I have been asked by many clients ‘how can I be sure my search engine marketing campaign is performing?’  While there are a number of ways to determine the success of an internet campaign; one important metric to pay attention to is the bounce rate.  The bounce rate refers to visitors who get to your page, but quickly leave with little to no interaction.

There are many factors that can contribute to bounce rate.  Some visitors may click on the ads accidently; we are all guilty of this.  These accidental clicks do not necessarily reflect on the effectiveness of the ads, due to the fact that it is attributed to human error.  However, confusing or misleading ads can lead to many visitors clicking on ads, but a large abandonment rate.  Another cause of a high bounce rate can be searchers who do not find what they are seeking.  According to FutureNow, it is necessary for a website to have relevant content in order for a user to ‘move forward until found’ and visit additional site pages.  For example, if you are an advertiser selling T-shirts, you may not want to use slang keywords such as ‘tees.’  By utilizing this keyword, you run a great of risk of having your ads associated with golf-related search results.  The Google content network can be a valuable resource when used correctly; however, when general keywords are used and targeted across all relevant search pages, you may see your bounce rate rise exponentially.

So, how can the bounce rate be lowered?  Here are some suggestions to not only decrease the campaign bounce rate, but also improve the quality of your visitors.

• Review your ad copy to ensure that your ads are not misleading or confusing to potential searchers
• Utilize Google Analytics to determine trends in which the bounce rate has increased or decreased
• Identify individual keywords that have an exceptionally high bounce rate.  According to Blogsessive, a bounce rate between 20% and 50% is acceptable.
• Consider adding negative keywords to your cost per click campaign to reduce the amount superfluous clicks and irrelevant searches
• If using the Google Content Network, select specific topics and sites of interest pertinent to your product or services

By paying attention to your bounce rate, you can not only improve the quality of visitors to your site, but also the amount of conversions generated.

What does that really mean? In other words, how could a Contact Us page actually be bad?  For starters, if you do not have a separate page clearly found in your navigation titled “Contact Us”, you ought to. Basically, contacting you should be the easiest thing for your visitors to do. Look at it this way…if you have a top notch site, but your visitor has difficulty reaching out to you to either pose a question, get more information, etc. you will most likely lose credibility and/or a potential lead or sale. You should think of this page as one of the most important on your site. Here are a few staples every Contact Us page should have…

• Besides offering the option to click on your Contact Us Page from the home page, it should be visible in the entire site navigation. Your visitors should have the opportunity to visit the Contact Us Page from every page on your site.
• Offer a variety of ways for visitors to reach you. Just a few to mention…

1. Email, which can be multiple addresses based on the purpose of the inquiry. Some examples include: Info@ABC.com, Requestaquote@ABC.com, Customerservice@ABC.com, Techsupport@ABC.com and Billing@ABC.com.
2. Phone and Fax (both toll free when possible)
3. Online Forms
4. Live Chat
5. Map, Directions and Hours of Operation

On MoreVisibility’s Contact Us page, we offer a variety of ways to reach us, as well as clear cut action items for our visitors to take once they are there: Newsletter Sign-Up Option, Free Search Engine Visibility Report, Latest Blog Posts, as well as a Google Custom Search Feature. In addition, we have implemented an Add This Feature, which is a Social Bookmark & Feed Feeder Button. Please click here to view our Contact Us page.

Once again, the basic goal of your Contact Us Page???  To ensure that “getting in contact with you” is the absolute simplest thing for visitors to do!

Testing your ad copy is a very important component of any online advertising campaign.  What you feel is a good message about your products and brand isn’t always as well received by your potential customers.  In order to make sure your ad copy message is enticing to your customers, it is important to develop different messages for your audience and then test them over time to find out which are best.

I’d like to give some examples regarding the ad copy messaging you may want to evaluate. One ad might offer a free brochure, another offers free samples, while yet another offers free shipping. An effective marketing campaign should incorporate some kind of testing process to determine what message is most appealing to your searchers.  This leads to higher click through rates, and higher conversion rates, which of course is the goal for any website. 

One dilemma I am consistently up against is making sure that while conducting these tests, we are giving enough time to allow users to view the ads, and click on them (or not click on them).  Depending on the number of visitors a website gets on a daily basis, the ad copy testing time period varies.  The more visitors a website gets, the shorter the testing cycle.  A website that gets 10,000 clicks daily should have a good idea of how searchers are reacting to the ads in one week.  On the other hand, a website that receives 3,000 clicks daily should consider a longer testing period of perhaps 3 weeks, in order to get enough visits and make a determination of how searchers are reacting to the advertisement’s offer. 

I encourage all advertisers to test, and test often.  But be sure that you don’t get too excited and end the ad copy test before you know conclusively which messages are performing better than others. Remember, testing ad copy takes patience and persistence.