There were many changes in the world of PPC marketing in 2018, such as Google Adwords being rebranded as Google Ads and all the user changes that came with that, plus the rise of Bing Ads & LinkedIn advertising. We also are seeing Amazon strive forward online very nicely.
In terms of what to expect in 2019, some experts predict that trends such as artificial intelligence, voice search, audience targeting and automation will continue to rise in prominence and importance. It seems marketers are looking at building an audience by trying to work out what type of people are actually searching for their products and services. This makes it easier to target specific ads and direct them to specific people of course, but also this could replace a traditional SEO reliance on keywords and terms, meaning that providing a content-rich service which offers the user an ‘experience’ and adds value and credibility to a site becomes more important than ever.
Conversion rate focus in 2019
Traffic has always been a critical driver in SEO and PPC strategies, and for good reason but increasingly, and certainly in 2019, the onus needs to be increased with engaging a user and focusing on conversion rates.
Long gone are the days of business owners accepting traffic increases as an acceptable KPI for an in-depth PPC or SEO strategy. To truly stay sustainable online we believe in this difficult retail environment currently you must start understanding user behaviour and using this knowledge to increase conversion rate. There are many tools out there such as Google analytics that can help you understand this. From user journey to how your search forms are presented out on your website – we recommend investigating everything you can for better optimisation.
How do you convert traffic in to sales?
Improving the time users spend on your website is something worth focusing on. This can be done by creating more interesting content – video is something we definitely recommend here for good engagement from users. Where possible get innovative – we have found VR and virtual tour content embedded into website pages really gets a user interested. We recommend putting yourself in the mindset always of the user – what would make a product or service page interesting. Standard text and 1 image does not separate you from many competitors online.
It is an intriguing mix and certainly a challenge to keep online shoppers of today on your website, but it is something that should arrest you from a traffic rate obsession and enable you to focus on what is most important to a business; converting those website visits into sales. The more conversion rate increases we would expect to see an increase in returning customers also.