Adwords Landing Pages - The best approach

[caravan]

I've started working on my first adword campaign for quite a few years and since my last dealings with adwords things seem to have changed quite a bit. We have identified our keywords, setup A/B testing on adverts and are looking to create dedicated landing pages for each adgroup (and intend to A/B test landing page layouts). But what makes a good landing page?

Should I be creating a textual, information based landing page? or a salesy, imagery based landing page? The market sector is targeting business insolvency services rather than a consumer product market. Should I keep the text short and snappy or will more text help the quality score?

Finally, would you recommend make the page seem like a standalone page or integrate the navigation into the page so it looks a seemless part of the main website?

If obviously goes without saying the page will have a prominent call to action.

[morestar]

I'm exited to see some of the replies...I'm currently going through the same dilemma with one of my clients - the landing page is seamless and now I'm going to be testing a landing page design that isn't similar to the main site. The current landing page is simply NOT turning those landers into customers...no one is filling out the 3 field form and submitting it.

[SemAdvance]

Split test the landing pages and then replicate the one that wins.

A / B Split test with two of the exact same ads.

You can also do this with two ad groups using the same keywords and alternating the days that each adgroup runs the ads.

[deepsand]

This is a case of the Cart being placed before the Horse.

Form follows Function.

Design the site around the subject and its appropriate keywords; then design the ad groups and ads for the resulting pages.

[Tarzan2]

Split test the landing pages and then replicate the one that wins.

A / B Split test with two of the exact same ads.

You can also do this with two ad groups using the same keywords and alternating the days that each adgroup runs the ads.

HUH?? Am I missing something here or did you miss the point of the question?
It seems the OP is telling us that they ARE doing A/B testing, but asking about LANDING PAGES, to which your response does not even attempt to respond.

[Tarzan2]

I've started working on my first adword campaign for quite a few years and since my last dealings with adwords things seem to have changed quite a bit. We have identified our keywords, setup A/B testing on adverts and are looking to create dedicated landing pages for each adgroup (and intend to A/B test landing page layouts). But what makes a good landing page?

Should I be creating a textual, information based landing page? or a salesy, imagery based landing page? The market sector is targeting business insolvency services rather than a consumer product market. Should I keep the text short and snappy or will more text help the quality score?

Finally, would you recommend make the page seem like a standalone page or integrate the navigation into the page so it looks a seemless part of the main website?

If obviously goes without saying the page will have a prominent call to action.

I would say that a short but powerful attraction to conversion is what makes a good landing page for an ad. Since the ad is drawing the visitor, I would worry less about SEO and more about conversion. Let the site's other pages do the SEO and bring customers in from that end.

Since the landing page is the 'call to action' page, it should not be sending visitors to the rest of the site. The rest of the site should be sending visitors to the landing page for that call to action. Of course you don't want the page to look like it belongs to another site, so it has to fit in with the rest of the site's look and feel.