'Beware the Click Without the Conversion?

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It is a funny thing with pay-per-click marketing.

Marketers spend significant time and money increasing their traffic volume (click-throughs) while focusing less on the website conversion strategies that produce results from the click-throughs.

Why is this funny'

Because in essence, a 'click-through' places money in the pocket of the pay-per-click search engine --- only a 'conversion' like a sale or sales lead creates money for the marketer.

Under a practical perspective, a 'click-through rate' is the percentage of times your 'FREE LISTING' (called an 'impression') is clicked on to generate a 'PAID' visitor. Until your website conversion strategies 'convert' the PAID visitor into a valued action, the visitor is an expense.

The higher your click-through rate the greater your expense and the more revenue you create for the paid search engines. Thus by increasing traffic volume, you fuel the search engine's growth, not yours.

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Another perspective is to envision a 'click-through' as placing coins into a slot machine. You cannot win the jackpot without inserting coins yet your preference is winning with fewer coins than with more. Likewise, you need click-throughs from your paid search ads to your website to generate sales or sales leads; however, your preference should be winning with fewer click-throughs than with more. If your not focused on increasing your website conversion strategies than this gambling metaphor makes a great deal of sense, right'

The BIG Question is 'How to Focus on Maximizing Your Website Conversion Strategies''

How do you win the 'jackpot' with less click-throughs' There are a few different website conversion strategies to increase your results from your paid search marketing. Some of the strategies are managed at the paid search engine level, while the others at handled at the website level (or referred to as your 'landing page').

Here is a quick list of website conversion strategies for turning more paid search engine visitors into sales or sales leads with less click-throughs'

Being Successful In Spite Of Others
Copyright 2005 Craig Friesen

My mother thinks I am lazy. I confess that I have stopped listening to her. Just because I do not enjoy ten .....

1. Negatively Qualify Visitors in Ad Titles and Descriptions:

Your objective is to 'negatively-qualify' potential visitors by explicitly stating major product or service attributes, using words that connect with qualified buyers versus non-qualified ones and setting 'click roadblocks' like prices to divert 'out-of-your-market' searchers from clicking on your ad simply out of curiosity or false pretenses.

Ideally, you want to give the potential visitor the most important information at the 'impression' level before you pay for them after a click-through. Consider these elements when writing your ad's titles and/or descriptions.

' Always use the keyword in your title (and if possible, description). Industry research indicates that the 'perceived' quality is approximately 60% higher in listings where the search term is included.

' In the description, include short, concise statements communicating your customer benefits. If you have limited room, then prioritize you customer benefits and list only the most important ones.

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' Because you have limited character space, you must choose your words wisely. Certain words like, 'Maximize', 'Exclusive' and 'Indulge' have a positive persuasive impact on potential visitors versus negative ones like 'Difficult' or 'Expensive'.

' If you have an e-commerce website Include a product's model number, your shipping incentives and shipping reach (nationwide or international), any guarantees, the price, potential inventory restrictions or other specific product or service information that customers require (or expect) to read and review before making a buying decision.

One important 'experience' note ' you will never divert all non-qualified click-throughs. It is human nature to not always read the print and simply click through an ad. Unfortunately, logic does not always apply to behavior.

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2. Track Performance for the Individual Keyword:

Track your paid search marketing at the keyword-level. It is essential that you know your 'per click' results from the money you spend.

For example, if you have 1,000 keywords active in your paid search marketing program and you spend a total of $3,000 a month ' do you know which of the 1,000 keywords produce the best results'

What if 80% of your sales stem from 20% of your keywords' Moreover, what if this 20% accounted for just a small percentage of your $3,000 monthly cost' If you do not have keyword-level tracking you will not be able to make these financially beneficial assessments. Time-tested experience shows that tracking your keywords generates higher returns on investment and enable greater leverage of your website conversion strategies.

Be careful though of matching options (i.e. broad, advanced, exact, phrase and so on) offered by Google Adwords, Overture and other pay-per-click search engines. They provide 'convenience' but unfortunately they skew your keyword performance results.

If you setup a 'broad-match' for the keyword 'real estate', you will attract visitors who have entered any possible variation of the term 'real estate' including geographically specific 'real estate' keywords that may have absolutely no relevance to your product or service.

3. Employ Custom Landing Pages:

This is an absolute for all paid search marketing campaigns. Pay-per-click marketing is unique compared to other mainstream forms of online marketing. In part because marketers have the opportunity to select specific keywords, write specific ads and direct the click-through to a specific web page. This 'connect-the-dots' process creates the need to develop consistency among the visitor's expectation from the keyword they enter to the ad that draws their attention and down to the web page they 'land-on'. Relevancy and consistency are essential for an effective pay-per-click marketing program.

One of the reportedly major reasons why pay-per-click marketing programs fall short of their intended goal is because businesses direct all of their click-throughs to their home page or to a poorly developed 'contact us' form or product page. Since most businesses' websites are designed to ......