Do you get the results you hope for with pay-per-click ads?
Do you feel confident that your money spent on ads is actually bringing you back revenue?
In order to achieve the above let’s look at the right way to use PPC.
PPC Do’s and Don’ts
PPC isn’t something you just whip together and forget. It has to be part of a system. A system which results in giving you revenue, a system which as a beginning a middle and an end.
Unless you have money to waste, PPC is not to just ‘get your name out there’.
Your PPC ad does NOT just link to your home page. That is utterly fatal and a waste of money.
Your PPC ad MUST link to a specifically crated web page, which is written precisely for the type of person (audience) who would have clicked on your ad in the first place. This is called a landing page.
Landing Pages
A landing page is not your home page, and it is also not just another ‘inside page’ based off your site’s template. The landing page must act as a ‘funnel’ or a ‘squeeze page’. It takes a visitor, and sends him down a very precise path, without opportunities for him to get distracted and turn away.
A landing page must meet very exact specifications:
- No site navigation. If you have navigation links he will click off the landing page and you will lose your chance to sell him your offer
- Only ONE offer/command. You don’t want to dilute your message by distracting them with other offers
- Repeated calls to actions for your offer. Do not just have one CTA
- Some form of testimonials, either video, photo, or written, but with pictures
- Carefully crafted sales text to close the reader on whatever your offer is
What kind of offers do I put on my landing page, and what types of landing pages are there?
Ninety percent of the time you will use one of the following two types of landing pages:
- Email opt-in landing pages
- Sales landing pages
They each have their own purpose, and their own conversion rates.
Let’s discuss the use of each.
Email Opt-in Landing Pages
If your aim is to collect email addresses, so you can have them put into a database, so you can do email marketing, then you will want your PPC ads to link to a landing page which persuades the visitor to ‘opt-in’ to your email list.
Why would they just give you their email address? They won’t! You need to persuade them to do this, you will need to offer some sort of free and vital information. Just putting a ‘subscribe now’, will not get you anything. You need to give them a COMPELLING reason to give up their email address. Traditionally, an effective way of doing this is offering a short but vital e-book on a particular topic, which they can get for free, once they give their name and email.
Additionally, this is not the same as having a ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ box on the bottom corner of your website. That is not the same as an email opt-in landing page.
This type of landing page would be very straight forward and does not have to be very long at all.
It needs to discuss the value of the free e-book, the problems the person is encountering right now, and how the e-book will help them handle those problems, and become better.
The Model:
- User clicks on your PPC ad
- He is taken to your email opt-in landing page
- He sees your carefully written sales text which tells him why he must opt-in and give up his email address
- He puts in his name and email number, in exchange for a downloadable piece of FREE and valuable content
- His email gets imported into your email marketing software (Mailchimp, etc.)
- You can then promote to him with your email marketing campaigns, and turn him into a buyer, thus closing the loop and getting revenue out of this.
An email opt-in landing page will get MORE ‘sign ups’, than a sales landing page.
This is obvious as the bar is raised much lower, and it doesn’t require the person to spend any money.
The idea is that you pull them in with the free content, and then sell them later, with email marketing.
What’s next?
In our next article we will tackle the subject of using PPC in conjunction with a sales landing page.
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