Forum Moderators: phranque
If the SERP works for you, since it is the same people that see the adverts, then those should work as well. Same goes for Google, Yahoo, Overture, MSN, LookSmart, FindWhat, etc.
Try 'em all - only you know your audience, and track from click to sale so you know where each sale comes from the cost associated, everything. It will help immensely in budgeting for the boom your business will experience. ;)
Happy Surfing
Skye
It's only a theory but it seems to be borne out by our own research. Simply put, sponsored listings seem to convert better because they attract more "motivated buyers" or those "primed to buy". It is less likely that someone will click on a sponsored link if they are just browsing or are an "information seeker".
This maybe because the searcher knows that a sponsored link will msot probably be wanting to sell them something, and are receptive to that. You get less clicks, but each click converts better. You lose some useless "window shopping" traffic. You gain "serious shoppers".
They may also assume that if a site that has paid to be indexed (and advertising on-line through PPC is getting more expensive by the month) it may be more reliable as their perceive (maybe incorrectly), that those sites may be more professional and reliable and less likely to be spam or amateur sites (again im talking about perceptions not reality! - but branding teaches us that perception IS reality.)
I disagree totally that sponsored and PPc listings like OV, and Adwords are comparable to listings in the "free" or "main" index, in that if you lose rankings you just increase PPC spend, and if you go up in rankings you decrese PPC spend.
For me free listings are great for information sites or sites that help with branding where you are producing good useful information, but they are less likely to get people who explicitly went there to buy something. They MAY buy, but only "on the side" - your spin must be good enough to change them from an "ogler" to a "buyer"
while on site. With PPC they are much more likely to be a buyer and you dont need to convert them into buying mood yourself.
So no, having the first 3 listings in the "Free" "main" index by no means means that you cannot imporve your ratio of qualified motivated buyers by using sponsored links or PPC.
I think this trend will continue as people get used, by reinforcement, that the best place to find INFO is the main index, and the best places to BUY something is in the sponsored/premium/PPC listings on the side or at the top.
I agree, But do you not think that having a site 10< pages big with quality content you could target all the keywords in your market. This has been discussed previously but For example if you had a site on Widgets then you could target the serps of "red widgets", "blue widgets" etc. All in an effort to dominate results for widgets of all kinds and so bringing in quite qualified visitors.
It is hard to explain but if I used the keywords from my industry then I would make total sense....i think:-)It just does not work to explain our strategy (which does do well for us pulling in a lot of visitors who want to buy and so we have increased our ROI 10 fold whilst only paying for one sponsored listing. You can eventually get to our homepage from a number of Serps)It is quite hard to explain what we do using widgets as an example.
And from what I know and found is that what we are doing is legal so my boss is happy.
Happy Surfing everyone
Skye
Interesting, Chiyo, sounds like separate sites should be considered.
My own personal experience as a buyer is that I tend to find the "informational" sites, and see where they recommend I go to buy the widget online.
So having two sites, the informational one linking to the shop, would have my money.
TJ
For the "selling site" we havent worried about "optimising" that for 2 and a half years. We simply design without a thought for optimization but with a strong focus on providing credibility for the business and enouraging action through suggesting people make a Request for Proposal. We advertise in OV and Adwords, but increasingly as a proportion Adwords. We track these referrals and by far the enquiries that are referred direct from the PPc listing convert better than other traffic, and even better than referrals from the info sites, though as trillianjedi suggests, the latter still works for some users, but is sure costs us a lot in maintaining the info in the info sites and making sure they are optimised.
So, i guess what im saying is there is no real need for two sites in our area.. just to direct ppc clicks to a "selling" rather than a "info" or index page. After all they dont need info so much, probably know the issues, and dont need info so much before they make a decision.
However, be clear that we sell brick and mortar services. We do not sell online services. So all our promotion is about generating leads and building brands, not direct selling.
This could make it dificult for an informational site to promote their "harder" selling page via AdWords, which is why the separate site came to mind.
I was saying that i dont think you always need a completely different site, but it does make things easier. But defining a "selling area" in the info site is another alternative which should still "work". Im not aware of that difficulty in Adwords but appreciate the info.
One thing I should mention that might make a difference though is
that my sites sell information about widgets, such as
which ones are the most valuable and their current value.
This is why my my high ranking in the SE's as an
information site is so important. According to the emails
we receive from customers a great deal of them have already
spent hours trying to find information about their rare
widgets before they buy our widget information services.
According to them what caused them to choose our service over
others was the content of our pages and the number
options available for widget research over our competitors.
I'll have to give the paid listings a trial period just to
see if it improves my conversion rate( just shy of 2%)and traffic.
