I'm kicking off this week with a conclusion to the Daily Golden Nugget series I started last week. The topic is how to better monetize the website traffic you have now in the wake of Google's Penguin filter.
There are different sources where your website visitors will come from: Organic, Direct, Referrals, Paid. Today's topic is Paid traffic.
Google likes when you pay for AdWords traffic because that's how they make most of their money. Setting up AdWords used to be difficult for everyone, but in the past few years they've created several quick start methods to get involved, and they even suggest ad copy and budgets for you.
The competition for AdWords between large online jewelers and local jewelers can be very expensive. If you target people within 100 miles of your jewelry store, and if you're willing to spend $2000 or more per month, you could increase your visitor rates by 79.5% or more.
Increasing the number of visitors to your website like this is akin to you participating in your town's street fair. Many people are looking at you, but unless you show them what they want, they will not buy.
AdWords ads will link to whatever website page you designate, and each ad should be linked to a web page that matches the ad copy. I can't really get into a full AdWords lesson in a short Nugget, but let me give you a basic example of how to increase the effectiveness of your ads.
AdWords Example:
The headline of your ad might say: "20% off all Custom Rings"
That should link to a specific landing page on your website showing the same headline "20% off all Custom Ring orders through July 6th." Using the same or similar words creates an automatic association that they are in the right place.
The rest of that page should explain your custom process, show some photos, and even discuss the potential cost of custom work.
Building a specific landing page for an Ad is very important. It allows you to write sales copy that will capture the attention of the customer. Don't simply link your ad to a gallery of previous custom work. That's the best way to kill the effectiveness of your ad, and also waste your advertising money. Custom designs are very personal to the person with the request. If your previous customer requested something in rose gold and pink tourmaline and this new viewer is immediately turned off by the color pink, they may dismiss you too quickly just by seeing the picture too soon.
The consumer wants to know what you can do for them, and what it will cost, so explain it to them exactly how you would explain it to someone in person. Then include a link to the gallery of previous work and let them find it when they have decided you're worth more reading.
Unless you're a Facebook wizard, normal daily usage on Facebook doesn't produce many website visitors. You might have a large Facebook "engagement" (success rate of views) of fans, but getting those fans off Facebook and over to your website is tricky.
Facebook Ads can, and do help with this. The everyday average retail jeweler might have 20 Facebook referrals per month, but with ads you can have 30+ people clicking to your website per day. FB Ads usually target the same people repeatedly, and you will always have the highest number of clicks on the first few days you run your ads.
Just like the AdWords landing page example above, you will need to create a targeted landing page for your Facebook Ads, or you can use the same one for both.
I suggest changing your FB ad every 4 days because your repeat audience will get tired of seeing the same image and ad copy, so switch it up.
Those are just two examples of paid links that will increase traffic to your website. The key is the landing page that you coordinate with the ad copy. You could also pay for banner advertising on your local newspaper's website, or Chamber of Commerce, or networking associations (LeTip, BNI, Meetup).
Paying for advertising on another website isn't bad; you just need to make sure that the website isn't selling text links to a lot of people at the same time, on the same page. Some websites will have a page of useful links to local communities or associated businesses, but those link pages are usually limited to 5 or 10 off-site links. It's good if you can get included in a short list like this.
On the other hand you should avoid paying for advertising if there are more than 10 other disassociated businesses on a single page. That's a link farm and the Google Penguin filter will detect and penalize anyone using it.
