Search & Conversion helps website owners and search marketers guide the searcher from search engine results pages – both organic listings and search ads – to relevant landing pages and complete a desired conversion action, whether that means an e-commerce transaction, engage in a phone call, an email newsletter sign-up or filling out a lead gen form. Columnists provide tips for taking searcher intent through to the finish – with landing page testing and tuning tips, techniques for moving searchers through the conversion funnel and how to feed valuable conversion data back into search campaigns.

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New Exact & Phrase Matching Behavior: Early Findings

May 23, 2012 at 10:30am ET by Benjamin Vigneron

In a world where lots of search marketers are still reluctant to use broad match type due to its lack of relevance and control, Google has released two features to have more advertisers show their ads on all those very long tail queries: The broad modifier feature was rolled out in July 2010 in the U.S and was mostly aimed at scaling up those accounts not already using regular broad match type. Search marketers have to then build new broad keywords using “+” signs to effectively unlock the broad modifier feature. Because it requires some time and effort, not all advertisers have actu [...]

Early Stage Landing Pages At The Top Of The Funnel

May 16, 2012 at 9:12am ET by Scott Brinker

For many B2B and considered purchases, buyers go through several stages of evaluating the market and choosing a seller. Different stages naturally benefit from different kinds of landing pages and conversion strategies. Here, we'll take a look at the very top of the funnel, to see how three different companies are handling early-stage interest on the same keyword phrase: "big data." With all the talk about big data these days, you can picture many people searching on this topic. Even though they're probably not yet evaluating vendors at first, they may be open to educational materials pr [...]

10 Great Adwords Options For Boosting Conversions

May 9, 2012 at 2:53pm ET by Matties Otter

We all know that Adwords is the most used system in the world to drive paid traffic to websites. The Adwords system is an extensive system with a lot of complex options to optimize campaigns and increase conversions. Advanced PPC managers should already know all of these features, but beginners and intermediate level Adwords users can definitely get some new inspiration and ideas from this list to boost up performance. In this article, I will highlight 10 features that I love and frequently use. 1. Adwords Keyword Tool The Keyword Tool is a great starting point when starting a new Adwo [...]

Related Topics: Beginner | How To | How To: PPC | Intermediate | Search & Conversion

Advanced Landing Page Techniques: Searcher Personas

May 2, 2012 at 10:32am ET by Brian Massey

There are a million rules for search landing page design. You have to optimize the content and decide whether more stuff is better or worse for conversion. But it’s all moot unless your focus is on getting into the head of your customers. Searcher personas are the tool that delivers clarity as you develop ads and landing pages. Personas are different from demographics. Demographics tell you valuable things about ages and income brackets that you may or may not be able to influence on your campaigns. But personas tell you about motivations and behaviors that anyone of any income, ethnicity [...]

5 Colorful Sketches On Conversion Optimization

Apr 18, 2012 at 9:01am ET by Scott Brinker

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But are five sketches are worth approximately one column's worth? Doodling with a new drawing app on the iPad — 53's Paper, which is a real beauty — I took a pass at illustrating what I consider to be five important ideas in conversion optimization. The Conversion Funnel As marketers, we obsess with the prospect-to-customer funnel. Getting more people in at the top. Moving more of them through the middle faster. We talk about top-of-funnel (TOFU) tactics and middle-of-funnel (MOFU) tactics. All of which is good to a point. But the r [...]

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