At this year’s Conversion Conference in San Francisco, I had the pleasure of presenting three tactics for getting more bang for your paid search buck. I say it was a pleasure, because it truly was. You see, prior to falling into this crazy world of post-click marketing, I was a pre-click kind of gal. My life revolved around SEO, social media, online PR and of course, PPC.
With the paid search world always in the back of my mind, it was just awesome to present on a topic that merged PPC and optimization so well. Plus, who doesn’t want more bang for their buck, am I right?
As post-click marketers, we understand that every click your visitors make leads them somewhere and we happen to think that should be amazing post-click experiences. The only way to make them amazing to your paid search visitors, is to ensure that they’re giving visitors the right information in the easiest to digest format.
This varies greatly based on whether your visitors search query is considered a high or low funnel keyword. It’s this differentiation that gives you the first opportunity to get more return on your spend. Let’s start with the basic layout. This is what I refer to as PPC meets Landing Page, 101:
Once you’ve identified the type of traffic you have, high or low funnel, you can then start to really think about the type of experience best suited to that visitor’s mindset and where they are in the buying cycle. This is a crucial step.
The Right Format for High Funnel Keywords
Remember, these people aren’t ready to buy, they’re seeking more information and it’s your job to give it to them…without asking for anything in return. These experiences need to:
- Stay problem-focused and solution-driven. It’s about selling the solution, not your product
- Include industry-leading proof and build expert credibility
- Serve a lot of masters coming from a wide range of wants and needs
- Please everyone without disappointing anyone
You see, the challenge with creating landing pages for high funnel keywords, is that you don’t really have a read on your visitor yet and they certainly may not know you. At this point, the goal should be delivering lots of rich content that meets a variety of complex needs without overwhelming anyone and still directing them to an end conversion (easy, right?).
In reality, it’s not easy. In fact, it’s downright hard and often requires a high degree of template creativity and content control.
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