Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages – Triumvirate

Talking about Pay-Per-Click, Google AdWords mostly, search results and landing pages is pretty much a daily thing around our office. Accordingly, it makes sense to talk about it here.

Recently I had the opportunity, thanks to Andy Lewis, to be a part of a Webinar for “The National e-Commerce Extension Initiative” named “Maximizing Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign.”  We concentrated on Google AdWords. Why? It is my humble opinion that for most, a limited advertising budget is a reality. Google is the 500-pound Gorilla, and if you are going to feed web advertising money to anyone, it should be Google with over 72% of U.S. searches reported for February, 2009 according to Hitwise.

Last week I met with several representatives of one our largest clients, and discussed mostly AdWords and Analytics for the better part of the afternoon. In both cases we talked about Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages at length. Why? Having high placements in Google AdWords or Google organic search results is directly related to those three powerful terms. They rule this world as surely as many of the Triumvirates of history.

The importance of Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages, is a simple concept, while not difficult, that is complex in implementation when done correctly. The good news is, you don’t have to spend in inordinate amount of time working on your AdWords campaigns to get some immediate results. Very simply, just make sure your keywords are in your ad copy and on your landing pages (prominently). If you do that, you will see your Click-Through-Rate, aka CTR, improve as well as your placement.

If you, or your search professional, spend the time on your landing pages to write keyword-relevant “Titles,” meta “Descriptions,” Headings, and content including the keywords that potential visitors would using when searching for your product, service, or information, and you write quality ads, as well as conducting ad-variant testing, you will be rewarded with increased, targeted, self-qualified traffic. Serious keyword research, a knowledge of how Google likes your pages coded, and knowing how to write and place that code is part of what will take your AdWords campaign to another level. Of course a thorough knowledge of AdWords and your analytics program is necessary as well if you want optimum results. To that end, unless you have a lot of spare time, working with a search professional who has experience and successes on their resume is essential.

One of the cool benefits, is that, the time you, or your search professional, spend on your “landing pages” will eventually manifest itself as higher rankings in Google’s search result pages, aka SERPs. Google sells relevance. Make sure your site search strategy, both PPC and organic, includes relevant keywords, ad copy, and landing pages.

Keywords, Ad Copy, Landing Pages – The Triumvirate!