How To Prepare Your Site For A Paid Advertising Campaign

Nicole at Picknick’s Brain follows up with:

Did you mean that I should pay for traffic after I do this even though my services aren’t ready? I expect a 6/1 launch date (I hope!), so do I wait or perhaps pay for some text ads on Google, now? A 125×125 ad here or there? What do you suggest?

Hi Nicole.

I’m going to make this a two-part answer. In this post, I’ll address the specific components you want to have in place on your site before you set up any type of paid advertising. Then, in part two, we’ll look at the pros and cons of Pay-per-click and banner advertising and explore when it makes sense to use them.

And since you have been bold enough to ask your question publicly, I’m going to use your site - www.picknicksbrain.com - as an example. I hope you don’t mind.

In an online marketing campaign, there are many variables. Some of those variables are within your control and some of them are not. In this post we’re going to look at the variables that are completely within your control: Namely, your website’s homepage, landing pages, subscriber sign up form, etc. Each of these components will be crucial in the success of your online marketing. And each of these factors is completely within your control.

As I mentioned in the previous post I recommend a two - or more - step process of converting prospects into customers. You can certainly attempt to convert new visitors into customers on their first visit, but experience and testing has shown that converting a new visitor to a subscriber first almost always leads to a higher customer conversion rate down the line.

Looking at your site, I see that you’ve added a Free Quick Guide to the sidebar. Great! That gives visitors an opportunity to join your list and get a valuable resource.

Now lets take a look at your offer and see if we can spruce it up a bit for the visitors who are going to be pouring in soon!

First, the offer itself gets lost on the page. There’s nothing to set it apart from the other links. I honestly didn’t even notice it the first time I went to your site. That’s not good!

This offer should be your primary focus. It should one of the first things - if not THE first thing - that your visitors see.

Use a different color. Use a larger font. Create a graphic. Experiment with different styles and then measure your conversion rate.

If you’re using Aweber for your email list, experiment with their excellent and easy to create pop-ups, hover and lightbox ads. In one test I ran, a static signup form converted at 7% and a lightbox signup form converted at 34%!

Second, consider changing the title of the offer. Instead of Free Quick Guide, which doesn’t tell me much about the product, consider using a title that focuses on the benefit your product offers. In this case it could be something like:

• Help Your Child Sleep Soundly - A Free Guide
• End Your Sleepless Nights… And Your Child’s - Get Your Free Guide Now!
• Sleep Like a Baby While Your Baby Sleeps Through the Night…

You get the idea. Zero in on the benefit your product provides and make that your title.

Next let’s look at your sign up form. When you’re converting a first time visitor to a subscriber always remember that Less is More! At this point in the process you don’t need to know their address and the number of children they have. Would it be nice to know? Of Course. But keep in mind that every extra field your visitor has to fill in decreases your conversion rate!

At this point in the process I would recommend you ask for their name and email address and that’s it!

And just as every extra field on your form means lost subscribers, every extra click also translates to lost subscribers. So put the entire form in your sidebar. Let people sign up right there. No need to click through to a sign up page.

And if you do it this way, you can use Aweber’s excellent split-testing feature to test different copy, colors, etc. You can even test the conversion rates on a form with name and email only versus one with name, email, address, and number of children. (You could discover that in your target market your conversion rate is higher when you ask for more info!)

Now what about your landing page?

If you are going to launch a paid advertising campaign you will definitely want a landing page devoted to your Free Quick Guide… er… The Secrets of Sleeping Babies Free Report!

You can use your existing sign up page, but flesh it out a bit. Start by changing the title as mentioned above. Then list some of the key things they will learn when they download the free report. Use bullets and focus on benefits. If you have testimonials include a couple of great ones here. If you don’t have testimonials, now would be a good time to ask for some!

You want to make this landing page as good as any sales page. This is your chance to get people into your system. If you don’t convert them now, they may not return. (But don’t worry too much; there are millions of others out there!)

So here’s your pre-paid-advertising checklist:

• Create a benefit-focused title for your free report
• Make your sign up form eye-catching
• Remove all extraneous fields from your sign up form (just name and email for now)
• Set up split tests with different types of sign up forms (hover, pop up, lightbox, etc)
• Create a landing page with bulleted benefits and testimonials

Once you’ve got those pieces in place it will be time to look at your paid advertising options. I’ll be posting part two of this answer later this week.