In a recent post, I discussed how businesses can leverage Search Marketing techniques to capitalize on existing search demand. I firmly believe that when we understand the searcher’s intent, where a searcher is in the buying cycle, or even the type of search they are conducting, advertisers can better align with the current demand for their products and services, ultimately increasing sales. I will walk you through the next critical step of leveraging relevance and searcher interest in today’s post. Now, our programs should connect with the correct targets, and our focus should shift from attracting to engaging the searcher once they arrive at your Website.
Advertisers who genuinely want to maximize the effectiveness of their search marketing campaigns need to establish more stringent measures of success and closely monitor them to ensure they are capturing the right traffic and avoiding the wrong traffic.
Decreasing Bounce Rates means more engagements.
In a pull-driven marketing environment like search, where consumers actively seek information, we have a unique opportunity to connect with them and guide them through the stages of learning about our products to conversion. With this opportunity comes an implied obligation to present the searcher with the best information and engage them to take the next step in your specific purchase cycle. A failure to engage searchers by not presenting them with content that matches their needs, that engages and compels them to interact further, will result in them clicking the back button, never to be seen again.
In an ideal world, we would have a single landing page for each keyword phrase that precisely matches the intent of the search with content on your site. Unfortunately, we live in a world of limited resources, and sites that match our company’s organization and messaging are not always flexible enough to meet our search prospects’ broad needs and interests.
Various studies suggest that the average paid search marketing program has a bounce rate of over 60 percent. This means only less than 40 percent of those who click a search listing are finding what they want on the landing page. Bounce rates are typically defined as those visitors who landed on a page from a search listing and did not move forward but simply clicked the back button and left the site.
One of the easiest ways for advertisers to generate immediate improvements in their search marketing programs is to reduce their bounce rates for important keywords. A single 10 percent decrease in bounces will result in significantly more opportunities to connect with high-quality traffic.
Landing Page Optimization improves engagement and conversions
We monitor our bounce rate, and it indicates that we are not engaging as well as we should be for critical keywords. What can we do to improve it? The logical approach is to look at the pages and try to understand why searchers are not engaging and converting. The most common problem is that the advertiser is bunching too many varied keywords into a single batch and pointing them to the same landing page, and then expects that page to meet the needs of a varied community magically.
Advertisers can address this issue by segmenting keywords into smaller, more relevant categories based on various segmentation criteria, such as the buy cycle, branded and unbranded keywords, product, and feature keywords, and then matching them to landing pages that are more closely related to the segmentation and the searcher’s intent.
The other challenge we face is most search landing pages’ assumptive, close nature. Search Marketing has typically been a sales or lead generation activity, and marketers leverage tried-and-true direct marketing practices of limiting the searcher’s choices. These direct marketing tactics are particularly effective when the searcher is in the final stages of the purchase process. For example, a search query “Canon EOS 5D” allows us to assume they want to know about that specific camera and should take them to a page with sufficient details about the product and a compelling offer to purchase. However, if we bring a searcher for Canon Digital Cameras to the same page, we are most likely going to lose them since they have not yet committed to a specific model or segment of cameras.
The essence of landing page testing and optimization is to try different ideas to simplify the purpose of the page and integrate messages to make sure the page’s purpose is aligned with what the customers. There are many tools to make this process easier and scalable. It is critical to implement optimization for your top-tier keywords, especially those phrases you expect to generate high conversions beyond just monitoring your bounce rates.
I strongly suggest that you deploy strict landing page optimization best practices, closely match words to the page, and test the different messaging options on them. As you start to find those that work the best, you can integrate them more widely into your programs. It is understood that you will not be able to do this for all of your words and pages, so segment those most likely to convert, drive current sales goals or have performed strongly in the past. Remember, we can use our trusty bounce rate metric to identify pages that receive a high number of clicks but fail to engage the visitor. Start with them and make page-level improvements that engage and move them into a conversion opportunity.
Ensuring a Quality Ecosystem with Quality Scores
So far, everything in this article seems obvious: pick the right words, write enticing ad copy, and bring them to pages that engage and encourage conversions. While it is easy, far too many advertisers are not implementing the fundamentals to ensure they are maximizing their opportunities.
The search engine results page is often viewed as just a simple page of results, when it is a very complex ecosystem supporting multiple members’ goals. To the searcher, their goal is to be presented as the most relevant of all sources of data on the topic so they can select an option that will answer their question. To the search engine, they hope that they have met the searcher’s demand and actually aggregated and presented the most relevant sources of information to answer the searcher’s question. The goal of the content owner is more complex since they not only want to be seen but hope to engage the searcher somehow to purchase something on their site.
Unfortunately, the content owner or their agency often disrupts this fragile ecosystem by trying to push in content that is not truly relevant or solves the searcher’s problem. For example, a recent search for digital cameras yielded numerous paid search ads from car companies. This was strange, and being curious, I clicked the links and went to the various sites. None of the sites had anything to do with digital cameras. These sites had purchased a popular keyword phrase and were hoping to gain brand exposure among those users. Now, we can argue that the millions of searchers looking for digital cameras also had a brand experience with these car companies, but I think that is a stretch, and so do Google and Baidu.
Google adopted its “Quality Score” a while back, which I have jokingly referred to as “Google’s Profit Maximization Score,” since it essentially served as a sin tax on lazy advertisers who simply slap together a search program and throw it up for Internet riches. Baidu has since joined the party, and in its updated Phoenix Nest Platform, Baidu introduced a new “quality of ads” scoring mechanism called the “Comprehensive Rank Index,” focused on improving the overall relevance of ads for searchers and advertisers. Like Google, they measure multiple factors, such as click rate, landing page context, and bounce rates, as measures of the contextual relevance of the ads. This is unnecessary for the organic results because they are generally assumed to be relevant from algorithmic content scoring.
I love these “quality score” tools since this quality scoring mechanism rewards advertisers who have relevant messages and offers by dynamically lowering the cost they pay for each click. This benefits the ecosystem since the ads are more appropriate, searchers click more, advertisers get more engagement opportunities, and the search engine’s revenues increase. However, for advertisers whose ads are not relevant and hoping for that transient click, their costs increase, and they will now be incentivized to improve their messaging.
Respect the power of search marketing to attract, engage and convert
With the adoption of quality scores and increased competition in organic listings, advertisers must pause and take a deeper look at their search marketing programs. Without a doubt, search marketing has created an unmatched opportunity to effectively target potential customers when they are looking for something you sell. Unfortunately, while searchers have become more demanding of higher quality results, and the search engines are working ever harder to return quality results, many advertisers and their agencies have become fat and lazy and have taken the opportunities of search riches for granted and only achieved a sliver of what is possible.
So, I challenge all marketers to take a few minutes and ask the hard questions about your campaigns. What are your bounce rates, poor-performing words, and even going as far as clicking your ads? You must thoroughly evaluate the experience you are presenting to these high-quality, ripe prospects and determine if the experience you are offering is optimal.
Search Engine Marketing, unlike any other marketing activity, is adaptable, scalable, and, hands down, offers the single best return on your advertising spend. The opportunities for significant conversions are there, but only to those who take the time to understand what the searcher wants and truly engage them, as they want to be engaged.
