I have been finding that on some of my main landing pages over 30% of my users arrive and then leave my site without drilling further. Is that normal, or is it time I looked at a landing page redesign? Alternatively, should I be be worried that I could be a victim of click fraud?
The real questions are:
1. Are you profitable at this abandon rate?
2. Have you experimented with alternative landing pages to get the abandon rates down?
2. Have you experimented with alternative landing pages to get the abandon rates down?
This is a very good suggestion.
Also track your conversion rate based on landing page. Some of the people who abandon your site don't want to spend money. Make sure you're keeping those who do.
You don't have to please everyone - just please those who are potential customers.
As far different landing pages are concerned, we have tried the odd design change, but no wholesale changes. What is the best way to test various landing pages without messing around with your site too much? (and without losing profits) Is it best to rotate them every week or so?
As far different landing pages are concerned, we have tried the odd design change, but no wholesale changes. What is the best way to test various landing pages without messing around with your site too much? (and without losing profits) Is it best to rotate them every week or so?
For sites with at decent number of visitors a day (usually at least 1k) this is one way of testing ads vs landing pages.
1. Make sure you have a solid tracking program in place.
2. Make 3-5 landing pages for your major KWs.
3. Duplicate your best ads and have each one link to each of the landing pages. (i.e. if you have 3 good ads for your major KW, and 3 landing pages, you'll have a total of 9 ads). You will need to turn off ad optimization, as you want equal impressions for all these ads for a good sample.
4. Let the ads run for a while and track which combination is giving you the best ROI.
It's a bit of work in the short run, but it can help understand your visitors and what works in the long run.
As for the different landing pages to test, I suggest you try to make them really different. If you have multiple people capable of making these things, let each of them try their own ideas in order to increase the variety of things to be tested.
There are a lot of ways also to 'pre-qualify' your visitors, which can reduce abandonment and increase ROI.
Along these lines, I strongly believe that you can begin to pre-qualify your customers, in a meaningful way, with your keyword selection. You can do this by using very targeted and specific keywords which describe exactly what you have on offer, while avoiding really general keywords.
For example, if you are selling plastic models of movie monsters, you would do well to use keyword like:
movie monster model
movie monster models
movie monster kit
movie monster kits
plastic monster model
plastic monster models
and so on...
By definintion then, when someone sees your ad, they have already told you that they want exactly what you have.
On the other hand, keywords such as those below will probably bring you window shoppers:
kit
kits
model
models
plastic
plastic kit
plastic model
monster
monsters
movie
movies
and so on....
These words are all related to what you have, of course, but they're also related to thousands of other things as well.
Bottom line, someone who is searching for exactly what you have is a pre-qualified customer - and they are far less likely to go away empty-handed once they reach your site, than are the window shoppers.
Just my opinion.
AWA
That is the best advice you can get. You will spend a lot of dollars on wasted keywords if you are not carefull. Spend money only on those keywords that attract the shopper looking for exactly what you sell. Most studies show that On the Internet those who are ready to buy are very focused in their search and the time they have to spend.
Broader terms bring you traffic, and perhaps some site/brand recognition. But narrower terms bring you buyers.
I guess that raises an important point that the CTR of one's ads is not always the be all and end all. Although one ad might have an excellent CTR, it may not prequalify as well as another with a lower CTR.
