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Question:
Why am I getting tons of traffic but no sales from my Pay-Per-Click ads? I'm spending almost $600 per month on Pay-Per-Click advertising with very poor results.
The ads bring in plenty of visitors, but no one is buying. What can I do to keep from going broke from all those useless (and expensive) clicks?
Submitted by Cindy B.
Answer:
Pay-Per-Click advertising is a very effective way to get lots of traffic quickly, but since each and every click costs you money, it's imperative that you make each click count and result in as many orders as possible.
The most common reason for poor Pay-Per-Click conversion rates is poorly targeted ads. To be effective from a ROI standpoint, the ads must be targeted perfectly!
By this, I mean if your Pay-Per-Click ad says "click here for great small green widgets", you need to make sure that when a potential customer clicks on the ad she is taken directly to a page offering small green widgets. Not small blue widgets. Not medium sized green widgets. I mean small green widgets.
Another mistake that many Pay-Per-Click advertisers make is having the ad directed to the site's home page. As an example, let's say that your site offers used cameras and accessories. You start a Pay-Per-Click ad campaign using this ad:
"Best prices on used photographic accessories."
But instead of linking the ad directly to a page that offers nothing but used accessories, you link it to your homepage which is loaded with links to manufacturers, reviews, general photography articles, new items for sale, etc.
Buried deep among all those links is a single link to the page that offers the item that the visitor actually came to your site to buy.
Since it is highly unlikely that he'll scour your homepage looking for the link to the items that he is looking for, you have just wasted the cost of a click. He'll just hit the back button and try one of your competitors.
Basically, you need to make your Pay-Per-Click ads as targeted to the products or services as possible, and then link them directly to pages that offer exactly what you describe in the ads.
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