Making an explicit and implicit connection

March 15, 2008

Creating a pay per click ad is one thing, but it’s likely to be up against some stiff competition. How do can you steal a march on that competition?

One way is to connect with your visitors. Say to them “not only have I got what you’re looking for, I also understand why you’re looking for it and how it will help you”.

To make that statement, you need to connect on two levels – explicitly and implicitly. It’s the implicit connection that will give you the edge.

First let’s look at the more easy explicit connection. If someone enters a search term that contains one of your keywords and that keyword appears in your ad, ideally in the title, you’ve made an immediate connection. The searcher will most likely home in your ad ahead of others that do not contain the keyword. Now, when he/she clicks on the ad, that explicit connection will be even stronger if the keyword also shows up prominently on your landing page. So far so good, but your competitors are probably doing the same thing.

But you can differentiate yourself from the rest and say “chose me” if you can demonstrate that you understand just what the searcher wants to achieve and why.

On you landing pages, don’t just describe your services or products and hold forth about how wonderful you are – go further. Think about why people are looking for your offerings. Think about the problems you can solve for them. Think about how they will benefit.

By expressing these problems, solutions and benefits the chances are that the visitor will say “these people really appreciate where I’m coming from” – you’ve shown that you’re on the same wavelength and have made an implicit connection. Now you’ve forged a bond. Now the visitor is more likely to become your customer.

This is not necessarily an easy thing to do. It may require you to talk to your customers and do some research. But it’s the ‘implicit’ connection that will differentiate you from the competition and make your visitors want to do business with you.

Much as I’d like to take the credit for these words of wisdom, I must acknowledge Perry Marshall, a Google AdWords ‘evangalist’ who introduced me to this notion in his book The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords. Thanks, Perry.

Filed in: Pay Per Click

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