You Work Hard For Traffic – Get It To Convert

Anyone can build an ecommerce site. Getting traffic is going to be the first hurdle, but doing so will only matter if you can convert it.

You Work Hard For Traffic – Get It To Convert

Getting your traffic to convert first requires that you understand a few parameters. To have a clue regarding how you are doing, you need to understand server statistics and conversion ratios.

I am continually amazed at the number of sites that do not look at their server statistics. Your server stats are incredibly important because they tell you how many people are coming to your site, where they are coming from, how they found you, how many are turning into customers and, if not, what pages they are leaving from. Without this information, you are just guessing at how well your convert traffic. Don’t!

Once you start looking at server stats, you need to determine your conversion ratio. The conversion ratio is the number of sales you get per visitor to the site. Importantly, it is not the number of sales per hit. A visitor may generate multiple hits, so just focus on visitor statistics. Some stats programs refer to visitors as “sessions.” Regardless, conversion ratios vary by product or service. Some may be as low as 1 in 25 visitors while others will be much higher. If you convert at anything over 1 in 500, the site probably needs some serious tweaks unless you are in an extremely competitive or general market.

Making your convert is all about providing a convenient solution for your prospects. You should review your site from this perspective. Is it easy to find and buy a product or do you have to click through four or five pages? Make it as simple as possible.

Advertising links can cause poor sales. Many people make the mistake of having their advertising link to their home page. If your advertising refers to a specific service or product on your site, the advertising should click through directly to that page. Never make your prospects hunt for what they are looking for on the site. Many of them will not do it.

As strange as it may sound, the load time of your site can kill your sales. Remember, 40 percent of Internet users are still on dial-up modems. While your site might load quickly when you look at it on your cable, T1 or DSL connection, how does it do on a 56k modem? Don’t guess. Go find one and try to load your site. If you have a lot of graphics, you are going to be in for a shock!

Even if your site loads quickly, most ecommerce sites have time glitches on the order page. This glitch occurs when the customer fills out the order information and clicks the processing button. Sites can grind to a halt as they convert to the secure credit card processing system. This is such a prevalent problem that a majority of ecommerce sites will lose up to 40 percent of their sales on the order page. Make sure your site loads quickly, particularly the order page.

Improving your conversion rates is all about understanding how your site performs. If you can focus on your subject and get the site to load quickly, you should see dramatic improvement.

All Hits Are Not Created Equal

After all the debate over website design, shopping carts and credit card processors,every website owner eventually comes to the startling realization that they need one more thing to survive - website traffic!

Without website traffic it's the same as building an expensive billboard and, instead of placing it alongside a busy highway, you hide it in your basement where nobody can see it.

Upon realizing they need traffic, most website owners run out and start blowing chunks of money and time trying to get "hits" to their sites, but they fail to realize that all "hits" are not created equal.

In their quest to get eyeballs to their websites, most online operators don't realize there's a big difference between driving "general" traffic to your website and driving "targeted" traffic.

Just getting any traffic is the same technique TV advertisers use. They flash ads on the screen in front of people who can't afford or don't need the advertised product.

Since general advertising can't hit specific targets, they hit everyone and hope that someone in their target audience is actually watching at that moment. Spam, banner ads, "safe-lists" and similar traffic techniques fall into this "general" category.

"Targeted" traffic is made up of people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say or sell onlineSell Online These people either share the same interests or have an immediate need or problem they are trying to solve.

"Targeted" traffic is best because the people hitting your website have a much higher likelihood of actually making a purchase.

Targeted traffic comes from people following recommended links on other sites, typing in relevant keywords into the search engines, or even reading articles you've written on a particular subject and then clicking over to your site for more information.

If you don't already know where to find the best sources of targeted traffic for your website, you will need to experiment with lots of different sources to find the ones that bring visitors who give you the most "bang for your buck."

The fastest way to determine which avenues provide the most targeted traffic is by using an "ad tracker". An "ad tracker" is a simple program, residing on your web server, that tracks how many visitors your site gets from a particular source and how many of them purchased.

Though it sounds simple, most businesses don't do this! Most businesses can't tell you their visitor to buyer conversion percentage and, therefore, don't know exactly how much they can invest in traffic generation and remain profitable.

Whether you pay for your website traffic with cash (pay-per-click search engines, ezine ads), or you pay for it with the sweat of your brow (article distribution, free search engines), you must identify your best and most profitable sources of targeted traffic that convert into buyers, subscribers, or leads.

Failure to identify and track where your buyers come from and then calculate how much they really cost you ultimately translates into failure for your online business.

5 Proven Methods to Building Traffic For Your Online Business

As the internet age advances, more and more businesses are finding new life online. The potential benefits of such a venture are great as the internet allows for access to millions of possible customers across the globe.
The startup costs tend to be lower as many entrepreneurs run their online businesses from home. Unlike a physical store or office, online businesses are usually open 24hrs a day, everyday. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the success rate for startup online businesses is about 10% as 9 out of 10 online businesses simply don’t work. Getting traffic to your site can be the most difficult of tasks. There you are eager and ready, your website looks great, your merchandise or service is ready and the future seems bright. So how do you get people to come to your site? The following will give you 5 methods that will help steer you in the correct direction.

1.    Search Optimization
Search optimization is the method used to allow for your website to be ranked higher as a result of a search for specific keywords or phrases by a search engine such as Google or Yahoo. Businesses will target certain keywords that are relevant to their content and place them on the homepage and/or other pages on their site. As an example we can look at the online retailer, jewelrypayless.com. They optimize words such as "silver jewelry" or “men’s ring”, etc.  When Google receives a request for one of these key words jewelrypayless.com will come up in the search results. It is, however, not as easy as this. Your site may show up on page 100 buried deep within the search result listings. In order to get listed higher more work has to be done, as described in this article. Also, the act of optimizing a site requires some knowledge of HTML which is the basic language with which websites are built. You can use an HTML editor such Dreamweaver or Frontpage to add keywords to the pages which you are optimizing.

2.    Linking Strategy
Websites often reserve an area of their site dedicated to links. The page usually consists of categorized links pointing to other recommended sites. Usually, websites will exchange links for mutual benefit. The more links you have pointing to your site, the better. Links to your site(inbound) show the search engines that your site has value. The best way to go about this process is to establish good content on your site and begin targeting websites you would link to exchange links with. You can buy software to help you do this or you can manually send out link exchange invitations via email.

3.    Pay Per Click
The fastest way to get traffic is through pay-per-click advertising. Essentially, every time a web surfer clicks on an ad of your creation, you will pay. The price can range from 25 cents to $2 per click depending on the popularity of the keyword or phrases you’ve chosen. Basically, your ad will pop up in an area designated for paid ads once the keyword has been searched. It is important that you understand the correct keywords for your business in order to avoid paying unnecessary fees for irrelevant keywords. The most effective and popular of the pay per click ad sponsors are Google and Overture. You can also use shopping malls such as Nextag.com, Bizrate.com or Shopping.com to advertise via pay-per-click. Make sure to set your budget and monitor the results carefully making adjustments as you go along. Pay-per-click can be unreasonably expensive if not managed carefully.

4.  Affiliates
Affiliates are companies, individuals and organizations that you have established business relationships with in order to increase your exposure and sales revenue. Affiliates send traffic to your site via a link representing your business on their site. If the prospective customer should buy from you the affiliate gets a commission from the transaction. In order to use affiliates you are required to register with an affiliate program and begin recruiting affiliates to work for you. Offering a handsome commission can attract affiliates to sign up. Having a professional website that will be easy for them integrate with their own site can also peak the interests of potential affiliates. Always treat your affiliates well, paying them on time and communicating with them on a regular basis.

5.    Offline Advertising
An often neglected part of marketing online businesses, offline advertising, can be an effective means by which to bring in new customers and create “word of mouth” interest in your site. Ads in magazines, newspapers, tv, radio and local publications are some of the ways through which you can promote your business. Passing out flyers or sending out postcards can also result in new business, especially if you are offering a discount in the form of an exclusive coupon code. Be creative in trying to promote your business on a grass roots level. Read books such as “Guerilla Marketing” by Jay Levinson to gain insight on how to go about marketing in a cost effective manner.


In conclusion, succeeding online can be difficult but rewarding. If you use these methods to help you in your research and application of a business and marketing strategy, along with sacrificing time and putting forth a strong effort there is a good chance that you will be successful with your online business.

3 Key Questions To Ask About Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is exciting, challenging, and confusing. It can make or break your internet business career and yet many people who depend on internet marketing don't have a full grasp of the essentials involved in internet marketing.

In fact, many internet entrepreneurs waste a great deal of time, energy, and momentum because they do not fully understand internet marketing. Don't let this lack of understanding undermine your income potential.

In order for you to better understand internet marketing and its impact on your internet business you must know the answers to these three key questions:

1. What Is Internet Marketing?
2. What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?
3. What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

What Is Internet Marketing?

Marketing is actually rather simple. Marketing is communication about an idea, product, service, or organization. Marketing therefore encompasses advertising, promotion and sales as well as the various techniques and forms of communication used to advertise, promote and sell.

Marketing is broader than simple advertising or promotion in that it includes researching the market to learn what consumers want and then setting out to meet their needs with the appropriate product, price, and distribution method. Marketing includes market research, deciding on products and prices, advertising promoting distributing and selling.

Marketing also covers all the activities involved in moving products and services from the source to the end user including making customers aware of products and services, attracting new customers to a product or service, keeping existing customers interested in a product or service, and building and maintaining a customer base for a product or service.

Internet marketing includes these same activities but also pulls in various internet tools including web sites, email, e zines, banner advertising, blogging, RSS, text links, search engine optimization, affiliates, auto responders, and other e commerce applications.
    
What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?

The range of expenses for internet marketing is huge. There are a number of promotional and marketing ventures that can cost you nothing or only pennies a day while other advertising efforts can cost you thousands a day.

It is important to consider your goals -- both long-term and short-term -- as well as how much each prospective customer is worth to you. This will help you determine a workable budget for your internet marketing campaign.

Many internet promotions are free, you can set up a web site and/or blog for $250 a year, and you can buy text links for $10 a month. You could easily spend $25-50 a day for advertising but there are many cheaper ad options available.

The best program is to start small and cheap and slowly build as you test and learn what is successful for your market and product. There is no perfect acvertising solution that works wonders for everyone. Each marketer and each product has a different formula.

What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing offers more benefits than many traditional marketing mediums. The very nature of web sites and blogs is that they continue working to promote and market your product long after your initial marketing effort is over. Similarly many advertising efforts, such as ezines, newsletters, banners, and text links also continue to increase in power over time.

Email marketing can be a tremendous surge in contacts and sales and offers the ability to personalize your message as well as reach a targeted audience so your chance for sales goes up exponentially.

The other tremendous benefit of internet marketing is that it offers convenience and immediate satisfaction. Your potential customer sees your marketing message when it is convenient for them -- and often when they are seeking information about your specific topic. Then you offer them the ability to act on that interest right then. They can locate your product and buy in the time it would take to watch a commercial on television or turn a page in the newspaper. That is the power of internet marketing.

Now that you have the answers to these three key questions, you are ready to begin your own internet marketing campaign -- and succeed with your internet venture.

15 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use:

1.) Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to "Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts" by http://TNL.net

2.) Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo it is indexed by Yahoo.

3.) Submit to Google's Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS to Google's Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

4.) Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

5.) Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time you add a new post.

6.) Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as AltaVista, and MSN.

7.) Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ. Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google. DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

8.) Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

9.) Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy comments like "I agree." Leave well thought out replies that will force readers to wonder "who wrote this?"

10.) Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few interested readers from the linked site.

11.) Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards, business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible know your blog exists.

12.) Ad a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

13.) Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups, Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE group services and find like minded people and talk with them. Make sure your use your blog URL like it is your name.

14.) Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own site and leave.

15.) Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted across the web. Sites like http://Del.icio.us, Technorati and many others have a social feature that allows you to place your article under keywords or "tags" that everyone interested in that tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive traffic to your blog!
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Selling Yourself on Forums For Your Online Business

Because of the anonymous nature of the internet people are generally more skeptical when it comes to doing business online. Owing partly to famous internet scams sensationalized by the media and to bad personal experiences online, people are less likely to trust a party whom they've never met in person. As an online marketer, you face the challenge of building trust and loyalty without the benefit of a physical handshake, a face-to-face meeting, or even a smile. To this end online forums can provide an excellent way to build meaningful relationships with people and attract new customers. By joining a forum in your area of expertise, you gain access to a community that shares your interests as well as a pool of potential customers. There are countless forums dealing with just about any topic imaginable. The vast majority of forums do not charge you a fee to register or post messages. Many allow you to include with your posts self-promotional "signatures" that you can use to promote your business and link to your website. A good way to locate a forum relevant to your line of business is to do a keyword search using one of the major search engines. Why a major search engine? A Google search for "website marketing forum," for example, will not only return dozens of relevant forums on website marketing, but will also give you an indication of how highly they are regarded by the search engine giant, as gauged by how high they rank for that key phrase. Forums that rank higher on the search engine result pages (SERPs) are the ones of which you'll want to become a member. Forums allow you to share knowledge and gain reputation as an expert in your field. Offering concrete advices that are immediately useful to other people is an especially effective marketing technique. Once you've gained credibility in your field, you will be sought after for your professional expertise without your having to promote yourself. Participating in forums is also an excellent way to humanize yourself and your business. When people deal with you, they'll know that they're dealing with a real person, not a nameless, faceless business entity. By staking your reputation online, you demonstrate that you are willing to accept some degree of accountability for your actions. If you're a generally honest and agreeable person in the real life, there is no reason to hide behind a company name when conducting business online. The personal qualities that make you likable in the real world will also make you likable in cyberspace. Indeed, establishing meaningful relationships online is a lot like making friends in the real world. After all, on the other side of the terminal is a real person with real emotions just like you. Another key to meaningful online relationships is to create an atmosphere of openness and transparency. Although you normally use a nickname to start and respond to posts in public forums, you should use your real name in private correspondences. It is good practice to begin your messages with a salutation, addressing them by their real name whenever possible. A little courtesy can go a long way in building loyalty and trust. Apart from selling your personal qualities, you must have something of value to offer to people-- and at prices that are fair to everyone! On a venue where your personal reputation is not at stake, you can price a widget for any amount you want and hope someone will come along and buy it. When you do business on forums, however, you must be extra value-conscious when pricing your product or service. If you overprice your widget, you risk receiving flames from other members that could harm your reputation. This is why it's so important to research what other members are charging for a similar widget and to price yours competitively. Often you'll end up charging lower prices to members of your forum than to other customers with whom you have not developed as close a relationship for the same widget. Building positive relationships is about making people feel important. Just as you want to feel good for having sold your product or service, people want to feel good for having bought it. This is why it is so important to promptly answer their questions and attend to their concerns. Listen to their inputs and incorporate their ideas into your business practices. This is how you make your customers a part of your team. It's not a stretch to speak of your customer as a member of your team. When you really think about it, no business can exist without its customers. Teamwork is not limited to interacting with other members of your company. It also takes teamwork to build a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship between you and your customers. Best Wishes Kathy Oz Legitimate Business Opportunities Online

Generated Keywords

The keywords are generated by using the content of your page. Keywords are usually placed close to the top of the page for the benefit of search engines. If the keywords are missing, taking the time to ad them in each engine could be an effort with a great return. Keywords are critical: google's free keyword tool just got better regular readers will know how important keywords are for driving free traffic from the search engines. The right keywords can be a challenge. You decide to find the keywords that are most searched for, related to the topic of your website. You can easily find these lists on the search engine websites telling you what people have been searching for recently in a given area of interest. Keywords research and understanding is mandatory for successful search engine optimizations and get to top search engine rankings. Read the Keywords Research Articles to know about what it is. . . . Keywords Are King What can you do if your keywords are too common? Is there anything that can help? . . . Well, for a start, including misspellings in your meta tag keywords could help you to get visitors who don't know how to spell or those who type too fast - this traffic is just as good as any other, after all. Put your business in front of potential customers at the precise moment they're searching for what you sell . . . Connect with customers searching for what you sell. . . . Advertise your business in search results on Yahoo! and other popular sites. You can put your business in front of potential customers at the precise moment they. . . For instance, if you repeat the phrase "Athletes have coaches" five times on your page and YOUR keywords only 2 times, a search engine will think that the most important keyword on your site is "Athletes have coaches". Keyword Suggestion Tool - Find how often phrases are searched for (and get suggestions). . . . This is a handy little tool will show you the results of your query from both Word tracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often. Tagging information resources with keywords has the potential to change how we store and find information. It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to retrieve it using a frame-work created by and shared with peers and colleagues. Offline to online keyword marketing promotion service sends people direct to content-specific web pages and files with keywords you choose and tell people about. . . . keywords you saw or heard . . . Since 1997 keyword. com has been providing an offline to online marketing solution for sales, marketing, customer service,Displays the keyword searches data collected from Yahoo! search log files. Updated each weekday, it shows the percentage of users searching for a specific subject on a given day. The world has changed from the first years of the Internet where loading your meta tags with hundreds of the same keywords made a big difference. Back then you could use one word over and over and the search engines ranked you high because they had no method to screen out "keyword spam". How Cool are Custom Keywords? . . . Mozilla Custom Keywords ROCK! Not just for making shorthand for bookmarks but also for searches and queries. Simple keywords allow you to type a short string in the Location Bar and load its corresponding Bookmark URL. Firefox bookmark keywords explained . . . A dialog window appears, and you can fill in similar values as in the manual example except the location (URL) which Firefox has already obtained automatically. Make sure that you change the "Create in:" location to Quick Searches unless you don't mind having the smart keyword. . . Learn which keywords you should be targeting to increase your website rankings, traffic, and profit. . . . What keywords are competing businesses ranking for? Which of them get the most search volume? Which of them has the greatest value? Should you target those keywords as well? Hope This Helps, Legitimate Business Opportunities Online