pay YOU.” And yes, this is true. But my total fee was less than what one month of increased advertising would have cost. So after the first month, that part becomes irrelevant. But it gets better: Based on how much he makes from a sale, I actually paid for myself in one week. After that, it was all pure gravy.
And here’s one more “even neater” part: This new conversion rate (3.5%) will almost certainly hold true even if he DOES decide to eventually increase advertising (as he obviously was willing to do before I changed things). So he could feasibly be getting 3.5% on 2,000 visits if he so chooses. ANOTHER doubling of business.
Nice little story, huh? And trust me, things like this happen all the time.
Website Conversion Rates are a True Indicator of Success
One more thing on conversion rates.
Looking at (and measuring) your website in terms of conversion rates cuts through the clutter of everything and gives you the definitive measuring stick of your website’s performance. This is because sometimes your website’s performance might not be reflected in total revenue. Personally, my overall revenue numbers fluctuate depending on the size of the jobs I am currently doing — yet, initially they all come in on the same quote form, and count as one conversion. My revenue is also determined by how well I convert my prospect once they have contacted me. If I have an interested prospect, my website largely did its job (it delivered me the prospect, and now I have to take over). So it’s not really fair for me to judge my website’s performance on revenue (or whether I close the deal), is it? If I’m getting a nice flow of interested prospects, and my revenue is still bad, my problem almost certainly lies elsewhere (maybe in my demeanor or my pricing).
To give a slightly clearer example of the previous, imagine if you were unemployed, and had a nice rÈsumÈ made. You sent it out, and it got you a few calls or interviews. But then you proceeded to show up to the interview in shorts and a “work sucks” t-shirt, and (surprisingly) did not get offered the job.
Is it your résumé’s fault that you didn’t get hired? Should you change your résumé? Or is the résumé doing its job (delivering contacts and interviews) and the real reason you remain unemployed lies elsewhere?The answer is pretty obvious (I hope)!
To wrap this part up, in very simple terms, knowing your website conversion rate is probably one of the best ways to get a handle on how your website is doing. It also gives you a clear picture on how changes affect your business.
Okay, let’s move on to targeted traffic.
Targeted Traffic
The second part of Chapter 1 deals with targeted traffic. I mention this along with conversion because it is a “backbone” issue that (technically) has nothing to do with your website itself, but has everything to do with its success. Everything I will talk about after this point, from the fundamentals of a successful website to writing copy for the pages, will assume that you are bringing targeted traffic to your site.
What is targeted traffic, and why is it important?
Targeted traffic refers to website visitors that are interested in what you have to offer. In other words, they largely came to your website specifically looking for your service, product, info, etc. They aren’t simply randomly web-surfing, they aren’t just curious — they are looking for what you offer.
This isn’t to say that you won’t get random traffic. Your website will get all kinds of traffic. There will be surfers and browsers, people who landed on your site for whatever reason, etc. You won’t be able to help that. But you want as much targeted traffic as you can get. And you have to work at getting targeted traffic — it won’t just find you.
Targeted traffic generally comes to your website one of three ways — someone searched for your site online, someone saw an ad on a related website (or in an email message), or someone saw an offline marketing piece that drove them to the site.
Regardless of where/how the traffic originated, it shares a single concept: Someone said, “Hmm, looks interesting” (or something like that. Don’t quote me) and went to your website.
Targeted traffic is extremely important, because it’s the very essence of how the web works. Fundamentally speaking, the web is a lot closer to the Yellow Pages than it is to TV, for example. By and large, regardless of how they got your website address, people will go to your website because they feel the content will be of interest to them and/or their situation.
How do you get targeted traffic?
I’m not going to kid you. Targeted traffic will likely cost you a few bucks. There’s almost no way around that. You usually have to pay for online advertising (on search engines, online banners, etc.), and offline (well, that’s self explanatory: brochures with your web address, business cards, and the like). If you are not prepared to spend money getting traffic, you will have a very hard time succeeding online. This is reality.
I know, I know … everyone wants low-cost/no-cost “guerrilla-style” ways to get traffic. Well, they do exist, but I have to tell you, in my experience, they are very time consuming, and the results are almost always substandard at best (they can be nice additions to your paid efforts, though). In fact, it seems the only people who benefit from this type of marketing are those who sell the information on how to get free traffic (making it not-so-free anymore). Smart, successful web people are ready to spend a few bucks on advertising, so be a smart, successful website owner and do the same. You can experiment with other, cheaper ways of getting traffic later once you are making money.
Okay, here’s how you generally get targeted traffic:
1. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC): When you use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising through Google, Yahoo! (formerly Overture), or similar, this is advertising where you bid on certain keywords (keywords that people would search for if searching for you), and you pay each time someone clicks on your ad (usually anywhere between ten cents and two bucks, depending on the popularity of your keywords). This may seem expensive, and it can get that way, but I have to tell you, I love PPC, and here’s why: The people clicking on your ad searched for your specialty, read your ad, and were compelled to click and go to your website. By and large, that’s seriously targeted traffic. These are people who are really interested in your service.
Now, there are entire books written on PPC advertising, so I’m not going to get into the technical “hows” here — you can figure out “how” by going to these websites (Yahoo!, Google, etc.), and reading about their advertising programs. But, for almost any web business, you are going to have to engage in some form of PPC.
And not only do you have to participate in PPC, you will have to have a sufficient budget (this is the reality of today’s Internet). I can recall rewriting webpages for a guy that had a budget of $2 a day for his PPC ads … That $2 delivered three people, and this was the only advertising he did. Suffice it to say, that’s simply not enough. It is close to impossible to run a serious business on a $60 per month ad budget (to give an example, currently for my little home-based business, I’m spending ten times that).
I’m sure someone out there will argue with me on this point and tell me that they get thousands of people for free, but I gotta tell you, I’ve seen countless good web businesses go belly-up because they were underfunded in an advertising sense.
So PPC, with a sufficient budget, is the first way to deliver targeted traffic. And I’ll
