Over at Yahoo's Search Marketing blog, Marketing Communications Manager Roger Park is offering up tips on converting your search ads. He breaks down a bunch of best practices principles to three main steps: Optimize, Navigate and Track.
Optimize
Optimizing your landing pages is crucial to a profitable search marketing campaign. Park advises:
- Have a "deep link" to a product on your site
- Offer several contact methods
- Online shopping carts should be secure and easily visible
- Remove broken links
- Have good server availability
Navigate
Park encourages site owners and developers to put themselves in the shoes of their web site visitors. I personally have found that many of my clients have a difficult time being able to do this. They're just too close to their business. So, it was nice that Park also served up some tangible tips:
- Create an obvious pathway to the product that the visitor searched for
- Don't have too many layers between the landing page and the end goal - no more than 2 clicks
- If the end goal is sale, move non-commercial content below the fold
Track
Successful marketing campaigns are built on solid data. Consistently evaluate your data and tweak your paid search campaigns accordingly. Yahoo's conversion-only analytics tool can help you do that. The tool can help you analyze keywords, tweak landing pages, and improve under-performing ads.
What do you think of Park's advice? Anything else you would add to the mix? Share your ideas in the comments!
Register now for SES London 2012, the Leading Search & Social Marketing Event, taking place 20-24 February, 2012. SES Conference & Expo features presentations and panel discussions that cover all aspects of search engine-related promotion. Hurry, early bird rate expires February 3!
