How to get a better web site ROI

Aug 7
06:05

2005

Tom O Brien

Tom O Brien

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How to get a better web site ROI by performing a simple and inexpensive test using Google Adwords.

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Better Web Site ROI

How to increase your business profitability by hundreds of percent.

Websites are ubiquitous these days and everybody is trying to get a better  web site ROI. With millions upon millions of sites all trying to appeal to the same traffic,How to get a better web site ROI Articles what can you do to improve your web site ROI?

What's In A Name

You can use Google Adwords to very quickly and cost effectively improve your business profitability by a significant amount - hundreds possibly thousands of percent. It all depends on where your site is starting from.

How?

Great question, you get a mere 4 lines of text to play with in Adwords so every single line counts. Even more than that every single letter counts (even the Capitalisation of letters will make a difference to your click through rates believe it or not).

But what's in a name? Your name in your ad is of course your URL. When crafting an ad, most people spend a lot of time concentrating on the headline (well worth doing as it is the most important part arguably) and on the ad text (also a good thing but not as important as you'd think). After the headline, the next thing that prospects eyes are drawn to is...

Yes you've guessed it - your name - your URL! But what can I do with my URL I hear you say? Just because you have 1 domain name doesn't mean you need to use it. There is nothing in Google's T&C's that prohibits you from using a different displayURL to that of your destination URL (although you will have to own the display URL and it must resolve to a pertinent page - i.e. If you're advertising pet food, it must be about pet food and not resolve to www.pdqprospects.com for example. Hundreds of percent more profitable There is nothing stopping you using as many domain names as it takes to give you a better web site ROI.

We have conducted tests outlined above with some of our clients. Results have ranged from 46% through to 76% more profitable domain names.

These results are applicable to your bottom line profitability - remember 76% more traffic will result in a like for like increase in bottom line profits and your results are equally applicable on and offline, whatever grabs attention online giving you a better web site ROI will do likewise in offline advertising media. We have also seen a 113% improvement on one of our tests (with a small sample) but we stopped the test early because our results were statistically significant and waiting for a larger sample was a moot point - we knew we had a winner.

Pop Quiz

One of my clients Jonathan Stanley has graciously allowed me to show you the results of our tests with him. Consider the following adverts and their display URL's:

Which of the above domain names was the winner and which do you think was the loser?

Well, the results are as follows from worst to last:

  • MyLeadershipCenter.com 9 clicks
  • LeadingEffectively.com 17 clicks
  • LeadSuccessfully.com 18 clicks
  • ThisIsLeadership.com 21 clicks
  • TalkingLeadership.com 37 clicks

Who would have thought it? I certainly wouldn't but then that's the point you will never know until you test. My thanks to Jonathan Stanley once again at www.TalkingLeadership.com for allowing me the use of this example.

And what else can you do with your text? And even if you want to use your existing domain there's plenty you can still do - remember CAPITALISATION? And then there is subdomains or even appended directory names. All it takes is a little creativity and you'll find a much better web site ROI!