Polaris is a PPC Agency based in London, specialising in CRO enhancements for paid search strategies
Improving user experience is one of the most important factors in driving a successful PPC campaign, it’s not just about finding the right keywords, targeting and writing compelling ad copy; the solution is to focus on improving every aspect of user experience whenever possible.
If you’re seeing a high click through rate on your Google Ads campaigns but not the desired number of conversions, the problem could most likely be the experience on your website.
Make Sure Your Campaigns Are Working
The first thing you need to do to check if your PPC campaigns are running effectively or if it’s a matter of poor user experience on your site, is to check the Search Terms reports from your Google Ads campaigns.
Are the keywords that users are searching when landing on your ad relevant to the product or service that you’re offering? If they are then this is great!
Check Your Google Analytics
The next step is to look at your Google Analytics data, specifically analysing bounce rate and average time spent on site.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. The average industry benchmark to follow for bounce rate is roughly between 41-55%. If you’re bounce rate is above 70% there should be alarm bells going off, this shows us that users are leaving your site and not continuing their journey on your website, and therefore, most likely not converting.
Average time spent on site is also an important metric to look at, the industry benchmark for average time spent on site is between 2-3 minutes. If a user is spending only a couple of seconds on a page or even more than 3 minutes, this can indicate the user isn’t finding the desired information they’re looking for.
This is where user experience comes into play when running PPC campaigns, if you’re sending the right audience to your website but they’re not converting and bounce rate is high as well as average time spent on site being low then the chances are pretty high that some UX improvements need to be made.
Positive User Experience
Positive UX incorporates many factors, including value, usability, functionality, adaptability, navigation, and design. Each of these elements contributes to how functional your website is to users which then leads to a user converting on your site. It’s more than just a pretty design and colours on your site!
One of the most important factors to keep in mind when it comes to UX is device type. Are users coming to your website through mobile or desktop? If they’re coming through mobile, it’s important to look at your mobile experience and compare to other similar sites, is there something that your competitors are including that you might not be? Are users finding the information they need when they first land on your mobile site or do they have to continuously scroll? Is there a lot of clutter on your page and not a clear call to action? Users want to be gently guided towards a possible solution instead of multiple choices to choose from.
Because we live in a world where people are constantly using their phones, we’re seeing more and more website adopting to a mobile first design. Did you know 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when on sites that are poorly optimized for mobile. After you’ve made improvements to your website, you will start to see an increase in meaningful conversions.
