The Reason You Need to be a Webmaster just as much as an SEO/SEM guy

[alxvallejo]

SEO is a no brainer - You need to be able to navigate around web pages with ease and change elements, navigation, sitemaps, etc.

I've heard from some SEM guys that you don't need to be able to program to be successful in SEM. Just write good relevant ads and target long-tail, relevant keywords, and earn a high CTR for a high QS to lower your costs.

This is really only half the equation. The other half is the landing page. Not only is this an important factor in QS, but will, more importantly, determine the Conversion Rate. So, if you are working with a client and you notice a low conversion rate that is hiking up your Cost/Conversion, the only way out of this is to change what your users see when they click on your relevant ad (assuming the ad is as relevant as can be).

So in my case, my business sells private health services to various locations and in one location we receive a very high CTR by featuring the doctor's name in the ad description. However, the landing page has always been the home page. Thus there is an immediate disorientation for the visitor when they see a homepage that features 3 doctors instead of 1.

So it's kind of an uphill battle if you are dealing with a customer base that responds to the trust of a "PhD" title in the ad but the actual landing page (the brand, the hospital, etc) does not target the same doctor. Sure, there is an About Us for the doctor but I wouldn't send my visitors there.

Any thoughts?

[dburk]

Hi alxvallejo,

Custom designed landing pages are a must for successful campaigns. The landing page is one of the most crucial parts of an ad campaign. You are wasting your ad budget if you are just dropping off PPC traffic to a page that isn't designed to capitalize on the user intent generated by your ad.

[alxvallejo]

Yes and the only issue here is that businesses usually hire SEO/SEM consultants to optimize what already exists and to not go in the company and start changing around websites and confronting the webmaster.

But yes, I agree completely.

[dburk]

alxvallejo,

Yes, create custom designed landing pages, don't try to change the existing website and don't send traffic to the existing website, only to the custom landing pages. Most clients are amenable to this approach and the webmaster's typically will cooperate by uploading you custom landing pages.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by alxvallejo

Yes and the only issue here is that businesses usually hire SEO/SEM consultants to optimize what already exists and to not go in the company and start changing around websites and confronting the webmaster.

Know what you mean. Alot of companies will not go for having to create a separate page. The only other solution I can think of though is close to whats discussed here


How to display referer-based contents in your web pages using PHP | YellowJug.com

So my idea (and I have never seen this implemented so you will have to converse with someone far more into PHP than I am to determine if its feasible - I'm more a.net guy) is that you would serve up a different css file based on where the vistior is coming from. In the css file the background color to the doctor you are focusing on would change and create a glow effect or border around that doctor thereby focusing the user on that doctor without actually having a page without the other doctors.