18 Feb 2008 04:53:16 | Kate Fox
Want to know the #1 misconception among Internet marketers and
website owners?
Here it is:
The biggest mistake web owners make is thinking that it's all
about GETTING MORE TRAFFIC.
The term 'web traffic' gets over 43,000 inquiries per month
according to Overture - that's over half a million queries a
year! And that's not including the related searches like 'web
site traffic', 'get more hits', 'increase web traffic, etc.
Of course this is understandable from one point of view. With
search engines changing algorithms and competitor websites
multiplying, it's understandable that web site traffic via the
search engines is dwindling (That's not the only way to get
traffic but that's a whole NEW article). So wanting more traffic
for your website is a noble aspiration.
However it's not the most important thing. Not even close.
There's another factor that's even MORE important than having a
well designed website or even getting web site traffic. What is
it?
Web Conversion.
Web conversion is the ratio of sales to visitors to your
website. So for example, if you get 100 unique visitors to your
website and make 1 sale, your conversion rate is 1 / 100 or 1%.
Increasing your web conversion rate is 10 times more important
than getting more traffic - in my humble opinion.
Want proof? Just run some numbers.
Let's say you're getting 100 unique visitors to your website per
day and that you make 1 sale per day (or per 100 visitors). So
your conversion rate is 1%. Let's say that each sale nets you
$100. So you're making $100 a day or $700 a week.
Not bad right?
But let's say you want make more money so you decide to get more
traffic. You run some pay per click ads and get 50 more unique
visitors a day. (Or maybe you hire a SEO expert and pay
thousands of dollars to get higher rankings, or maybe you buy
some high-ranking links, etc.) Regardless that's a 50% jump in
traffic.
Pretty impressive. But you've definitely put out a LOT of effort
and even money to get more traffic. Was it worth it?
Well, you're now making an average of 10.5 sales per week (150
hits per day x 7 days x 0.01). That's approximately $1050 per
week - or an extra $350 a week.
That's pretty good. But it did cost you depending on how you got
that extra traffic.
Now let's look at a much EASIER way to increase sales.
Let's say you do some research on web conversion and how to
build a better-converting website. You do some tweaks here and
there, test it, take out some text, test it, write better copy,
make your website cleaner, test it, make the product benefits
stand out...and voila your conversion rate goes up to 3% (That's
not hard to do, some websites even have a 20% conversion rate).
Now let's look at your sales. You haven't gotten any more
traffic but at 100 unique visitors a day and 3% conversion rate
you're making 100 x 0.03 = 3 sales or $300 a day. That's $2100
per week - an extra $1400.
Wow.
And did you spend thousands of dollars to get better rankings
and more traffic? Did you spent $50-$200 a week on pay per click
traffic? No - you just spent some time learning and tweaking
your site to increase the conversion rate.
See how much easier that is? Now obviously it's a little more
complicated than that - you have to test and track your results
to see what works and what doesn't work.
But in the end you have a high-converting website that just
keeps making money for you while you relax and go on vacation.
You don't have ongoing costs to your SEO expert or the pay per
click search engines either.
Considering how much easier and profitable it is to focus on
increasing your conversion rate over getting more traffic, you'd
think that most webmasters and marketers would be more concerned
with conversion.
Want to know the shocking thing?
They're not! (Ok, the really smart ones are, but most of the
other ones are trying to increase traffic).
Remember how we said above that the term 'web traffic' gets over
43,000 enquiries per month? Guess how many enquiries the term
'web site conversion' gets? 316!
It's absolutely mind-blowing. Very few webmasters are trying to
increase their conversion rate. Most of them are spinning their
wheels trying to increase traffic!
If you've been wearing yourself out trying to get more web
traffic, take a minute and realize there is an easier way to
increase sales. Focus on web conversion and you'll be miles
ahead of the competition - probably for years to come.
About Author :
Kate Fox is contributing writer to Web Conversion, a website
dedicated to helping you sell MORE online without increasing
your traffic.