t feel these Dex landing pages exemplify “best practices.”
I’d be curious to know what kind of quality scores their keywords have.

Google has stated that they do not like landing pages with just one page because it does not make for a good user experience. Keyword stuffing is also not a good thing to do for Adwords. I find to maintain a good QS, you have to breakdown your adgroups as much as possible, and use on site SEO factors to show those keywords are relevant to that specific landing page. You can’t do that by lumping everything into one page like Dex is doing.

I’m sure you know the higher the QS the lower the CPC for the client in respect to their ad position.

I’m also curious to know if you think Dex is able to treat these 7 landscapers that are competitors equally. From my POV they cannot.

Dennis did make a mistake about the SEO aspect, but he is not a “pretender” by any means. I hope that was not the first article you read by him. If so check out his home blog, he has a lot of smart stuff on there.

Just followed you on Twitter, and looking forward to hearing more from you.