PPC Without Pity

One of the most important questions to answer in a PPC account is how to increase conversions. To me, this is one of the most misunderstood problems in pay per click marketing. So much focus is given to keywords, text ads, ad groups, and campaigns, but in the end all these factors can do is drive traffic to your site. They really don’t have anything to do with whether or not your potential customer decides to complete a conversions.

In my opinion, the most decisive factor in increasing conversions is the landing page. Sure, you can potentially increase conversions by adding some more keywords or ad groups to drive more traffic. But eventually you’ll hit a wall where there are no more potential keywords or ad groups that describe your product or service. Then, you’ll need to rethink your landing page to make it more effective.

To find out where you might be going wrong, you need to think like a customer. Think about what keywords are directing to what landing pages. If a customer had a question related to those keywords, and they found themselves on the landing page you’ve selected, would they find the answer to their question on that page? They may need to know how much your product is, why it is better than your competitor’s product, or why they even need your product in the first place. Answer their questions! If you can answer these questions better than the next landing page they land on (and they will land on another page, especially in this comparison-shopping friendly economy), then you just might make the sale. By ensuring that more potential customers can find the information they want on your landing page, you probably have a good shot at increasing your pay-per-click conversions.

In my opinion, the landing page is the most crucial part of any pay per click marketing campaign. Ads and keywords can drive traffic to your site, but it’s your landing page that actually causes a potential customer to convert. But what makes a “good” landing page that will get you lots of conversions? Put simply, a high converting landing page will successfully build trust with your customer – they want to make sure that they’re getting what was advertised, and you’re not going to steal their money or identity.

There are three easy ways to build trust on a PPC landing page:

1. Add A Phone Number – despite the ubiquity of e-commerce, some people are still reluctant to hand over their credit card information to a strange new web store or service. Adding a phone number subtly assures your customers that your organization has a physical presence. Sure, just about anyone can get a phone number through Google Voice or any number of other VoIP providers (all the more reason to get one for your business!). However, adding a phone number is just reassuring on a subconscious level. Your customers may never use it, but they’ll be glad it’s there.
2. Testimonials – word of mouth is probably the most effective form of marketing. When people are considering a purchase, most times they’ll consult their friends, family, and acquaintances of the wisdom of their decision. Obviously, you can’t get feedback from everybody’s friends, but you can pick out a few enthusiastic customers and post their quotes on the website. Go fishing for happy customers by offering discount codes/coupons for honest reviews. Don’t make these up – most people can sense a fake review when they read them, and posting phony reviews on your site could do more harm than good. An honest, positive review will reassure people that real people are getting your product and enjoying it.
3. Good Web Design – this one is often overlooked. Just because you buy a canned e-commerce page template doesn’t mean that it will look good for what you have to offer. Customers are much more likely to buy from a page with a slick interface, easy navigation, and clean design rather than a page that looks like it was made by a teenager with a MySpace template. Step back from your current page for a second and ask yourself, “would I feel comfortable giving these guys my credit card number?” Investing in a few hours of solid web design work from an experienced freelancer will do wonders for a webpage – sometimes you just have to trust the experts instead of doing it yourself.

Any other ideas for building trustworthy landing pages? Let’s hear them in the comments…

Last week, I talked about some great keyword research tools that should be one of the first steps in any PPC campaign. This week, I want to talk about one of the best keyword research tools that you’re not using: your landing pages.

In any PPC campaign, relevance is key. You need to make sure that there is a strong relationship between the keywords your users are searching for, the ads they see on those searches, and the landing page they see after they click on your ad. The whole point of search engines is to connect people to the information that they need. Provide the right information to a user, and you’ll probably get yourself a customer.

If you have a great landing page but no PPC campaign, I highly recommend that you incorporate your page into your keyword research. This tends to work best for eCommerce websites with very robust product categories. Check your landing pages for brand names, model numbers, specific names for products, whatever. Make sure that your ad groups using these keywords land on the most specific pages relevant to your keywords – don’t be afraid to use keyword-level destination URLs!

This approach has a number of benefits:

1. You’ll be able to ensure that each specific keyword search lands on the specific page related to that keyword.
2. Highly specific keywords (like model numbers/names) tend to have a very low search volume, and bids aren’t very competitive to ensure they show up in top positions. This will save you ad spend money, and likely lower your cost per conversion.
3. You’ll be reaching customers who intend to buy, not just browse. Someone who searches for a keyword like “coffee machine” is probably just looking for prices, or researching different products. Someone who searches for “DeLonghi EC140B Pump Espresso Machine” probably has a good idea of what they want, though, and will likely buy if you have a compelling price or a particularly good offer.

Landing page keyword research isn’t quite as effective for websites that are poorly written and/or organized. But you probably shouldn’t have those kinds of sites on the internet anyway. I’ve seen some incredible success with this method on retail sites, though, so I highly recommend it to any eCommerce retailer starting to dabble in PPC (or to folks like me who have to manage their accounts!).