Most marketers want to
get the most out of both organic and
paid search. Existing sites are getting
more attention as marketers make sites
search-engine-friendly (or even
search-engine-maximized) as well as
user-friendly. Any search engine
marketer can tell you SEO (define)
requires compromise in areas such as
layout and copy length, style, and flow.
Yet, marketers recognize such a
compromise can result in a great experience for spiders
and users alike. After taking into account a site's
search-engine-friendliness and adapting copy and design,
you may have made compromises in user-friendliness and
conversion. These compromises may yield thousands of
new, targeted visitors to your site. The navigational
structure helps both search engine spiders and human
visitors understand the breadth of your site's
offerings. A bit of conversion loss as part of SEO
efforts is generally OK.
Paid search marketing campaigns provide
something SEO doesn't: complete user experience control.
When you pay for clicks, your ability to afford high
positions is directly related to your ability to meet
marketing objectives with each and every inbound
clickstream. Those objectives usually include a basket
of conversion behaviors, including lead generation,
purchase, and site immersion (to indicate early-stage,
research-related buying behavior). The least desirable
behavior is clicking the back button.
Pay-per-click (PPC) search's control is a
gift. By not exercising that control, you hand it to
your competition. Below, 10 reasons your existing Web
site may be completely wrong for your PPC search landing
pages:
-
Call to action.
Landing pages for visitors with specific needs (as
articulated by their search queries) require
specific calls to action. Regular site pages don't
carry strong call-to-action messages because they
aren't appropriate for general visitors.
-
Copy.
Regular site pages have more copy than you want to
show paid search visitors. You need a tight
correlation between the specific search and the
landing page copy to engage potential customer.
-
Navigation.
Regular site pages generally have full-site
navigation, which can distract paid search visitors.
Less is often more when it comes to navigational
clutter. You already know exactly what every paid
search visitor seeks; additional navigation can
distract the visitor from your message and her
mission.
-
Animation.
Flash, illustrations, and other animation are a
significant part of the user experience for paid
search visitors. These elements aren't present on
your general site.
-
Personalization.
You know more about paid search visitors.
Personalize their experience! Many automated
personalization engines and methods don't play well
with search engine spiders and may be disabled as
part of organic SEO efforts. In paid search,
personalization takes on a whole new meaning,
including treating returning customers differently
from new prospects.
-
Merchandising.
A retail store is merchandised based on geography,
neighborhood, and season. Route paid search traffic
to pages designed to take advantage of different
merchandising.
-
Offer testing.
It's much easier to test an offer when you know what
makes the traffic unique. You need a control to
test, and paid search provides it.
-
Microsites.
Sometimes you need an entirely new look, structure,
and flow for paid search visitors. A microsite is
your best route.
-
Domain name.
If you don't have a branded domain, a new
keyword-packed domain coupled with a microsite may
provide far better impression-to-click conversion at
the ad level. Particularly in Google, this results
in a higher AdRank and more efficiency. When you
don't have a brand, a descriptive URL may more
readily catch searchers' attention.
-
Ambiguity.
Some keywords fit your target market but not your
landing pages. A new landing page, separate from
your current site, can help test, improve
efficiency, and offer new opportunities.
If you didn't set aside a separate budget
or additional internal resources to take your site
beyond what's necessary for organic SEO, look closer and
imagine the characteristics of the perfect landing page
for each power keyword in your campaign. If those
landing pages don't exist, create them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin Lee is
co-founder and executive chairman of Did-it.com, LLC.
Did-it.com
uses advanced strategy and technology to optimize the
performance of its client's paid placement and paid
inclusion search campaigns. Kevin and the Did-it.com
team have been dedicated to helping search marketers
succeed since 1996. Kevin is a founding board member of
the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization
(SEMPO) and is now the group's chairman. He also serves
on the SEM committee for the Association of Interactive
Marketers, and on the Interactive Advertising Bureau's
Search Committee. He also publishes a popular
marketing newsletter. An acknowledged expert on SEO
and SEM, Kevin is regularly quoted by the major news
media including the Wall St. Journal,
Business Week, the San Jose Mercury News,
and Catalog Age. He is also a frequent and
well-respected speaker at industry conferences.
Kevin enjoys sharing tips, tricks and strategies in
print and in person. He earned an MBA from Yale School
of Management in 1992.
