The best-designed landing page in the world won’t do you any good without the targeted visitors to use it.
How do you reach them?
There are a wide variety of traffic methods out there — some, like on-page optimization, are nearly as old as the web itself. Others are more recent. You don’t have to use all these methods, but rather read the descriptions and case studies to choose the one that you feel would work best for your business goals.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the best-performing traffic sources and how to leverage them to benefit your landing pages.
PPC/Paid Ads
Pay Per Click ads were made hugely popular by Google — but they weren’t the first to pioneer such a system — OpenText was, back in 1996. It quickly shuffled its paid listings after user outcry that paying for ads online was crossing the line. OpenText even highlighted its paid ads so that searchers could see the difference between them (sound familiar?)
A Brief History
In the late 1990s to early 2000s, major search engines (at the time) like Yahoo decided to charge an express fee to review and optionally accept or decline your site for listing in their search engine. At this time, you could still submit your site for free, but paid-to-review would attempt to shortcut the process by getting a human being to actually determine if your site “qualified”.
What made a site qualify? This was a grey area at best. There were no set standards or reasoning behind why one site would be listed, and another wasn’t. Many business owners whose sites were declined felt that their competitors had an inside track or had somehow caused the editor’s ruling to be skewed in their favor.
Needless to say, many perfectly good quality sites were declined, leading to significant negative online press for sites like Yahoo — so monetizing the search engine this way clearly wasn’t working.
Google Introduces Quality Scoring
Google was the first search engine to change all of this — with its Quality Score. No longer were sites in the top of the rankings simply because they had the most links.
Adwords was originally launched as a cost-per-impression paid advertising solution at this time, with the top bidder being not only the site that threw the most money at Google, but also the one that had several other relevancy factors.
Google won’t say precisely what these factors are, but its own algorithms are made up of a “secret sauce” of combinations that determine how well a site will rank. Quality scoring factors have changed over time, but it’s still a significant indicator of a site’s ad campaign success or failure.
After a brief stint as pay-per-impression, Google figured out that people would rather pay more to get their ad clicked on, rather than simply viewed. With the average ad costing 60 cents per click and millions of searches done per day — you do the math.
Not surprisingly, Yahoo and Bing also followed suit with ad networks of their own.
So How Do You Get Traffic?
Entire books can (and have) been written on getting the most from pay per click — but the idea all boils down to one simple question:
How much is each click worth to you?
No one can answer this for you, except you — so factor in things like:
- Your average order value
- Your profit
- Your conversion rate (how many clicks ultimately become customers).
Getting started with Google Adwords, which currently has the lion’s share of the market when it comes to pay-per-click ads, means that you’ll also have to understand and monitor things like:
- The best possible keywords to use for your ad(s) (more on that below)
- How to split test your ads and determine which ones perform best
- How to determine the likelihood that your ad will be clicked (first place is not always the best!)
- How well your ad copy converts, and so on…
It’s worth noting that you can also choose to have your Google ads shown on Google’s Display Network, which will not only show your ads across Google itself, but also on its network of partner sites — equaling more exposure for your landing pages.
What’s more, Adwords has become more than just the common text ads you see on — it has evolved to cover image ads, video and mobile as well, giving you a wide variety of options to choose from.
Choosing Keywords Carefully
Your keywords form the backbone of your PPC ad campaign — so choosing them wisely requires some research on your part. Fortunately, Google is at the ready with keyword suggestions, including how often they’re searched and how much approximate competition you’ll be facing.
The most important thing to remember about keywords is that the more specific the search, the greater the likelihood that the user is ready to buy. They’ll type in longer words and phrases (known as “long tail” keywords). The shorter keywords are often the ones with more competition, so targeting longer words and phrases is your opportunity to spend less, reach more and work smarter, not harder.
An example of a long tail search
Now, the more specific searches will also mean that you’ll get less clicks overall (because let’s face it, how many people are searching for men’s red Nike running shoes right this minute?), but those that you do get will be highly targeted and in a buying state of mind.
And even after you’ve crafted a high quality, compelling ad to get the user to click — you’re still not done, because this is where your landing pages will come into play. So how can you create a persuasive ad that gets clicks, and how do you make sure things flow seamlessly from the ad to the landing page?
Getting Started with PPC
The first step is to create an account with Adwords, Bing Adcenter, or your chosen PPC network. Once your account is created, you have to decide which portion of the network you want your ads shown on — just search or third party sites, or both?
Google has recently released a “Display Select” option to replace the entire Display Network as a whole, because advertisers were choosing to opt out of the display network because of the questionable quality of sites included in it. This allows you, the advertiser, to more accurately pinpoint the types of sites that more closely match your target audience.
According to Google, initial tests with the Display Select network showed that “advertisers, on average, could see a 35% higher click-through rate and a 35% lower cost per customer purchase”.
In any case, it’s absolutely crucial that you include Adwords conversion tracking. This lets you see conversion data for all the sites that are sending you traffic.
You can then use this information to exclude poorly performing sites (similar to how you can exclude specific keywords from showing your ads). Under Display Network > Placements, you’ll find a tab where you can exclude specific sites:
Ad Sizes
It’s also important that you incorporate a variety of banner ad sizes for use across the Adwords display network. The most common ones are:
Ad Groups
From here, you can create specific ad groups targeting each theme or keyword group that you want to use to drive traffic to your landing pages. You can also split test different ad groups to see which ads perform best. Within these ad groups, you can also choose to display your address, user ratings of your company, or an image of a specific product.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of PPC
There are a few ways that you can squeeze every last ounce of promotional juice from your Adwords budget:
- Set a daily budget rather than a total budget (otherwise you could see your PPC budget drained within a few days depending on your settings!)
- Use exact match phrases [in brackets] wherever possible to attract people searching for that specific item. For instance, [nike mens running shoes] versus nike mens running shoes.
- If you have a physical storefront, add the Call and Map extensions to your ads to incorporate rich media through mobile and Google maps to allow people one-click access to driving directions and other features.
- Set aside a specific time when your target audience is most likely to be online, and use that time to show your ads.
- If you don’t already have a Google Plus account, create one and incorporate the Google Plus button into your PPC ad.
- Leverage Google’s own remarketing tool for improved conversion rates. This lets your ad show on network sites (right down to the specific product being viewed), even long after the customer has left your site. It’s a great way to reel them back in with deals, a gentle reminder of what they viewed, and more.
Not sure what to test on your new PPC landing pages? Here are a few case studies and examples you can learn from.
Inline Forms vs. Self-Segmentation
If a user came to your landing page and were given a choice as to which button to click versus filling out a form — which do you think they would react to? That was the question Iomega posed when crafting its landing pages.
On the first variation, they wanted to test and see if users would voluntarily self-segment themselves based on their network storage needs (small business vs. enterprise). The landing page was shorter and above the fold.
Self-segmentation lets people choose their own potential sales path
They then tested this against another more generic version with a catch-all inline form that promised a free network storage solution guide. This type of landing page was more lead-gen oriented:
A more generic inline form drives prospective lead generation
Perhaps most surprisingly, the variation with the inline form won by increasing lead gen efforts by 110% — despite the fact that in many tests, self-segmentation usually converts better. The difference here was that Iomega was targeting PPC traffic, and these visitors typically tend to be in “instant gratification” mode. What’s more, by carefully selecting the best possible keywords for each group, Iomega would have been able to more precisely target its landing pages accordingly.
It would be interesting to see a test wherein landing pages targeted to enterprise users vs. small business (and both incorporating the lead gen form) would have had better results.
Geographic Targeting
Beyond self-segmentation, you can also choose to target users by geographic location. Nationwide Insurance decided to target its landing pages based on the user’s location. The results were a conclusive and significant uplift in conversions.
If you’ve ever wanted to get an insurance quote, you’ve likely seen pages like this:
Simple, right? But if you lived in a chilly area — would this ad appeal to you more?
Fortunately, you can geo-target your ads in Google Adwords by country, specific areas within a country, or even a specific radius. Depending on what you’re selling, a more personalized approach shows that you understand your customers and their specific needs.
I’m Talking to “You”
Speaking of personalization — how far should it go? What if you could target landing page ads to people with certain job titles? That’s what Marketo wanted to find out when it ran this test. It created two versions of an ad — with a title of
“Why You Should Care About Inbound Marketing”.
Versus “Why CMOs Should Care About Inbound Marketing”:
Did people respond more favorably to the title or to the “You” aspect? As it turns out — the “You” version increased click-throughs by 7% — which only serves to demonstrate that, even if the email marketing software got it wrong, and you’re NOT a CMO — you can still benefit from learning about inbound marketing, so it becomes a win-win for both the company and the individual clicking the ad.
Left vs. Right
Even the smallest thing can make the biggest impression when it comes to landing page ads. Here’s one from Hyland, which tested the exact same content — but only switched the image placement.
The first version showed the text/image to the left, with the download report field on the right, while the other landing page reversed the placement:
If you think that “best practices” dictate that opt-in forms should always go on the right — you’d be wrong in this case — since the left-aligned form field increased opt-ins by 11% — with no other options changed on the page.
Now, does this mean that you should now suddenly change your opt-in form fields to all be left-aligned instead? No — the answer is to test and see what works best in your unique situation. Best practices are just that — best practices in that particular instance, for that particular company.
So now that you know how to better create an uninterrupted flow between your ads and your landing pages — what can you do to optimize the landing pages themselves? You already know how a landing page should ideally be structured, but are there any search engine tips and tricks to improve your rankings overall and boost your quality score?
As it turns out — most definitely.
On-Page Optimization Factors
To help your ads convert better, there are also several on-page optimization factors to consider. Take, for example, this hypothetical web page about chocolate donuts:
What do you notice?
- There’s a strong H1 headline using the targeted keyword
- There’s a relevant image with accompanying alt text to describe it.
- The image filename contains the keywords that the page hopes to rank for
- Body text incorporates the targeted keyword and close variations
Now, keep in mind that the example above isn’t a landing page in the strictest sense (there’s no call to action, for example), but it still incorporates the kind of on-page optimization factors that Google and other search engines are looking for.
Landing pages incorporate many of these features, but they also have several other points that can bolster their rankings:
SEO-Friendly URLs (Permalinks)
Long gone are the days of long, ugly strings of code in URLs. Why would someone visit www.yoursite.com/shoes/0098838d9rrxbl3492/0080472342188/ when a URL like www.yoursite.com/shoes/nike/mens/running/ seems to fit their needs more accurately?
If you’re using a content management system like WordPress, you can automatically create keyword rich page names through its system of Permalinks. These are just different ways that the content management program will link to individual posts or pages of content.
And whether you’re running a blog or an e-commerce store, having URLs with keywords in them will more than likely rank your page higher than random computer URL gibberish that only your inventory database understands:
An example of a search engine friendly URL at Zappos
A not-so-friendly URL for the same search at Dick’s Sporting Goods
Rich Multimedia
Incorporating rich multimedia — such as videos or even colorful charts and graphs can make a significant difference in improving your landing page’s on page optimization factors. People’s eyes are magnetically attracted to beautiful images — so professional-grade videography or crisp, easy-to-scan graphics can increase the time the user spends on the page, interacting with your promotional materials.
Page Loading Speed
Loading speed is another issue that affects ranking. The faster your page loads, the more likely users are going to stay and engage with it. A slower loading page will cause visitors to leave on account of having to wait.
If you’re serving up a lot of images, multimedia or other heavy, slower loading elements on your page, it may pay to invest in a CDN or Content Delivery Network. Rather than having one set of pages on one server which people connect to and wait to download on their own computers, a CDN makes multiple, synched versions of your content available at different data servers around the world, serving the one that is geographically closest to the requestor (the visitor) so that page load time is faster. Because cost of bandwidth is also a factor, CDNs generally choose an option that is both geographically close and relatively inexpensive to deliver.
Long Tail Keywords
Here again, long tail, specific keywords are a factor in how well your page can rank. By using these keywords in your text in a way that looks and reads natural to a human being, you are sending the search engine signals that this information is both specific and valuable.
By incorporating related keywords such as the year, “reviews”, “guides”, “walkthroughs” and “tutorial”, you’ll also be letting search engines know that your site is a credible, information-rich source of details for visitors. And because search engines thrive on relevancy, the longer users stay on your page, the more that it counts as a “vote” toward your site being a legitimate source of information for that inquiry. A win-win for both you and the search engine!
Page Content Length
Finally, page content length is another factor — although ideally, the longer the page, the more informative the search engines sees it as, landing pages don’t always have this luxury. That’s why, as a next step into your site and thus, your sales funnel, you may want to provide a longer, more detailed description of what the customer is actually getting after they move past the landing page itself.
Other Types of Advertising
So far, we’ve discussed pay-per-click landing pages and search engine optimization factors that can help with getting traffic to your landing pages — but what about other forms of advertising? For newer websites who are just getting started with landing page optimization, one has to take into account which methods will result in the most targeted traffic for the least amount of budget spent?
Two of the better methods to help you launch your landing pages right from the start beyond search engines are Solo/Native ads and Facebook ads.
Solo/Native Ads
Solo ads and native ads are lumped together in this instance because they share a lot of similarities. Solo ads, simply put, are standalone ads that typically run in e-zines or newsletters. These types of ads are best done in newsletters that you yourself receive and trust, rather than one of the many solo ad networks online. Typically these sites offer both free and paid variations depending on the cost per impression to share your solo ad across their networks — but your results may vary (particularly if you opt for the free route).
That’s why it’s better to reach out to ezine and newsletter publishers with small to medium sized (but highly targeted) lists to inquire about placing an ad. As their name implies, the “solo” part of the ad means that your ad will be the only one shown, thus making the placement a bit more expensive than a typical sponsored newsletter, but also helping to ensure that the spotlight is solely on your business.
In the same vein are native ads — which are ads that are ingeniously disguised as part of the piece they’re embedded in. In the magazine publishing world these are known as advertorials, and it’s difficult to distinguish them from outright published pieces.
One site well known for its native ads is everyone’s favorite time-waster, Buzzfeed. As you’ll see from the example below, Buzzfeed showcases instagrammers that you should totally be following. It also highlights the hashtag #LIFEASPHOTO on Tumblr. What you may not realize is that the entire front page in sponsored by Samsung and the Samsung Galaxy Camera.
To its credit, Buzzfeed does mention this in the first paragraph, as well as the reasoning behind their choice of photographers (who were given Samsung cameras).
Another example of native advertising appeared in a UK health magazine:
As you can see, the only giveaway about this “article” on rosehips to treat joint damage is the note at the upper right about “to advertise in this section”. It looks and reads just like a real magazine article, doesn’t it?
And as a result of this, you’ll get people who are either enthralled with the idea (since advertising that doesn’t look like advertising is much more likely to get more interest and discussion) or who feel deceived by it.
Getting Started with Native Ads
There are a handful of ad networks specializing in native ad displays — most notably:
Which Types of Ads Do Best?
There are several types of native ads out there — ranging from blog posts to videos. A study was done to determine which types of native ads were most effective according to publishers — these were the results:
If you decide to promote through native ads, there are a few points to keep in mind to make it as successful as possible, without leaving your potential customers feeling like they’ve been betrayed by a slick promotion-disguised-as-content:
- Focus Your Content
Remember, you’re writing to be genuinely helpful and laser-focused on your audience. Think more in terms of content that provides value rather than advertising that provides content. - Remember Your Advertiser
Your content should blend in easily with the advertiser on whose site it’s appearing. As with any other content marketing objective, your job is to entertain, enlighten, educate and engage. Find out what your advertiser’s goals are for their own site, and align yours to fit in with those goals, while still marketing yourself. - Be Transparent
The line between native advertising and actual articles can be blurry at best. For some consumers, this crosses the line of trust that they have established with the magazine or site you’re advertising on. Ask the advertiser what they do (and what you can do) to make certain that you’re not crossing that line in their readers’ minds.
Native Advertising & Conversion Rates
The Telegraph ran a newspaper-style banner ad with two different layout styles. Which do you think got the highest click-through rate?
A full-page ad promoting a contest to win a trip to San Diego
A “Sponsored Features” daily deals split ad
The single item, slideshow-style ad greatly outperformed the split-style ad (exact numbers were withheld but they were promised as being very impressive!). Not only does this force the user to pay attention to a single area, but also reads less like an ad, and more like a featured story embedded within the day’s news.
Clever, isn’t it?
Facebook Ads
By far the area of Facebook that gets the most attention is the News Feed. In the case of Facebook mobile, there’s not even a sidebar on the right, so any ads that would ordinarily appear there get no love from mobile users — and considering that mobile ads earn up to 2.5 times more than standard desktop ads — that’s a lot of potential going right down the drain.
The first step to advertising on Facebook is to have an account with them. Creating a business account is different than a personal account in that there are no individual profiles and business accounts can manage separate pages. You can have a business account on Facebook with or without a separate personal account.
Your new business account can fit one of six choices. Choose the one that most accurately represents your company:
Then just click Create Ads to start using Facebook’s advertising tools.
Starting an Ad Campaign
You’ll first choose your ad format before you create a campaign. The “What would you like to do?” section offers several choices, including:
- Getting more page likes
- Promoting page posts
- Attracting new users
- Increasing attendance (for an event)
- Custom ad options (advanced)
There are currently 24 different types of advertising available on Facebook Fortunately, the site does a good job of walking you through the different types by letting you make the choices that make sense for your advertising goals. The first choice you’ll need to make is to decide whether or not your ad should be shown as the “voice of the company” or through the “voice of a friend”.
Ads can be customized to display the precise message you want, while attracting the type of audience you’re looking for, while Sponsored Stories are messages from friends and fans that demonstrate how they engage with the company. You can choose to promote these types of stories, thereby increasing the chances that others will see them.
From here, you have a number of options — some of which are illustrated below (images source: SocialBakers)
Types of Facebook Ads — Voice of Business
For businesses that choose the typical “ad” style of Facebook advertisement versus Sponsored Stories, there are a variety of sub-categories to choose from. Let’s look at the benefits and types of each one.
Simple Ads Page Post Text Ad
Probably one of the simplest types of ads — these can appear on the sidebar (desktop ads) or in the newsfeed (mobile ads) with varying results. Sidebar ads are limited to 90 characters, while newsfeed ads feature up to 500. Similarly, advertisers can use this type of format to also promote videos, images or links rather than just text.
Best Used For: customer acquisition, brand awareness, increasing page likes.
Page Like Ad
Another standard style of Facebook ad, this style is most commonly used to increase page likes. Keep in mind that ad text is limited to 90 characters, so having a strong call to action which increases the likelihood of a “like” is very important here.
Best Used For: Customer acquisition, page likes.
Domain Ad
Similar to a Page Like ad, except clicking it takes you to the site’s domain rather than the Facebook page. Titles are limited to 20 characters and text to 90 characters. Fortunately, you can conduct a variety of A/B split tests using a combination of images, titles and text to determine which type of domain ad best resonates with your target audience.
Offer Ad
A very popular choice for giveaways, the offer ad is limited to 90 characters and is ideal for reaching out to your target audience with a coupon or discount that may not be available anywhere else.
Best Used For: customer acquisition, branding and loyalty, customer retention.
Question Ad
A straightforward survey-style ad which lets businesses do basic market research with their target audience. Polls will only show the first three answers, unless they’re in the news feed which will show four at most. Sidebar ads will show either two or three questions depending on the range of answers.
Best Used For: Market research, customer insights.
Event Ad
Event ads are best reserved for right sidebar placement as opposed to the newsfeed as you get 90 characters of text, versus a simple title / event date / location / time information that would appear in the newsfeed.
Best Used For: Event awareness, customer acquisition.
App Ad
This type of ad is ideal if you’re promoting a Facebook app, and you want to encourage users to download and install it (by clicking the “Use Now” link). This type of ad is also limited to 90 characters.
Best Used For: Increasing engagement, customer loyalty.
Mobile App Install Ad
If you want to promote your mobile app (different than a Facebook app), the mobile app install ad is ideal. The image is taken directly from the app store, and there’s a 160 character limit — so choose your words wisely!
Best Used For: Mobile customer engagement.
Sponsored Results
Sponsored results helps put your page front and center of any queries the user types in Facebook’s search box.
Best Used For: Brand awareness, customer acquisition, page likes.
Types of Facebook Ads: “Voice of Friend” or Sponsored Stories
Sponsored stories use the leverage of friends to do the heavy lifting when it comes to increasing engagement. Many of the styles of ads are much like the more business-style ads noted above, except they include the interaction of friends where available. (Images source: SocialBakers)
Page Like Sponsored Story
Similar to the page like ad, any friends who like this particular page will make it also display in your newsfeed or sidebar.
Best Used For: Page likes, customer acquisition, brand loyalty.
Page Post Sponsored Story
This type of ad shows when a friend likes a particular post on a business’ Facebook page. In this illustrated example, the post is actually a photo album.
Best Used For: Customer engagement, Event awareness.
Survey Question Sponsored Story
Similar to the survey question, this sponsored story includes your friends’ responses in showcasing the answers.
Best Used For: Market research, customer engagement, customer acquisition.
Offer Claim Sponsored Story
This type of ad is ideal for local events and festivals, and will notify friends that someone they know is going to attend. Users who see this ad can view it, leave (if they originally posted they would be attending) or invite their friends.
Best Used For: Market research, event awareness, branding and loyalty.
Event Sponsored Story
This type of ad is ideal for local events and festivals, and will notify friends that someone they know is going to attend. Users who see this ad can view it, leave (if they originally posted they would be attending) or invite their friends.
Best Used For: Market research, event awareness, branding and loyalty.
Check-In Sponsored Story
Similar to an event notification, the check-in sponsored story lets customers check in to a location (similar to Foursquare) and leave a comment about their experience. Others than then like or comment on the check-in.
Best Used For: Event attendance, customer acquisition, customer engagement.
Game Played Sponsored Story
If you’re promoting a Facebook game, you can use this type of sponsored story to let players’ friends know that they were playing, or even down to the specific action they took in the game.
Best Used For: brand awareness, customer acquisition.
App Used Sponsored Story
Similar to the mobile app Facebook ad, this type of Sponsored Story incorporates a friend’s feedback on an app, encouraging others to join in and see what the fuss is about.
Best Used For: customer acquisition, customer engagement.
Domain-Based Sponsored Story
This type of ad is used to encourage friends to visit and like a page on a website beyond Facebook.
Best Used For: Website promotion, blog promotion.
Next Steps: Choosing Your Demographic, Setting Pricing & Scheduling Your Ad
The next steps in getting your ad ready for prime time are to select your ideal demographic. You can target by countries, age range, gender, exact interests, broad categories of interests, the person’s connections and their friends:
Facebook will also give you an estimate of how many people (approximately) match your desired campaign traits.
Beyond this step, you’ll then be asked to schedule and pay for your ad:
You can give your campaign a name or use an existing campaign if you’d like to split test two campaigns to see which one performs better. You can also set a budget and schedule a start/end date, or continuously run the ad.
Tips for Creating Your First Facebook Ad
When creating your first ad, it’s best to start with your existing fans and create a simple free offer that gives them something valuable in exchange for their name and email address. Not only will it show how many people claimed the offer, but you can also turn the offer into a promoted post via your Page wall settings and pin it to the top of your wall for added exposure:
An important note to make here is that you should choose your text carefully — Any image-based ad can have a text overlay, but the text can’t take up more than 20% of the total ad image itself. Going over this limit will mean that your ad won’t be approved for showing in the news feed.
What If I Don’t Have Any Fans Yet?
If you’re just starting to build out your Facebook page — you can place a simple “Like” ad. In the case of these ads, they do appear to work well in the right sidebar as opposed to just the news feed.
These ads will let people like your page and help you build up a community of friends and followers. This is a great opportunity to leverage that professional-grade video you’ve been holding on to, as new fans want a quick introduction and will always have a “who are you and why should I pay attention to you” mindset over anything else.
Creating Your Facebook Ad
When crafting your ad, you want to carefully consider the image used and the message you’re trying to convey. One safe school program tested two different versions of a Facebook ad to see which one would get greater response:
The second ad increased click-throughs by a whopping 2,666% (no, that’s not a misprint!) — and here’s likely the reason why:
It invites parents and the community to be part of the solution, while letting them know how their involvement benefits students. Plus, a call to action to “Learn More” invites engagement right from the start. Remember, you have limited space in which to add text, so choose your words carefully!
Increasing Conversions with Facebook Ads
So you’ve got your promoted post, sponsored story or like ads set up — and you’re ready to start reeling in potential customers to your landing pages. One of the ways to quickly build up traffic is to target your ads using a Facebook feature called Custom Audiences. This lets you upload your email list or list of your customers’ mobile phone numbers and then precisely target those customers through Facebook.
As an added bonus, when you select custom audiences in Facebook’s ad management dashboard, you can also choose Lookalike Audiences, which will help you reach out to people who are similar to your custom audience in terms of things like their knowledge of the brand, their geographic location, similar offers they’ve claimed, etc.
Once you’ve built up a solid fan base of 5,000 or more followers, you should start seeing your cost-per-click going down, and your conversion rates going up when you precisely target fans with ads.
But how do you create that engagement to begin with? Here are a few ways to build up your community:
- Quotes from industry leaders
powerful quotes from people who are leading the pack in your industry are always a hit. Plus, they provide much-needed inspiration or motivation to followers. - Use images to tell a story
Maybe you have a crazy client story that started out a real nightmare and ended up becoming wildly successful? With their permission, of course, you could share this story and invite your followers to share their own experiences. - Fill in the Blank / Caption the Photo
This is always a fun way to pass a little time (and Facebook users are all about fun!) so encouraging them to caption an interesting or funny photo or fill-in-the-blank is sure to get a larger number of responses. - Get Feedback
Just finished the first draft of your new ebook or video? Ask customers if they’d like a preview copy in exchange for a like! This is also a valuable way to get feedback from the very people you’re trying to reach. - Always Ask Yourself “What do My Fans Get Out of This?”
In other words, why should they pay attention, let alone participate in what you’re sharing? If you don’t know the answer — neither do they!
Conclusion
So there you have it — the quickest ways to start getting targeted traffic to your landing pages.
There are many options available.
Go get started by testing different sources of paid traffic to find the best converting traffic for you.
Just make sure you budget properly and make sure you do not spend more than you make in return.