Adwords Landing Pages

What if I told you I could dramatically increase the effectiveness of your search engine marketing program and catapult your conversion rates without even logging into Google AdWords? The solution is actually one of the most overlooked aspects of search engine advertising. This simple, yet small change in any search engine marketing campaign can immediately boost conversion rates, sales, and help gain a competitive advantage. I’m talking about the proper use of SEM landing pages.

The beauty of search engine marketing is that visitors are pre-qualified and only visiting your site due to the fact that they entered a specific relevant search term. I’ve seen companies spend thousands of dollars bidding on popular keywords and ranking well, but then just drop visitors on their home page. I just shake my head when I see pages like this. You may get brand awareness but its a big waste of money if your goal is converting visitors. Studies have shown that if visitors are delivered directly to the product or service they were searching for, there is a much higher conversion rate compared to the home page or even relevant category pages as the entry point.

It’s best to set up category-based AdGroups in Google with each url pointing to a targeted landing page. It may be more work up front to build all these extra landing pages, but trust me, it pays off.

In my experience, there are three main decisions a visitor makes during the conversion process. With each decision comes several simple facts that go through a visitors head during the decision process. You should study these facts and build your landing pages based on them.

Do I Stay or Go? (Usually decided in the first few seconds)

• Short, Easy-To-Complete Registration Forms
• Relevant & Targeted Headline
• Specific Graphic (Product, Selling Points, Offer)
• Clear & Concise Copy
• Simple & Clear Layout
• Professional Design

Do I Want the Offer?

• Rich Media Information (Video, Demo, Screen Shots)
• Testimonials (White Paper, Case Study, Success Story)
• Free Offer (Product Trial, Site Access)

Ok, I Want It

• Minimize Required Fields
• Opt Out Option
• Privacy Statement
• No Broken Links
• Shopping Cart Works
• Security Logos

Ok, now you know what goes through a visitors mind once they come to a landing page. Now before getting too excited, Id recommend jotting down your current SEM landing page statistics (i.e. CTR, conversion rate, etc) before refining your landing page. This will give you a baseline report and great before/after data to present to management in a month or two.

I assure you after you incorporate these changes, you’ll be a hero in your Marketing organization. Now get to work!

David Cowgill is a Marketing Manager in San Francisco. For further information visit: Free Article Submission

You can make many times the profits you are making now without paying one extra penny in advertising or hunting for extra traffic!

It’s easy if you make a few changes on your site’s ‘ad copy’…

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If you’re looking for an easy and low risk way to increase your landing page conversion rates, then use the conversion rate optimization strategies outlined in this online guide.

About Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion Rate Optimization is the continual process of making your Web Site and landing pages generate better results from your visitor traffic. For example, more leads, opt-ins, and more sales. Conversion Rate Optimization is also the fastest and easiest strategy to increase your sales without spending more money on increasing your traffic. In fact, the most successful companies test everything.

For example, GoToMyPC.com increased their conversion rates by 400% by testing the following;

• Headlines
• Call to Action
• Copy
• Images
• Graphics
• Button Look
• Button Text
• Button Location
• No Links
• Press Quotes
• Testimonials
• Pricing
• Flow Through Process
• And more

Optimizing Your Landing Pages ‘Conversion Funnel’

If you review your web site statistics (called ‘log files’) you’ll notice the following 4 things are happening on your landing pages…

1. The largest percentage of your visitors are bailing within 0-8 seconds after briefly viewing your landing page.
2. The second largest percentage of visitors bail when they decide your landing page does not prove compelling.
3. A small percentage of visitors attempt to convert (buy or use a contact form to become a lead) but fail. Many of these people will call.
4. A small percentage of visitors convert.

Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of optimizing your landing pages to minimize your ‘bail out rate’ and maximize your ‘conversion rate’ (CR).

The Top 6 Landing Page Components To Optimize for Maximizing Your Conversions

The following are the Top 6 conversion components that should be tested and improved to boost your conversion rates…

1. Headline - Since your headline is the first line that your visitors will read, the headline of your web page offers the biggest opportunity (about 80% of the opportunity) for improvements in conversion rate. Use headlines that clearly state the biggest benefit(s) that your product offers.
2. Offer - Since your offer is the ‘call to action’ that asks your visitors to act (purchase, sign up, opt-in), your offer accounts for the second the biggest opportunity for improvements in conversion rate.
3. Lead - The ‘lead’ or first paragraph is the third biggest opportunity for improvements in your conversion rate. Leads must be written with strong benefits that capture your visitors attention and make them want to read more.
4. Benefits - The ‘benefit bullets’ (bullet-point format) are the forth biggest opportunity for improvements in conversion rate. List your benefits in the order of your products ‘value hierarchy’ to your target market. In other words, state your products strongest benefit first, and its weakest benefit last.
5. Images - The images you use have a big impact on your conversion rates. The best practice is to use images that clearly portray the biggest benefit your product offers your customer (rather than generic ‘feel good’ stuff like unknown logos and clip art). Studies show that product images work best when placed to the left of your product description (or lead paragraph) since it makes it easier to read your copy from left to right. Plus, people like to reads ‘captions’ under your images almost as much as they read your headlines. So, add powerful captions and make your images clickable to the order/sign up page.
6. ‘Look & Feel’ - According to a recent study by Stanford University, 46% of Web sales are lost on web sites that lack the critical elements that build value and trust with website visitors. The number one reason the people indicated why they would’nt buy from a web site was because it had an unprofessional ‘look and feel’ that lacked credibility and did not ‘feel’ trustworthy. Having a professional look, and trust building tools (such as VeriSign and BBBOnline certifications) help convert significantly more of your web sites qualified visitors into new customers.

Other Important Conversion Elements to test:

• Buttons - Button text, color, look, etc.
• Pricing
• Formatting and placement of page elements, images and copy
• Navigation links versus no navigation links
• Press Quotes
• Testimonials

Other Conversion Best Practices and Tips:

• Reduce your ‘bail out rate’ by optimizing your web pages to download within 5 seconds on a 56k modem - Test your pages on Andy King’s ‘Web Page Analyzer’ at http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/
• Add a 1-800 Number and a Call to Action above the fold (top of the page)
• Add a Logo and a powerful ‘Value Proposition’ to the top left
• Instead of letting visitors click off your landing page, put all your information on one page (This tactic alone increased the conversions of a landing page by 55%)
• Use colors that fit your target customers personality

Conclusion:

When you use ‘Conversion Rate Optimization’ to test and improve your web pages and landing pages you can double your sales (possibly even quadruple) when you add up all the performance improvements. Of course, it takes time and work but its well worth the effort.

If you’re truly serious about maximizing your results, continuously test, track and improve the important elements of your web site, landing pages (and your marketing materials).

Matt Hockin is President of Interactive Marketing, Inc., an Internet marketing company specializing in helping businesses increase sales by maximizing website search engine visibility and website conversions through the process of web site optimization http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com

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