Setting up a PPC campaign seems to be quite easy – write an advert, target the keywords, point it to the URL and you are ready to go. It appears so simple however much of the conversion would really depend the landing page on which the PPC advert link gets pointed to.
Your website/landing page plays a huge role in the AdWords conversion score, which directly effects how much you pay per click. Your website also plays a role of online customer care service and it’s required that you provide all the essential information which users are looking for and further guide them to make a purchase with you or send an inquiry. So it’s all about grabbing an opportunity. You are investing and making an effort to bring leads to your website through PPC but the real fruit lies when those leads get converted.
Following are the guidelines that will help you to know if your website is prepared for paid traffic.
1) Website Speed
Google said that landing page experience directly affects your website quality score and apart from the poor design there is one more factor which ruins user experience is “Poor Website Speed”. If your website takes ages to load then chances are higher that user will leave your website straightaway which certainly isn’t an ideal satiation if you are investing for paid traffic.
There is an article published on Search Engine Land with supporting case studies: Site Speed & PPC Performance
To improve your website speed:
- Make sure images are optimised
- JavaScript and CSS files are compressed
- Put your website on dedicated server
2) Mobile-ready
Since mobile usage has increased dramatically over the years, you probably don’t want to miss out the mobile traffic. Even, Google has redesigned the AdWords interface which now makes it so easy for mobile users to analyse the data in actionable way.
If your website isn’t optimised for mobile devices then it is like you are paying for traffic that struggles to navigate your website which certainly results in low conversion rate. A RWD (Responsive Web Design) will help you provide the best experience to your audience which not only increases the chance of conversions but also improve your website quality score.
3) Relevance in Content
Whether it is organic ranking or PPC, relevance is one of the buzzwords of Google. Make sure your website content is relevant to the search terms you are trying to rank for/advertise on.
Always make sure that you have relevant and useful content on the landing pages and choose keywords accordingly otherwise it can cost you more per click and the result won’t be as effective.
There are many other aspects that can affect the performance of PPC and for the successful PPC campaign, you should always perform a/b testing of landing pages and carefully select keyword groups to establish what the best combinations are for your account. By following this process you will know the exact mix of elements that have the biggest effect on your account.