Archives for July 2007

If you are running your business online, and are tempted to dive into search engine marketing (SEM), we strongly recommend that you choose a professional pay-per-click (PPC) management firm instead of trying to run the campaigns yourself. There are going to be some rare cases when having a great deal of expertise in the setup and maintenance of SEM campaigns and landing pages will not be necessary, but a reputable PPC marketing company will set up your accounts properly, ensure that you aren’t wasting your money, and are targeting the traffic that is going to get you the best possible return on investment (ROI).

If you want to run the campaigns yourself, at least have a marketing firm set up the accounts for you. Their thousands of hours of trial and error with marketing campaigns will help you immensely from the targeting of the best keywords for your business to the creation of offer-specific landing pages which are built with the latest in marketing techniques and layouts.

If you feel totally comfortable setting up and running the campaigns on your own, then do yourself a favor and at least have some professionally designed landing pages or landing sites set up. They will maximize the number of conversions from your PPC/SEM traffic.

For more information on professional PPC management practices and services, please contact us using the forms on this site; we will happily provide you with a free initial consultation.

Landing pages are of course a vital part to any SEM/PPC campaign, but one thing that can be limiting with them is that they are very specific and need to be simple so that the visitor is given exactly what they are searching for. But what about cases where your Pay Per Click traffic is of a more general nature, or you’re unsure as to which “call to action” is going to be the most effective for your business? Well, then you’re probably going to be better off setting up what’s called a landing site instead.

Landing sites are simple websites, with several pages, that present the visitor with several opportunities to convert. Much like a landing page, in order to access the full site, the visitor must at least opt into taking the first step in converting for you. The multiple pages will contain information tied to specific offers, and forms custom created for those offers. You can still put a healthy amount of information on these pages and give your visitors some navigation choices, but ultimately they must start to convert for you to see the full site.

These landing sites work extremely well with people looking to buy expensive items, as the multiple pages give you several chances to establish yourself as an authority on what you’re selling. These pricey products often carry a lengthy research phase with them, so having the extra marketing real estate to deliver that info really helps gain the trust of potential clients.

Should you have any specific questions about landing site design, how it can drive you more business, and examples, we would be happy to provide you with a free initial consultation.

Clients will often ask us whether we can set it up so that the contact forms on their lead generation landing pages have built-in validation to keep “fake” or “bogus” leads out of their contact management system (CMS).

We don’t filter leads because it can cause more people to bounce off the landing page (in other words, “abort mission”) if they have to validate their information. So even if our clients have to sort through the ‘bogus’ leads, it’s going to be better for them to get every possible lead than to lose a significant percentage who are not into filling out an entire form or fixing their form errors.

What’s the best way to address this? Well, having a great email drip marketing campaign that you can just drop your leads into is the easiest way to manage large numbers of leads. It certainly makes following up on “bad” ones less of a chore. It also delivers the best long-term ROI since leads in many industries have a longer research phase before they reach a buying decision. Also making your forms as concise as possible will limit the amount of false information. There’s no sense in asking for more from your visitors than is absolutely necessary for them to take the next step in the buying process with you. Make those forms as easy to fill out as possible, and that’s another thing you can do to limit the “bogus” leads.

For a thorough analysis of your lead-generation program, our experts can assist you in making the right decisions when retooling your search marketing campaigns. For a free initial consultation, please use our form and one of our certified internet marketing experts will be in touch with you shortly.

This question comes up all the time in the search marketing industry: why should I even bother setting up a landing page for my pay-per-click account? Doesn’t my home page have all the information anyone could need?

The funny thing is that the second question actually answers the first question. Let us explain: if the entire point of a SEM account is to drive traffic to your site in order to generate leads and sales, then we want to get them from point A to point B as quickly as possible. If you have all the information they could need at their entry point, then there are too many choices for them to pick from; many of them having nothing to do with generating a lead or sale. So in most cases, more information and navigational choice is the last thing you want at the entry point to a site.

What you do want is a place where your visitors can instantly make a decision on an appealing offer that is specific to their search phrase. If they have this, they can only choose to accept, decline, or bounce. That’s a lot fewer choices than your home page would present, and since you place the offer prominently on the page, it’s nearly guaranteed that they will at least consider the offer. We’ve seen cases where using a specific landing page will literally multiply the number of leads and sales you generate online, so definitely utilize one!

Should you need professional assistance setting up a landing page, please don’t hesitate to contact us today for a free initial internet marketing consultation. We’ve set up literally hundreds of successful pages, and can easily do so for you.

BigSERP.Com: We Make Great Landing Pages.