No Comparison In Search War of Words

Apples with Apples...

By Martin Kelly, Search Engine Room

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Or at that very least they start looking for value. Fresh Hitwise research shows that consumers are increasingly focussing on the bottom line when searching for product or services online.

A new study reveals that search variations on ‘compare’, ‘discount’ and ‘prices’ have increased by the largest margins over the past two years, growing in volume by 119.4%, 83.33% and 79.13% respectively.

Insurance, financial services, travel and retail are the most popular industries for comparison searches.

The same report – Maximising Search During an Economic Downturn – also advocates the use of strong, offer-specific landing pages. Some tips include:

1. Use images to create strong messages.
2. Include a call to action.
3. Be as targeted as possible – don’t be afraid to create different landing pages for each offer.
4. Avoid using extended signup forms and collecting too much personal information.
5. Use PPC to test everything, including buttons, sizes, positioning and colours.
6. Keep your design consistent with the rest of the website.
7. Design with Search Engine Optimisation principles in mind.

“The key to figuring out what type of landing page works best for your business is constant testing and tweaking,” Hitwise advises. “Start with simple changes and measure the effect these have on your conversion rate.

“You may also want to consider trying more radical changes such as making the landing page free-standing and not part of the main site to avoid leakage; this results in people staying engaged with the offer and not getting sidetracked.” Search Engine Room: October 23, 2008