Search Marketing: It’s All About Language

Search is all about language.

The keyword is a goldmine of information. Not only do you know how many people search on a keyword, the way the keyword term is used helps reveal to you the intent of the visitor. What order do people use words in the keyword phrase? What qualifiers do they use, or not use?

Once you figure out the visitors intent, you need to align everything you do with that intent.

Their Words, Not Yours

Many PPC advertisers make this basic mistake.

They focus most of their attention on the language of the PPC ad, and pay little attention to the language following the click.

Let me explain.

An advertiser carefully crafts a PPC ad. The advertiser includes the keyword in the title. The advertiser creates compelling ad text, aligned with the visitors need. The advertiser delights in the fact their ad appears above the competition, and that the ad is receiving a high number of clicks.

But they neglect to follow through the conversation established by the ad onto the landing page.

There’s More To Conversion Than Call To Action

If you’re not converting to desired action on the landing page, there can be a number of reasons. The offer might not be right. The price point might not be right. The layout might not be right. You can experiment with these factors using multi-variate and split run testing.

One aspect that shouldn’t be overlooked is the language itself. Are you elaborating on the conversation established by the PPC ad? Are you “talking” in the same voice? There is no point phrasing a simple, direct question in the PPC ad, only to bury the visitor in dense corporate-speak on the landing page.

The Tone Of Voice Must Match

The landing page needs to carry on the conversation in the same tone. It must expand on the conversation, enticing the visitor further into the relationship.

One of the downsides of the web is that it can be difficult to conduct customer interactions in the form of a genuine conversation, as a salesperson would, because you can’t quickly alter your content based on their response.

But you can approximate it.

Your landing page should provide multiple calls to action. They should be different. If you only provide one call to action, then you limit the customer response. The customer might not want that option, but something closely related.

So provide different options, leading to different paths of visitor interaction. Entice the visitor deeper into the sales funnel. If you don’t provide options, you risk ending the conversation. The visitor will click back.

Look at ways to keep the conversation going, and the visitor clicking.

Checklist

• Is your language consistent? Same tone, same style.
• Are you speaking in the customers language? Use their adjectives, their verbs, their nouns.
• Does your landing page carry on the conversation established by the text ad?
• Does your landing page offer multiple calls to action?
• Are you using your most successful keywords throughout your copy?
• Are you writing from the visitors point of view? Solve their problems.