Traffic and Conversions

The profitability of your website is easy to determine, since it’s merely the product of the number of visitors to your web site and the percentage of those visitors who buy something from you.

It really is that simple.

Now, this might appear too simple to be important, but it's not. It's actually vital, and not understanding this is the cause of much frustration, misery and despair for many business owners. I’ll now show you how important it is.

Imagine you have 100 visitors a day to your website and you have a conversation rate of 1%, meaning out of these 100 visitors, 1 of them actually buys something. And let’s say you make a £10 profit on every sale. These are perfectly reasonable numbers.

Now, imagine by using the simple strategies you’ve been reading on this website, you increase your visitors by 50% and increase your conversion rate by 50%, too.

And bear in mind these numbers are conservative – the real increases you'll get will almost certainly be many multiples of these because the chances are you’re nowhere near the limit of what you can achieve in your business. It’s true: most websites underperform so badly, it’s difficult not to improve them by using sound marketing principles.

OK, so with this increase, you're now getting 150 visitors each day, and selling something to 1.5% of them – which is now 2.25 sales a day, on average. So now, even with these modest increases, your daily profits have gone from £10 to £22.50.

That's 125% more business you're doing now, just from two 50% increases in your visitors and conversions... and it’s perfectly scalable.

Good, isn't it?

The next question is, how do you increase traffic and conversions?

Well, there are probably as many ways to increase traffic to your website as there are individuals out there on the net to drive to it; and the science of sales has filled many a book and is the focus of entire multi‐day seminars.

But here I have identified five specific and very simple strategies you can start using TODAY to increase your online profits by increasing traffic and conversions.

Any one of these would be very valuable by itself, but you have all five here to benefitfrom and put to work for you in your business.

1.

Use multiple marketing streams to attract visitors to your website. It’s important to realise, it’s not just a case of getting lots of traffic: we want qualified traffic, traffic made up of people who are looking for what we're selling. So it will pay you to do your research and ensure the traffic you're getting is qualified. It makes your job of converting them to paying customers much easier. One great way to drive highly qualified online traffic to your website is using “Pay Per Click”. Other great ways are with SEO, and advertising. But don’t discount offline advertising to drive traffic online, either.

2.

Pass the 8-second test. Research shows you have about 8 seconds to grab your visitor’s attention before he or she clicks off your site to somewhere else (probably your competitors’ sites). Grabbing their attention and keeping it long enough to get them to take the action you want them to take (usually to leave you their email address and name in return for some useful and valuable information), means using a headline (no exceptions) and learning to write compelling and persuasive copy. It means becoming a student of copywriting!

3.

Structure your web page copy according to the AIDA formula. AIDA means Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. All your copy should follow this simple formula, no matter what it is – letter, email, brochure web page or anything else. You get their attention with a strong headline offering them your biggest promise. Then you get their interest with compelling opening paragraphs spelling out the problems they face and the benefits your product or service offers. You then fan the flames of their desire by “twisting the knife” of their pain and really showing them how you can ease it and make their lives better. Finally, you get them to take action on your offer with a strong call to action. Every single page on your website should have a single purpose to justify its existence, and must therefore follow the AIDA formula.

4.

Use the Lead Generation Model. Don’t expect site visitors to buy from your site or call you to make a purchase on the strength of their first visit. It can happen, but it usually won’t. The best approach is to offer them something in exchange for their name and email address so you can take the sales process in your own good time – and grow your relationship by email marketing to them.

5.

Mail more frequently. I’ve discussed this elsewhere on this site, but in brief, email your list frequently with interesting and informative newsletters (they don’t have to be fancy and professionally-designed – plain text email is far better). And in perhaps 25% of them, make a low-key and low-pressure offer. Get them to visit a sales page or call you or somehow take action to make the sale. It works.

All five of these strategies work together to create a tightly knit and very effective online marketing system.