By Hostway
Pay per click (PPC) advertising continues to be one of the most cost effective and measurable marketing mediums available. Campaigns are becoming more sophisticated to increase the return on investment. The PPC experience should be seamless: the search engine ad catches visitors' attention with an offer and the ad leads to a offer-specific landing page that provides the offer details and tells visitors how to sign-up.
This ad/landing page combination leads to a better user experience than linking to your home page and hoping the visitor figures out what to do from there.
The Customer Experience
To make it easy for your potential customers to understand your product or service and how to buy it, you'll need to create a page focused on a single offer. Give them only one or two options for clicking on the page so they don't get lost. If your goal is to generate sales leads, the only option on the landing page should be "sign up to learn more". If your goal is to sell, "order now" would be the best option.
Next, it is important that the ad and landing page are closely related. Any keywords used in the PPC ad should appear on the landing page as well. Visitors may feel tricked if you offer something in the ad, and the landing page doesn't mention it. And search engines could lower your quality score as a result.
Making the Search Engines Happy
Pay per click ads are the bread and butter of search engines' business model. They are able to provide search functionality for free because they bring an enormous number of eyes to a site where advertising can be inexpensive and very effective.
Because of this set up, search engines must cater first to their audience. Only by continuing to bring large numbers of people to their sites, can they offer advertisers any value. Google rewards high-quality landing pages lower per-click prices, and other search engines are likely to follow.
When search engines look at your landing page, they're looking for elements that give their users a better experience, including:
- New, original content
- Relevancy to your ad
- Easy-to-find privacy policy
Incorporating all of these items usually leads to more sales and return visits.
Turning Visitors into Customers
When people use the Internet to shop, the options are nearly endless and your ad may appear next to many competitors. It's important for you to focus on how your company differs from the competition and present that information on your landing page.
When visitors click to your landing page, you have just seconds to convince them to do business with you, so start off by telling them how you're different than all the other companies offering the same product or service.
Once you have your ad and the landing page, you're ready to launch a pay per click campaign! It's a great way to drive traffic to your Web site and grow your business.