I keep thinking about trust and how important that word is in modern marketing.
Trust helps make the world work better.
Trust by Terry Johnston CC Flickr
As consumers we want the offers we get to provide the services they promised. We want the product to do what it says it's going to do. And do it well.
This is why good marketing works for small businesses. Why honest marketing works best. Why modern marketing and content marketing will help you find more customers.
When a client or prospect does a search on Google they want to find what they're looking for. They really don't want random.
That's why you have to get rid of bait and switch marketing efforts. Forget false call to actions. Forget trying to dupe people onto your page.
You're really only hurting yourself anyway when that happens.
Let's follow the path of a bait and switch headline. Below is a generic headline with a built in call to action.
"Click Here For You're Free Marketing Consultation!"
An entrepreneur clicks on the link or ad and is taken to a landing page that isn't what it promised. Not exactly.
What would you expect? Most of you would expect a short description confirming that you're signing up for a free marketing consultation. Enter your email and your name. Maybe some info about your location or your company. That's it. Now you wait to get contacted or something.
Instead you're taken to a sales page. You've seen them. Those really long sales pages that have several CTA buttons and testimonials and pictures of products or happy customers.
There's nothing wrong with those sales pages. They work. For the right products and services and for the right customers and prospects.
But if that's where you landed when the headline promised a Free Marketing Consultation and now you're being asked to sign up for a service that has a guarantee but you have to pay first then you've lost some trust.
You're gong to leave. You're not going to trust that site anymore. Or the owner. Or the person who sent you there.
And if it was Google who sent you there you're not going to trust Google.
That's exactly why Google tracks your bounce rate. They want to ensure that the signals they get from people who visit websites are showing that they are happy where they landed. They stayed on the page. A lower bounce rate means you found that website or page informative. Or maybe helpful. Maybe that marketing sales page was exactly what you were looking for after all.
Your headline will effect your bounce rate which will effect your search engine rankings.
Google doesn't want people to feel like they can't trust the results that showed up first.
When people stop trusting that the results trustworthy they'll head elsewhere. Like Bing.
It's in Google's best interest to ensure that a Search Engine Result will be beneficial to the person who clicked on it.
So ensure that you don't use bait and switch headlines in your articles. Or landing pages. Your bounce rate will lower and you'll lose rankings.
You'll lose trust.