Three Tips To Improve Paid Search Conversion Rates

You can’t outbid a competitor with deeper pockets in paid search, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make more sales than them. Here are three tips gained from our experience to increase your click-through and conversion rates on paid search ads - none of which involve increasing your paid search budget.

1. Consolidate your ‘brand awareness’ efforts

A well-known brand is likelier to get a high number of click-throughs wherever it appears on the paid listings column because an association has already been built with the searcher.

People click on ads for a variety of reasons; prior awareness of a brand is just one of them. How many channels are you publicising your company on at the moment? Have you embraced social media, as well as maintained your links with traditional channels? Spread the word to ensure people are aware of who you are when you appear in the results.

2. Update your ad text and make it stand out

You have only a limited number of characters to get your message across, so make sure it hits the browser’s decision making bulls-eye.

Lead with your unique selling point, a special offer or a rock-solid guarantee (kudos if you can fit all three in!) The more accurately your ad text reflects the landing page content, the less people will hit the back button, wasting your valuable PPC budget.

3. Optimise your landing page to increase conversion

Recent findings published by Google have shown that your position in the paid search listings has little effect on how many people actually fill out your contact form. It’s all about the message and layout of the form itself, so you should design your landing page with the following in mind:

• Remain focused on the main purpose of the landing page by avoiding clutter and bloated sales copy
• Instead, leave plenty of space for the main message and highlight the benefits of your offering
• Make the contact form prominent with a minimum of fields to fill-out; name, email and telephone number should usually suffice
• Test and measure on a regular basis to find more successful variations of the landing page

If you’ve been feeding money into your PPC programme only to find diminishing returns, try implementing these practices instead. After all, it’s not about bidding higher – it’s about bidding smarter.