In the first two parts we talked about keywords and your advertising copy for a successful Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign.  The final piece is all about your landing pages.

Here at Palo Alto Software, we use custom landing pages often - I am actually in the middle of a big project to create about 20-30 landing pages. For example: when a potential customer searches for “business plan”, they will see different text and a different landing page than the customer who typed in “Business Plan Pro Premier”.  Each of these customers are at a very different buying stage and deserve copy and pages that speak directly to them - and their willingness to purchase.

As with the keywords to advertising text connection, the advertising text and landing pages must also be consistent. If the user saw an ad for Green Widgets and the landing page was information about widgets in general, the user wouldn’t have a great experience. If the user saw an ad for Green Widgets and the landing page showed a Green Widget and talked about Green Widgets, the customer had a great experience and got the information they were seeking.

If your keywords, ad copy and landing pages do not mimic each other, undesirable high bounce rates are sure to come your way!

Bonus Tip: Use Website Optimizer. Users respond to changes on your website. Some changes could be good, others could negatively affect your conversion rate. By utilizing Website Optimizer, you can test many variations of your website (such as changing the wording of the headline, placement of images, etc.) or you can test several completely different designs. You will be amazed at what changes affect customer behavior.

Although many companies have an online presence and are involved in Pay-Per-Click advertising, few get it right. By getting back to the basics (keywords, advertising text, and landing pages) you are sure to be competing well in your space.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this series and have taken something away from it.

Nicole Poole
Online Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: fundamentals, ppc
Posted on November 21st, 2008 | No Comments »

In my last post we talked about keywords for a PPC campaign. This time we’re going to talk about Advertising copy.

Your first step was to review keywords. Your second step is to review and create advertising copy.

Does your ad copy correlate to the keywords the user typed in? It should. Does your advertising copy repeat the keyword? It should. Your potential customer will have a better user experience on your site if your advertising copy mimics the search term they typed in. If you were searching for a product or service online, which types of advertising copy do you click on? The ones that might have something to do with what you are looking for or the ones that obviously say they have what you are looking for?

Advertising copy is hard to create. With only 70 characters, how do you get your potential customers to click on your ad instead of your competitors’ ad? Testing ad copy (see bonus tip below) and trying different messages to see which one works best for your goals is the way to go. To get started, look at your landing page and pull text from there. The landing page’s headline could be used, or perhaps one of your product’s listed features will fit in the 70 characters allowed. Not only will the landing page give you some ideas, but by using the same content in both the advertising text and the landing page, the customer experience is better (and so is your quality score!).

Bonus Tip: Include at least two different advertising texts in each ad group. You can see click-through rate (the ratio of impressions to clicks – one of the factors in your quality score) and potential conversion rate for each different ad, allowing you to find the wording that best suits your objectives.

Nicole Poole
Online Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: advertising, fundamentals, keywords, ppc
Posted on November 20th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

There are so many details to managing a good Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign that many people outsource the task to those who know the systems very well. Others try to manage their website’s keyword lists, advertising copy and landing page on their own – Some do it well, others do not.

It’s important to go back to the basics of a PPC campaign (keywords, advertising text and landing pages). Google is constantly changing the aspects of how advertisements are ranked for certain keywords (it’s not just about the bid), that having the core fundamentals in place is important and needs constant review.

I’m going to be presenting this subject in three parts, starting with keywords:

Your keywords are how people find your website, your products and your services. The terms that potential customers type in when searching can be everything from your website name to a very obscure misspelling of your top product.

Doing research on which terms people are using to find you is critical. You want to be in front of those potential customers. Google AdWords has a good keyword tool that lets you enter a term, such as one of your product names, and it will give you the average search volume for the past month as well as other related search terms. This tool is one of many that give you the power to find out what your potential customers are typing into the search engines to find your business.

For those who already have a keyword list, it is still beneficial to get back to the basics and see what others are searching for. Trends change, language changes and seasons change. Many different external factors could have an impact on user behavior.

Once you have finished researching your terms or refining your keyword list, review your list of terms. Ensure that these are the terms you still want to bid on. Perhaps your business goals have changed and you no longer want to promote Red Widgets because you have found that Blue and Green Widgets are what potential customers really want.

Change is good – as long as it follows a plan.

Bonus Tip: Use the Search Query Report. Among the reports in Google AdWords is a search query report that aggregates the actual searches that people used to find your ad and site. This is a great place to get additional keywords (straight from the user!) and also to find negative keywords. Negative keywords are important to help qualify your customer before they see your ad (and before you get the impressions and clicks that you know will not convert).

Nicole Poole
Online Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: , fundamentals, ppc
Posted on November 19th, 2008 | 1 Comment »