17 Nov 09 Converting Traffic into Sales

Google Adwords is not new, but when it was, it was the vehicle through which your competitors grew and stole market share away from you. Today, there are new vehicles like Social Media that we need to pay attention to. You’re not just competing with other online stores, you’ve also got to contend with individuals on Ebay as well as Jo Blogs starting up your competition in his bedroom. Pretty soon he will move into his garage and before long, employee number one will be writing his memoirs.

Niche. Exploit yours.

Finding unexploited niche products can help you turn $0.15 clicks into $150 dollar sale. That’s 1000x return on investment. Worth the time and the research? You betcha. An unexploited niche means little or no competition. This let’s you bid next to nothing and Google will still display your Ads.

As far as the Adwords system is concerned, next to nothing, is better than nothing.

Now that you have your niche, you still need to get people to:

Click your ads
Place orders.

1. Getting your Ad clicked

Read Scientific Advertisng by Claude Hopkins. It’s free on Google Books.
In short, be as specific as possible (only attracts strong prospects and saves you money on clicks.)
Speak your customer’s language. Be relevant, timely and have a strong call to action..
A/B/C test multiple variations of headlines, ad-copy and display URL, and in about 5 days, you will have enough data to start using your optimum combination.

2. Getting People to Order

People are at your site because they chose to click on your Ad, but they will only buy if:

They trust you
You can deliver what your ad promised
Your price is right.

Your website should be easy to use and ooze transparency and safety. Your site navigation should be painless. Your shopper should never be trying to figure out what to do next. Follow conventions (they’re conventions for a reason!)

First impressions count. Your signup process, your transaction workflow and your customer service responses need to be frictionless. Deliver exactly what the prospect wants, or they will leave, say nasty things about you and shop with your competition.

No Surprises
The price and product benefits in your ad should be reflected on the landing page. Don’t suddenly introduce a delivery fee at the very last step if you made no mention of it before.

Some ‘discount’ airline websites have a bad habit of offering very low airfares and then slapping tax, fuel charges, booking fees and baggage fees on top, which generally make the ‘discount’ prefix a bit of a lie. I can’t imagine they will stay in business very long if they continue with such practices.

For a copy of my Conversion Optimisation Guide