Warning!

When I was a kid, my parents from time to time left me in charge of my younger brother.  Since we both still had all our limbs when they returned, they figured it worked just fine and they could keep on doing it.  Neither my brother nor I particularly enjoyed it, but we coped.  (Kicking and screaming are valid methods of coping, right?)

I bring this up because the biggest problem with me taking care of my brother, from my perspective, was unsupervised thinking.  When he was quiet and calm, it was NOT a blessing; it was a warning that he was about to break out in a new direction.  It was much better if I could preemptively direct his thoughts toward a safe goal, like a nice game of 52-pickup, before he came up with something like indoor dodgeball.

Unsupervised thinking is dangerous when it comes to website visitors as well, as I learned today in our webinar, Proven Copywriting for SEO and PPC. When people click on a PPC ad, they arrive at a landing page.  That page should give them clear direction about what to do next:  fill out a form, download a white paper, request a demo, etc.  A little guidance will help a lot with your conversion rate.

If the page has too much information on it, the clickers get confused or frustrated.  They may forget why they came to your site in the first place.  They may click away to some other site instead of staying to buy your product or request more information.  Help them out; give them a clear and simple path for their thoughts, a goal to click toward.