Power Up Your PPC With Targeted Landing Pages

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Pay-per-click advertising can be frustrating, especially when you're just starting out. IMC Insider reader Winston wanted to know if we have any advice. Yes, we do... AND you can use this same advice to vastly improve the conversion rate on your holiday-season PPC campaigns.

Here's Winston's question...


Hi Derek,

I bought your Insider Secrets course last year and have applied the strategies to my website. I managed to get 3 sales in the third week and was overjoyed. But after that everything seemed to come to a stop. I was using the same keywords in my pay per click and was still getting visitors, but no sign-ups or sales.

It got me so fed up because I was paying for clicks and no sales, that I just forgot about my website and lost heart. Now I've got the drive back to try once again.I'm puzzled as to which key phrases I should go with. Do I choose the ones which have maybe 4, 5 or 6 visitors a day, but only about the same number of competing web pages.

Or do I go for the key phrases which have a high number of visitors per day, say 22 or 24, but they also have a much higher number of competing pages.Please can you help me with these questions before I get it back online?I really want to continue to make money but it's proving kind of hard for me.

Many thanks Winston

Hi Winston;

You can increase your chances of converting click-throughs to sales by using a special "landing page" for each ad campaign.As you've discovered, click-throughs are not the true measure of effectiveness. What you want is PPC ads that convert into sales. And that means that for each ad you have to look at:

your keyword

The wording of your ad the copy on your landing page the ease of use of your checkout process All of those elements have to work together to make a sale.You're getting click-throughs, so that means that some of your ads are working. Good start!But when people click through from those ads, what do they see?

Are they landing on a page that specifically addresses what was said in the ad?

For instance, if your ad says "Teach your parrot to stop biting," but it links to your homepage where you sell everything from dog leashes to ferret cages, you're not giving visitors what they came for.For the ad group that deals with the biting parrot, you should create a specific landing page that deals with that subject only and includes the same keywords as your ads.

Each landing page can have only one objective: e.g., buy OR opt in... not both. Then have at least one big, obvious call-to-action button.Test the landing page -- change one element at a time to see which version converts better, then keep the winner, and test another element.To convert sales, make it as easy as possible to buy!

Make sure visitors can go directly to your shopping cart from the landing page.

Get some friends to try out your purchasing process and see if it's easy enough. After all that work, you don't want people giving up and abandoning their shopping carts out of frustration.As for your keywords, more-specific keyword phrases -- including those with three or four words -- will probably work better, even if they don't get as many searches.

"Stop pet parrot biting" will get far better-targeted click-throughs than "pet parrots." You know exactly what the people using those longer search terms are looking for... which means you can write ads and landing pages that respond directly to that need.

And because the longer keyword phrases have less competition, you can get a better position on the page for less money... and a better chance that people will click through.But don't forget -- keywords that convert are what you REALLY want.

And you'll only find those by testing and tracking.If you go to Step 11 in your Insider Secrets course, you'll find a lot of lessons on how to test and track. It's absolutely crucial to do this and keep it up, because as you've observed, things change quickly.There's also a terrific free tool from Google that we recommend.

It's called Google Analytics. When you use it along with Google AdWords, you can get a real in-depth look at what people are doing on your site.Your PPC ads can't make sales all by themselves. But give them the solid backup of a targeted landing page and a no-brainer buying process and you'll turn click-throughs into conversions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he's used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: Marketingtips



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