Landing page optimization? Optimization and revenue trends? How to optimize? Landing pages as minisites?
Industry trends?
Apparently the PPC firms are looking to build search engine traffic into the operation, that is, getting more miles from the domains than simply type-ins, by "adding content" to landing pages.
Is that good or bad?
What happens when the search engines start to index your "domain content" and then you decide "it's time to build an actual website" and get off the PPC parking dole?
No sure everyone is thinking this through and through.
I'd like to see multiple level landers for certain domains . . . like directory domains. ;) 1 or 2 click landers are the norm, but why not experiment?
So, what's to talk about . . . about domain PPC revenue?
[edited by: Webwork at 6:05 pm (utc) on Oct. 25, 2005]
Nice overview of domain trends from Dan of Fabulous. The link to his Power Point presentation is worth a look.
Dan, Monte, et. al. I invite your comments regarding the event. Clearly, as a domain focused event it's turning out to be the bellweather.
I can see the event morphing as content creation and more advanced landers (microsites?) start to play a larger role in the lives of substantial porfolio holders.
With a content/microsite evolution in mind PubCon is becoming a better "domainer perspective" fit IMHand unbiasedO.
Of course, the very biggest players probably have deep enough pockets to buy in the expertise they need, but for everyone else (even the strong mid-tier players who've been sitting back and enjoying typein traffic, PPC-powered checks month after month) it's going to be a splash of cold water to the face.
After all, as many of us know all too well, the skills required to develop, maintain, SEO and promote a website aren't something you can become an expert in overnight - real effort is clearly required.
The "new" expertise required is totally different from the domain name side of things (how to play the domain catch game, how to optimise for various PPC parking providers etc.) and frankly I'm not sure how many people are going to be able to make the transition quickly enough to stem the decline in income as PPC parking services get harsher and harsher in the quality standards they impose on the domains parked with them.
Put another way, how many of the really big domain players also manage active, popular sites? Off-hand, I can't think of more than a handful - meaning that it's a brave new world for everyone else... and even for the PPC services themselves, since most of them don't have a track record of running content sites.
Now the type-in business is leaning towards revenue optimization: What blend of what on the landing page will produce the most income from the type-in traffic . . AND . . whilst the PPC company is about doing that why not add some "real content" to the landers to see if they can evoke some search engine love too?
Interesting issue for the SEs too. The content tends to be minimal at the moment so how well should it rank or should it be indexed? On the other hand "the content" tends to be tightly focused so maybe it should rise up in the SERPs? Add to that the fact that the SEs are often the source of the PPC revenue - so formulaically penalizing the ~microsites/pages would likely depress ad revenue from sources - type-ins - that appears to have a decent conversion factor for advertisers.
Interesting times.
