IMMania.com

In my post from yesterday about the latest Slap from Google (some are referring to it as a “Mini Slap“) I described a few ways to possibly get your Adwords Quality Score up and mentioned that it really comes down to providing a “quality user experience” to visitors to your site.

I’d like to expand on that a little and share what this added value might possibly consist of.

The first thing that comes to mind when most PPC marketers think about adding value in the form of content to their landing pages is articles. Hopefully, unique articles. Sure, you can grab a free article from EzineArticles.com or other article directory and slap it on your landing page and for PPC, this may work. If you’re going to go this route, then at least spend a little time reviewing a couple of articles and pick the one that you feel will offer the best information to your visitors. It’s also worth running a search for the article title on Google to make sure it isn’t too saturated across the Net.

Better yet, is to write your own article or rewrite a PLR article or even hire a ghost writer to create one for you. In fact, why not come up with a list of several articles for various landing pages that you need content for and outsource it all in one go?

Another thing that can go a long way to helping your landing pages, is having some quality graphics made, at least for your header. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a relevant photo embedded in the body of your page. A great source for free stock photos is MorgueFile.com.

The photos and header graphic are for the benefit of the human reviewers over at Adwords. They seem to look for this stuff. It also won’t hurt the user experience of visitors to your site either.

We should also remember that a good user experience extends beyond just a nicely written article and pretty Web images.

Things like online calculators, custom search controls, and other widgets and gadgets can tip the scales in your favor when it comes to being perceived as providing a quality user experience on your pages. There are tons of free JavaScript scripts for just about any type of calculator you can dream up: mortgage amortization calculators, ROI calculators, body fat calculators, and the list goes on and on.

If you want to get fancier, you can go with some server-side scripting and build or have buil,t a custom database search tool. And don’t forget, things like user generated content in the form of comments, forums, and user uploaded content can add considerable value. Just be careful with security and legal issues regarding what users can upload to your sites. You don’t want pages full of unseemly photos on a photo sharing site.

So, yes, creating user value takes more time and work. It’s just a fact. But like any other creative endeavor, be it making paintings or software systems, you test out your ideas first before committing them to canvas or full scale projects.

A painter does numerous sketches to flesh out ideas before committing them to canvas and a software development team knocks out quick prototypes to determine the feasibility of a design.

As an IMer, we should do the same.  This consists of the following steps:

• Direct link to the merchant (aka “Google Cash Method“) if permitted by the merchant
• Create a simple landing page or mini site, preferably with an auto-page generation system
• Let the campaign run and gather data
• If profitable, then build out a site and add user value
• Save time and ultimately money by outsourcing the build out process
• If a campaign fails, then pitch it and move on to the next one in your list

Looks like a procedure for a system. Gotta love those systems.