Direct Linking vs. Landing Page
Direct linking is the strategy of sending Pay-Per-Click web traffic directly to a merchant site through your affiliate link. Although this can be an effective and quick method to get web traffic and potential sales, there are several downfalls to this strategy.
If you are not familiar with the difference between direct linking and having a landing page, you should familiarize yourself with this section. When Direct Linking, you send web traffic directly to your affiliate merchant through your sponsored ad in Google. For example, if you were promoting a program such as Defeating Google Adwords, your destination URL would look similar to the following.
http://yourid.defeatadword.hop.clickbank.net
Direct linking is the quickest way to set up a campaign in Google Adwords. You can essentially set up a campaign and have it running in a matter of minutes. This sounds great, but there are several drawbacks to direct linking and they should be taken into consideration prior to using this strategy.
Multiple URL's under the same search term
Last year Google added a new component to Google Adwords which does not allow multiple advertisers to promote the same URL under the same search term. This was brought into effect to increase the quality of their results, and to prevent one company from being advertised several times under the same keyword. If you have been promoting a product through direct linking and cannot seem to get any web traffic to your site this could be why. Another advertiser is promoting the same URL as you under the same search terms. The other advertiser either has set their CPC higher than yours or their Quality Score is higher, thus giving them most of the exposure.
Limitations
The average consumer nowadays is more knowledgeable than ever. They want to compare products prior to making the purchase and get the best value for their money. Direct linking does not give you the ability to take advantage of product comparisons.
Direct linking simply converts into less sales, thus producing a lower ROI. It does not give you the opportunity to promote several products at once. You are forced to rely on the merchant sales copy and Google Adwords does not allow multiple instances of the same URL under any given search term.
Using Direct Linking will not convert into sales as well as a landing page with quality content.
Relying on the merchants sales page
Direct linking does not allow for the opportunity of a pre-sale intermediate page. For this reason you are relying on the fact that the merchant has good sales copy. If they do not, the site will not convert well and you could be wasting your money.
Many products that are available are good quality products, however, the merchant website does not have effective sales text. This can negatively affect your Return On Investment. It is always better to build a landing page so that your paid web traffic can see your sales text prior to visiting the merchant page. It is a trick that has been proven time and time again to produce higher conversions.
No pre-sale opportunity for the visitor
Pre-selling is a good way to connect with a user and increase their buying potential. With direct linking this opportunity does not exist, therefore limiting your marketing potential.
Inability to collect adequate analytical data
Unless you have a Google conversion tracking code set up with a merchant, you will not have the ability to collect any form of analytical data with direct linking. When you have your own landing page or website you can collect this data through counters and other analytical tools.
When to use direct linking
In one word, TESTING. Direct linking allows you to quickly set up a campaign and get a feel for a specific product or industry without the overhead of building a landing page or website. However, you may not be able to get a sufficient amount of clicks as Google does not allow multiple advertisers to promote the SAME URL under the SAME keyword.
We use direct linking when we enter a new industry with products that we do not have any experience promoting, but with this being said, you cannot expect great conversions while using this technique. After you have made a few sales with a product by direct linking, you should always build your own landing page or website as you will sell more product and increase your Return on Investment.
Use the Direct Linking strategy when you are testing a new product or industry.
Building Relevant Web Pages
Many Internet Marketers put more emphasis on getting visitors to their site than focusing on building pages that are relevant to the search. A good landing page will have content that is highly relevant to the search and will have the ability to connect with the visitor on an emotional level.
The difference between a Landing Page and a Web page is that Landing pages are simply single pages with no other links to your domain. The only links on the page should be affiliate links that take your visitors directly to the merchant sales page.
Most paid search result landing pages are not nearly targeted enough, and honestly, most marketers are simply losing money because of this. If you have not been optimizing your pages for search relevance you are losing potential customers and limiting your profits!
Below are tricks that we have applied to several campaigns. These tricks will increase your overall ROI.
Targeted Content
Relevant ads can help generate a click to your site, but having relevant content on your webpage will convert the clicks into sales. Although many Internet Marketers can successfully get a good CTR, it does not mean that their site is an effective sales tool. When you are searching for something using Google, you are hoping to get the most relevant results from your search.
For example, if you advertise the keyword Internet Marketing e-book and your Landing page discusses how to become a successful internet marketer using a particular piece of software, you may not convert as well compared to if you were comparing Internet Marketing e-books. Many people advertise under keywords that are not 100% relevant to their webpage and these advertisers can be throwing away money because of it.
Personal Testimonials
Third party testimonials work well as a marketing tool, but personal testimonials work even better. By relating to the user, you are able to connect with them psychologically which helps them feel more comfortable making a purchase. We have seen increases of over 300% ROI on some of our sites by simply adding a few relative testimonials.
Page Heading
Capturing the visitor s interest in the first couple of lines on your page is paramount. If someone searches for the phrase make money , why not have a headline on your page that has make money in it. This relevance immediately grabs the user's attention, and gives them a reason to stay.
Related Images
Consumers are visual. Providing related images/graphics is a proven marketing tactic that will increase your sales. If you have a make money type site, you can reach better results by adding a picture of money and/or the products that you are promoting.
Compare the Products
Another trick that is highly effective is to build comparisons between products on your Landing page or Web Site. Consumers love to compare products before they buy as it gives them the feeling that they purchased the right product and got the best value for their money. Adding a comparison table to your site can drastically increase your ROI. When comparing products it is also helpful to rank the products as you see fit. The product on your page that is ranked #1 will receive 100% more web traffic than product #2. The main advantage for potential customers is that they do not have to compare products themselves because you will do it for them, and in many cases, this will help a browser become a purchaser.
The Power of a Review Page
A review page consists of a series of product or service comparisons that are compromised of individual reviews. These product reviews are based on several features such as effectiveness, guarantee, customer support, quality, price, description, and several other product-specific attributes.
Review pages are among the most effective selling tools for promoting affiliate-based products. When a visitor receives information on the top products relating to their search, they immediately gain a certain level of purchasing comfort. When customers want a specific type of product, a review page may give them the guidance they need to make the purchase.
A review page has to meet a certain criteria to be effective as there are several different components that can affect your conversion rates. They are as follows:
- Keep the Review Products Similar :All the products that are contained within a review should be tightly related. This allows the potential customer to view several products that they are interested in, and based on your reviews, make a smart purchasing decision.
- Keep the Reviews Brief : A review should be less than 150 words and should not take up the entire viewing space of a page. If you are going to include a description of the product, it should be an overview of the product as a whole. Do not copy the product s sales page and paste it onto your page as the visitor will end up reading the same text more than once.
- Allow for a Lot of Exits : Because a review page is essentially a pre-sale to the actual product s page, you should allow the visitor a lot of exits from your page to the merchant s page. You cannot make a sale directly on your page, so the sooner you get the potential consumer to the merchant site, the better chance you will have to make a commission.
- Write Quality Reviews : Become knowledgeable of the product you are promoting. If there are any inconsistencies in the information or the product descriptions, the visitor may see right through this and simply leave your page in search of quality content. Use a collaboration of your own experiences (if you have any), other website reviews, the merchant s website information, and industry information. DO NOT COPY DIRECTLY FROM OTHER AFFILIATE SITES. This is plagiarism.
- Proof Read Pages : Ever been on a website and noticed blatant spelling mistakes that diminish the sites quality? I am sure you have, and often times a spelling mistake or grammatical error will make your site look unprofessional. This lowers your ROI because visitors do not feel comfortable with the information you have provided. Use a word editor to proof read your spelling and grammar before publishing your pages.
- Provide a Reason to Buy : How will this product impact the customer? Better yet, what will they be missing out on if they do not make the purchase? If a visitor on your page has no reason to buy, they most likely will not. You cannot anticipate that every visitor to your site is prepared to make a purchase, therefore give them a reason.
- Adding a reason to buy will increase your sales. Visitors that are interested in the product(s) you are promoting may simply need a reason to buy before they whip out their credit card. It is as simple as stating the benefits of the product! Tell your visitors how the product can help them. For example: a product may save time, money, increase website web traffic, sales, conversions, etc..
How many is too many?
Having a page reviewing 10-20 products is very counter-productive and you will not see results. Doing this simply provides visitors with too many choices (yes, there is such a thing), and they will simply leave your page feeling confused. If you are promoting products with a review page right now, and you are making profits using 10-20, you are not monetizing your web traffic to its full potential.
Keep your review pages from 3-7 items, no more, no less. This will give visitors enough information to confidently make a purchase. Some products work better with 3, and some products work better with 7, just make sure that you keep within the range to reach the best results.
Limit the number of products your review or compare to 3-7 items only
Review Pages For The Advanced Marketer
In the previous section we talked about the importance of landing pages and how having a review page can drastically improve conversion rates. We ve also outlined some of the main aspects of a review page that you should consider.
- Keeping Products Similar and the reviews brief
- Allowing for affiliate link exits
- The importance of a quality review
- How correct spelling and grammar can make a difference
- How you need to provide a reason for your visitors to purchase
- The importance of having between 3 and 7 reviews per page, no more, and no less.
With these points in mind, we want to provide you with some more advanced examples and tricks that we use on a daily basis for many of our top converting landing pages.
Relevancy
We all know that Google Adwords prides its self on relevancy. The more relevant your webpage is to your ad, the higher quality score you will achieve. When you build an ad, Google visits that webpage and looks for keywords that are similar to the ones that you are promoting. For instance, if you are promoting a webpage that reviews Defeating Google Adwords, you may use keywords such as the following:
Defeating Google Adwords, Defeating Google Adwords Review, Compare Defeating Google Adwords, Defeating Google Adwords eBook, Affiliate Marketing eBook, Internet Marketing
If the landing page has these keywords within it, Google will agree that your webpage is highly relevant, and it will give you some Quality Score points.
When a visitor does a search for Defeating Google Adwords Review and they click on your ad, they will reach your webpage and be much more likely to make a purchase if you have the keyword that they searched for within your sales copy. The landing page above shows how you can add the keywords within your landing page. Have a header at the top section of the page that is the same, or similar to the keywords that you are advertising.
In the world of Internet Marketing, being highly relevant and using the proper tricks will enable you to outperform most other marketers out there. Below we are going to outline some advanced tricks that many people do not know about, or implement. We ve tested these tricks and implement them on a daily basis with many of our landing pages. The performance increase can be very significant.
Relevant Headings
If you grab the attention of your visitor using a relevant headings, it is much more likely they will stay on your page longer. If a visitor comes to your page, sees nothing but a sea of text, no images, no highlighted text, or no relevant headings, chances are they are going to leave your page. Keep your visitors interested with a highly relevant header that contains the keywords they used to get to your site. This will instantly draw interest, increase your chances of a click-through to the merchant page, and increase your chance of a sale. Having relevant headings is very important aspect of building great converting landing pages.
Pairing Ad Groups with Landing Pages
Having relative content on your landing page builds greater visitor engagement.
Visitors will stay on your site longer and read more of your information. This can lead to increased sales. If you are promoting a product such as Defeating Google Adwords you can advertise under many different highly relevant keywords like below:
Make money online, internet marketing, Google Adwords techniques, defeating Google Adwords, marketing tips.
All of the above keywords are different, and it is very difficult to have all of them contained on a single landing page. Remember, we want to engage our visitors by providing them with relevant content. Having a header that has the keywords within it will let the visitor know that the page is relevant to what they searched for.
This is where pairing ad groups and landing pages comes into play. If you build a separate landing page for each ad group, and use the common keywords from that ad group in the page headings and adcopy, you drastically increase your chances of making a sale. This trick however, takes some time because you need to modify your landing pages and have a different destination URL for each ad group.
We don t recommend tweaking a new campaign to this much detail, but if you have a campaign that is converting very well for you, it is important that you squeeze out every little bit of performance as possible.
Pairing ad groups with highly relevant landing pages will increase your sales and overall effectiveness of your landing page
Believe us, we've tested the techniques, and they work. Building separate landing pages for each ad group is hard work, but no one said that making money online was easy. If you put this kind of effort into optimizing your campaigns and landing pages you will out perform 99% of other marketers out there. Few people use tricks like this.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have your keywords show up in your landing pages dynamically, based on the search term? If there was a trick to dynamically add your keywords to your landing pages you wouldn t have to build more than one. You could save hours of work by implementing such a technique.
In the next section we are going to explain how this is possible, and provide you with step by step instructions on how to add Dynamic Page Optimization to your existing landing pages.
Dynamic Page Optimization
We ve talked about how important it is to have relevant headers on your landing pages, but to do this you need to build separate landing pages for all ad groups.
Dynamic Page Optimization (DPO) can be used to simplify this process and provide highly relevant landing pages by adding keywords dynamically.
DPO is a trick that is to be used by advanced marketers who have a good knowledge of HTML. Below are two pieces of code that you can use to implement DPO. One is made for landing pages that run on servers that support PHP, and one is written in JavaScript and can be added to any html page.
In order to take advantage of DPO you need to have some knowledge of HTML and web design. If you have a server that allows PHP pages to be displayed, you can use the PHP code below. If you do not have PHP installed, you can use the JavaScript version of the DPO code.
To take advantage of DPO you need to use the version of code that applies to your application. If you are running PHP, use the PHP code, if not, use the JavaScript code. Wherever you place this code on your page, the keywords that are passed from your Google Adwords ad will be displayed. Below is an example of how to set up your Ad.
When you build your ad you need to append the code ?key=Your+Keywords to the end of your landing page url. Remember, for this to work, your landing page has to have the correct code installed on it. The example above is pointing to a PHP page. If you do not have PHP installed, your URL would look like this:
www.yourwebsite.com/page.html?key=Defeating+Adwords+Review
Your Keywords need to be separated by a + in order for Google to Accept your destination URL. This trick is relatively easy to implement, but some html knowledge is required.
Using this advanced trick will drastically improve your ad performance. Setting up your landing pages will be slightly more difficult, but the time you save on building separate landing pages for each ad group will far out weigh the initial setup process.
Sample Review Pages
In this section we ve talked about the importance of building relevant landing pages, and how it is possible to dynamically insert keywords of your choice into your landing page, but we haven t shown you exactly what a great converting landing page looks like. Below are two examples of landing pages that convert at a very high level. We have tested the lay outs of these pages and have been using them on many of our sites for a very long time. The fact of the matter is that visitors like the layout of these sites, which directly relates to how many sales you make.
You can download the files for these sites and use them as your own. We highly suggest that you use the templates if you are unsure of how to build your first review style landing page, or if want to implement a top converting site into your existing campaign.
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