There are countless factors involved in the conversion of visitors to your website. Leaving a single one unaccounted for can have disastrous results. Such problems must be quickly accounted for when utilizing pay-per-click advertising. Fortunately this means, inversely, that correcting even one of these factors can result in drastic improvements to your ROI.
Text Ad Copy
The perfect landing page means nothing if your initial copy doesn’t generate valuable visitors. Many pay-per-click campaigns fail at this first step by aiming for generic keywords or by aiming for long tail keywords without properly developing copy that targets and entices the people who would make that search. Weeding out low-converting clicks can also greatly improve profit—any campaign that fails to utilize negative keywords is inevitably wasting at least some marketing funds.
Two factors should be considered in generating your ad copy and selecting your keywords:
1. Target Demographic: Word selection and the tone of your ad should take into account the visitors you’re targeting and the nature of your landing page. High energy copy that excites impulse buyers may work wonders when targeting consumers, but that same copy may lose cautious business professions looking for neutral, detailed information. Split testing is vital for feeling out your audience and determining the highest value approach.
2. Buying Cycle: Someone searching for ‘cheap GeneriCamera 60a’ requires a very different approach from someone searching ‘best camera for beginning photographer’. Understanding were in the buying cycle your clicks are coming from plays heavily into how you should approach your copy. There is no point advertising bargain pricing or bonus items if your audience doesn’t know what they want to buy, and there is no point sending someone who wants to buy right this second to a review or introduction to the product.
Landing Pages
Once you know you are bringing valuable visitors in and what they are looking for, you can begin to tailor your landing pages for high conversion rates.
There are several things to carefully consider when creating your landing pages:
1. Ad Copy: Targeting demographics and your visitors’ position in the buying cycle are as important in landing pages as they are in your text ads. Medical professionals looking to buy expensive training courses or equipment need hard facts and endorsement from their fellows or trustworthy agencies. Impulse buyers need to be given an endless stream of reasons to be excited and presented with numerous opportunities to buy.
2. Layout: This is perhaps the most frequently overlooked aspect of landing pages. Distracting your visitors with material that doesn’t work to convert them does no good. A visitor late in the buying cycle is likely best targeted with a landing page that offers them only information on the product they’re ready to buy and the opportunity to buy it—removing sidebars and links to other parts of your website can result in greatly improved conversion rates. If, on the other hand, you are looking to convert a repeat customer, you must make sure your website entices returns with by presenting a clean layout and promoting the benefits of converting.
3. Why Should They Convert: If you’re offering a product or service or information available elsewhere, convincing your visitors to take your offer becomes vital. You must offer something competing products, vendors, or information sources cannot—this can be discounted pricing, free additional products, or services unavailable elsewhere.
Final Word
Determining the ideal copy, layout, and offers for high pay-per-click conversion rates will always require trial and error and careful analysis of statistics. Constant split testing will offer you the most efficient path to success.
