usability of paid search ppc ux

Paid Search Usability

Make search easier!

In 2009 Google generated $23 billion in paid search revenue off of 37 billion clicks. 98% of those clicks did NOT result in a conversion. 

Stop working for Google; make the clicks work for you!

5 Opportunities To Lose a Customer

1. Broad or Irrelevant Keywords2. Misleading Ad Copy 3. Generic / Untargeted Ad Copy4. Poor Landing Page Choice5. Low Quality Landing Page

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #1

Bidding on Broad or Irrelevant Keywords:

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #1

Target bids on Millions of keywords!

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #2

Misleading ad copy:

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #2

Misleading ad copy:

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #3

Generic ad copy:

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #4

Poor Landing Page Choice: Linking to the wrong product

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #4

Poor Landing Page Choice: Linking to the wrong product

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #4

Poor Landing Page Choice: Homepage“Let’s just buy traffic to our homepage and see if the user can figure out where their product is."

Poor Landing Page Choice: Search Results Page"I sure hope Google likes these search parameters in the URL."

Poor Landing Page Choice: 404 or 301"We redesigned our site and the URLs changed. We'll let AdWords figure out where to send them."

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #5

Low Quality Landing Page: No Call to Action

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #5

Low Quality Landing Page: Favorite Calls to Action

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #5

Low Quality Landing Page: Favorite Calls to Action

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #5

Low Quality Landing Page: Amount of Page Copy

Too Much = People search for fast resolution to a problem and to fulfill a need. Reading an entire page of copy is not what they want.

Too Little = No one is going to sign-up or buy something unless they are well informed of the outcome. Products lacking specs or services lacking descriptions will not lead to a conversion.

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: #5

Low Quality Landing Page: Load Time / Tech Quality

Time = Money Long load times cause higher bounce rates and poor user experiences. If you want to waste your money by frustrating potential customers, long load time is the way to do it.

Web Standards and Too much TechStandards exist and evolve for a reason, use them.  Paying for a visitor and then making them download Silverlight, enable Flash, or use IE is a terrible idea.

Opportunities To Lose a Customer: Takeaways

1. Use highly targeted keywords for relevant traffic.2. If you use misleading ad copy, prepare to get a bad

reputation and a poor quality score.3. Write descriptive ad copy so users know what to expect

after they click the ad.4. Paying for an ad that links to the wrong product, a 404

error page, 301 redirect, search results page, or the homepage is a waste of money.

5. Send paid traffic to relevant and ready-to-convert pages to reduce wasted spend and bounce rate.

QUESTIONS?