With interactive Flash and offers to convert by it, any home page could be an effective landing page. But the reason why we send people to a landing page is because it is more simplistic with its navigation and more aggressive in its approach to lead generation. If you’d rather just have qualified eyes on a site with PPC, you could send your PPC traffic there, but you probably won’t get as many people filling out the forms. Which we know from years of experience that if you aren’t getting inquiries, you probably won’t be happy with the results from your search engine marketing campaign.

Need help building a killer landing page that will yield a much higher ROI than just sending your PPC traffic to your site’s home page? Fill out the contact form on our site and we’ll be in touch about how we can help you out.

You may have heard the term “landing page,” or may be quite familiar with it already. Either way, you must know this about them; landing pages can make or break your PPC/SEM campaigns! No matter how well your Adwords text ads target the right key phrases with the right marketing language, if your visitors end up on the wrong page when they click on your ads, then all is lost from a business standpoint.

Professional landing page designers know how to make a highly-relevant, attractive page that delivers specific, attractive offers that will make your potential clients interested in what you have to offer and cause them to respond. Different industries require their own unique tactics to convert, and having someone certified in setting everything up can make the difference between sinking thousands of dollars a month in SEM or getting a great ROI from your PPC campaigns.

Landing page design is an art form, requiring knowledge about human tendencies, effective marketing strategies, and technical expertise. In concert, all these things make your pages look great and give them a lot of value (a high “quality score”) to the search engines. Google and Yahoo take into account how good your landing page is; if it’s not coded right, or set up with relevant information to the keywords you’re bidding on, your campaign will be punished by higher costs for your terms. But well-made landing pages actually drive down the cost of your bids. This will make your advertising more cost-effective, and therefore give you more bang for your buck.

We’re of course happy to provide you with a free initial consultation if you’re wondering about having some landing pages set up professionally. One of our specialties is custom landing page design, so fill out one of our forms and we’ll be in touch soon.

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.

We got the answer for “Can You Mass-Update Billing Information On Google Adwords?” directly from Google’s Adwords support team via email:

“After doing a little research, I found that it is not currently possible to do a mass billing information edit. In order to change the billing address you will need to go into every individual account and edit the information.

There is some good news.  There is a payment option that you may be eligible for: monthly invoicing. Monthly invoicing will eliminate the need of updating credit card information and will bill you once a month for your advertising costs. Below, I have included the form for monthly invoicing in addition to information about our new Manager Defined Spending option.”

So no, you can’t change the billing of multiple accounts at once, but you can switch over the invoicing as a work-around. The only drawback to that is that you will no longer be using a credit card, which has some advantages in terms of flexibility.

If you’re tired of dealing with the billing on your Google Adwords account, and require professional assistance, please contact us for a free initial consultation on your SEM campaign.

Google Adwords Billing FAQ by BigSERP.Com

Unless you’re in the business of selling antique soap dispensers, your competitors are aggressively marketing through sponsored search (the results that show up above, to the right, and even below the natural, or “organic” listings). It’s critical not to let them dominate that stream of advertising and brand themselves at your expense, especially if you have a new site that won’t rank naturally for months.

What you can do with PPC/SEM campaigns is level the playing field by immediately getting your branding, products, and service out there with first-page recognition via the search engines. Our website is filled with lots of helpful suggestions for setting up your own campaigns, which can be done properly if you have the will, technical and marketing ability, and the time to invest into it. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you need professional assistance. We’d be happy to set up a free initial consultation with you to assess your business goals and what would work best to meet them.

 Aggressive Small Business Marketing Through SEM at BigSERP.Com

We received the official answer to “How Do I Permanently Remove Client Accounts From Google Adwords?” straight from Google via a support email:

“I’m happy to assist you removing client accounts from your My Client Center. First, I recommend unlinking your client accounts from your My Client Center, then replying to this email with an explicit request to cancel these accounts, including the CID and login email address associated with these accounts.

After your client accounts have been cancelled they will not accrue additional charges. While you are unable to permanently remove credit card information from your account, I am happy to completely disable the accounts so that you cannot reactivate them. I have included below instructions for unlinking your AdWords accounts from your My Client Center. If you would like the accounts permanently cancelled, please include a request with explicit language to do so in a reply to this email.”

So basically all you have to do is disassociate the accounts from your My Client Center and then call Google up to make sure they are permanently cancelled.

You’re a busy small business owner, or a really aggressive do-it-yourselfer. You know the value of using search engine marketing (SEM) to instantly promote your products and services. You spend a great deal of time working with it. And you’ve probably heard about the certification programs Google and Yahoo have, but might not be sure if they are worth the time to pursue yourself. So what does it mean to be a Google Qualified Individual (or Company) or a Yahoo Ambassador?

Of course from a sales perspective, if you are in the business of listing stuff for sale, I would think the biggest benefit is that you can tell potential clients that members of our internet marketing team have been certified by the search engines as expert search marketing consultants. That means you are versed on the latest best practices in search marketing, and that, coupled with the vast amount of experience you have in setting up and managing literally dozens of successful PPC accounts that perform well over industry standards in terms of click through rate and conversion rate (into a lead), gives them a big advantage over going with an uncertified company.

You can proudly say that you will deliver better results because you know how to properly use the SEM tools that will drive them business. You’ll be able to say in your pitches: “Rest assured that when you choose to work with us, you’ll have our powerful team of Google & Yahoo certified search marketing professionals in your corner.” Do these certifications instantly qualify you as an expert in SEM? No, you definitely need a lot of experience using the systems and building your own success stories (often through trial and error) before you can pronounce yourself that. But you are taking a great first step, and are also doing what you need to do to stay abreast with your competition, and in some industries, stay well ahead of the pack.

If you decide these exams aren’t for you, and would like to receive some professional assistance with your search marketing campaigns, please contact us for a free initial consultation at BigSERP.Com.

SEM Certified Experts at BigSERP.Com