Please let me start by saying, welcome to onlinemarketingnews.org.  I look forward to posting and sharing as much insight as possible into the world of Search Engine Marketing and hope that you will enjoy reading and sharing your comments. Now on to the post. . .

Clients always ask, how can we drive more traffic to our site while staying within budget and lowering our cpa? Sounds like an overwhelming request, but it’s definitely within reach.

Among the many strategies, one would require a total campaign review to “Trim The Fat,” where all non-performing keywords would be lowered in bid or paused all together. However, right now I would like to focus on quality score.

Quality Score
Quality score (Google) is calculated by numerous factors, including click-through-rate (ctr), historical performance, and the keyword occurrence in the text of the destination URL.

Your ad’s position in Google is determined as follows:

Maximum Keyword Bid x Quality Score = Ad Position

Gone are the days where a strategy of outbidding your competition will guarantee a higher ad position. Google is working everyday to bring more relevance to their users and giving priority to a site that has relevant content to the users search query. Therefore, LETS BUILD A MORE RELEVANT DESTINATION URL, or LANDING PAGE.

Landing Pages
Building a keyword relevant landing page will show Google that you are sending their users directly to a page that speaks to the user, rather than having them search through your site for the information they wanted up front. Create a trust between the user and your site that by clicking on your ad and visiting your site, they will enjoy a unique experience (hopefully leading to a conversion or sale).

In closing, remember to test. Consistently test the effectiveness of your landing pages by offering variations in layout, graphics, text and call to action and make the necessary tweaks to ensure the user converts on your site, not your competition.

Did You Know?
By increasing your quality score you may in fact PAY LESS than your competition per click while showing up higher in the sponsored search results?