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Would you pay somebody to leave your site? No? Think again, because you may be doing it right now, and it's probably costing you more than you think.
How's that, you ask?
If you're paying for marketing that will drive traffic to your website but have not spent any time or money providing a better customer experience on your website, then you might as well be paying your visitors to leave.
Coming in for a bad landing
The other day I was analyzing a potential client's PPC campaign. They wanted us to review their ads and landing pages to see if we felt we could help them improve the campaign over their own efforts. What I found was pretty striking.
This potential client had been running dozens of ads for various video products they sold. The ads were good overall and each ad brought the user to a different landing page, which, for the most part, was very relevant to the search queries. But the problem I found was with the landing pages themselves. They were, to put it mildly, terrible.
So bad that I was surprised they were able to get any conversions at all. Lucky for them they were, but I know for a fact that the conversion rate was far less than what they could be. The net effect of this is that they were paying for visitors to come to their site and then leave, without every considering a purchase from them.
Drive conversions first, traffic later
Needless to say, we went back to the client to let them know that we could help them.
Significantly.
It wouldn't take much, really, just time to provide a better user experience on each of the product pages where the ads landed. While the whole site could use a pretty major overhaul, we could get immediate profit improvement just by fixing the landing pages first.
So before you go all out driving more traffic to your site, make sure that you're providing for a solid user experience. A better experience means more sales... without ever having to spend more on ads.
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Stoney deGeyter is the President of Pole Position Marketing, a leading search engine optimization and marketing firm helping businesses grow since 1998. Stoney is a frequent speaker at website marketing conferences and has published hundreds of helpful SEO, SEM and small business articles.
If you'd like Stoney deGeyter to speak at your conference, seminar, workshop or provide in-house training to your team, contact him via his site or by phone at 866-685-3374.
Stoney pioneered the concept of Destination Search Engine Marketing which is the driving philosophy of how Pole Position Marketing helps clients expand their online presence and grow their businesses. Stoney is Associate Editor at Search Engine Guide and has written several SEO and SEM e-books including E-Marketing Performance; The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!; Keyword Research and Selection, Destination Search Engine Marketing, and more.
Stoney has five wonderful children and spends his free time reviewing restaurants and other things to do in Canton, Ohio.
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