EBizInsider

It is easy for e-commerce merchants to monitor pay-per-click advertising to see if people are clicking on your ads. It is easy to see if your website is listed in the first ten results of a search engine. What’s not easy is figuring out how to make the most of your pay-per-click advertising or your organic listing. Below are some methods small businesses can use to drive traffic.

The landing page is crucial to the equation. It’s where you drive people, answer their questions and hopefully help them fulfill their shopping mission.

MarketingExperiments has done extensive testing with landing page optimization by focusing on how to improve conversions. Their tests conclude the number one threat to conversion is site flow disruption. Simply put, when the message you use to drive people to your website doesn’t match the message on the landing page people get disrupted and conversions drop.

Give the landing page the attention it requires. Typically, a landing page requires design and programming work just like a section page or item page, but the results can be well worth the extra effort.

Let’s say I’m a lawn and garden supply company and one of my pay-per-click ads says “Get ready for Spring” sending them to the following landing page:

What’s the first category that people see? “Winter and Seasonal.” Because my general home page has not been updated to match my ad, I have caused a disruption in my intended message. After people saw the Spring ad, they thought they were going to get supplies for spring time gardening. But I didn’t deliver. Some people will click the ad and hunt for spring-time supplies, but many won’t. MarketingExperiments saw an increase in conversion by over 100% with one controlled experiment!

Do this with your OWN site.

THE AD

Your ad should create the value and give people a reason to click on it and visit your website. Headlines should be compelling but not misleading. Misleading copy can generate lots of clicks and cost lots of money, but the goal is to drive qualified traffic to your website.

THE LANDING PAGE

Spend the time to make your landing page more effective. First, remove as much “clutter” as possible from the page. This includes things like left hand navigation or newsletter sign-up. You want people to focus on one goal and not be so distracted that they lose interest in your page.

Second, examine the heading at the top of the page. This headline should be compelling and support the value. It should use language that is similar to your ad copy.

Third, consider how much information you should put on the page. Should you simply put an “Add to Cart” button or an email form? MarketingExperiments found that there are four factors when determining how much information to put on a landing page:

- Cost

- Perceived risk—anxiety

- Level of commitment (high/low; long/short)

- Motivation Type (rational/emotional; analytical/impulse; want/need)

They found that short copy performs better when the cost to the visitor is low (or none at all), the risk is low (or none at all), the commitment level is low (or short) and the visitor is motivated by emotions, impulse or by a feeling of “want.”

Long copy performs better when the cost is high, risk is high, commitment level is high (or long) and they are motivated by rational, analytical or the feeling of “need.”

Then, consider the placement of elements like images and the call-to-action area (add to cart or sign up).

THE ACTION

The call-to-action is important, but so is the process when shoppers complete the action–the checkout process. It should be similar to the landing page with as little information as possible. Any information should be supporting, not distracting and should limit any site flow disruption.

Finally, do a test to determine which elements works best with the offer and the different elements on a page. For more information and test results, visit http://www.marketingexperiments.com.

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