So your business has been doing pretty good. You think it is time to start getting some global attention. You heard that many business succeeded marketing their business online, so you thought it'd be a good idea to buy some Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads from Google and Yahoo.

Few weeks later you look at the invoice from Google thanking you for your $2,000. You are very excited that the ad campaign has gone so well "successful" that you must have created quite some attention for all these clicks the campaign generated. You are expecting a dozen of enquiry emails or orders sitting in your inbox. You ask your assistant if there is any message for you, "No!" she replied. You start to wonder... is there something wrong with this whole PPC Ad Campaign idea? The fact is, your website may not be ready for PPC.

Traffic = Opportunities ≠ Conversions (Literally)

Neglect the fact that there could be tons more SEM factors that could contribute to the scenario, a lot of times website owners simply have an impression that TRAFFIC = OPPORTUNITIES. They may have got this part right, however it is not necessary true that OPPORTUNITIES = CONVERSIONS. Imagine: There is this buyer who is interested in doing business with you. You have decided to fly him in, thought that it would be easier to get him to do business with you in person. So there he is, flew in business class with free accommodation, standing right at the door of your office, zero hassel. What do you think that would happen if you just leave him there at the door? Do you expect that he will check out your products and look around how your business operates on his own? He may just leave if he is not seeing any receiption in 5 mins. Worse, he may pay a visit to your competitor instead.

Conversions = Traffic x Actions (Literally)

It's just the same when you do PPC campaign. You pay for their every visit. You need take action to make them to do what you want them to as soon as they have got to your website. If you can't manage to do that, luckily they may spend some time looking for answer from some of your other pages, however many times they will just leave your site without saying goodbye. A "successful" visit is called "conversion" for a reason.

Quick Fix: A Loud And Clear Call-To-Action

If you want your PPC campaign to actually achieve something, you have to have at least a specific call-to-action on the page your PPC ad links to (we call it Landing Page). You may want visitors to sign up with their email address, to browse your catalogue, etc. It does matter what you want them to do, but you have to show them exaclty how they are gonna do it. You have to tell them that you want them to sign up with the email address explicitly, and you will have to show them where and why they are doing it. You need a loud and clear Call-To-Action. Without a proper call-to-action, you are putting your ad investment at risk, jeopardising the entire PPC Campaign. Of course, implementing a Call-To-Action won't boost your business double fold, however it should give your PPC campaign and precious investment a pretty good start. If this whole story sounds familiar to you, design and implement a Call-To-Action today! You may be surprised what a simple big red SIGN UP button can do ;)