By Willie Crawford

The headline read, “A funny thing happens when you don’t
promote your website… NOTHING.” Experience has taught me
that that’s a fairly accurate statement. If you are not
promoting your website, you’re not building your web
business.

However, there is one thing you need to focus on MORE than
generating traffic. That is converting that traffic into
buying customers. If the visitors aren’t converting, and
you’re spending money to generate traffic, then you’re
probably worse off than you would be if you did nothing.

If you can improve your conversion ratio, then your existing
traffic and new traffic is worth so much more to you. First,
improve your conversion ratio, then aggressively seek new
traffic.

Consider an example of a site getting just 500 unique
visitors a day, with a conversion rate of 3%. Let’s assume
this site markets a report that costs $49 and offers the
site owner $30 profit after all expenses. This site is
making 15 sales a day or $450 in profits. If this site can
increase it’s conversion rate to 5%, it would be making 25
sales a day and $750 in profits… a big increase with no
additional expenses!

Increases in conversion rates of 2-3% are very common.
Conversion rates of 20% or more are also not unheard of.
After a site has increased its conversion rate, earnings
from backend sales also skyrocket. That’s because a VERY
high percentage of first time customers become repeat
customers if you offer them backend products. Increasing
your conversion rate for first time visitors has an
exponential effect on your bottom line… not a linear
effect!

What are some way that you can increase conversion rates?
In a word… TESTING!

- Test new headlines
- Test new opening paragraphs
- Test new guarantees (different wording, longer or shorter
time periods, etc.)
- Test offering different bonuses
- Test offering no bonuses
- Test new header graphics
- Test removing header graphics
- Test offering payment plans
- Test different up-sells on the order form
- Test rearranging the elements on the order form
- Test different wording in the call to action
- Test different colors used for emphasis
- Test different background colors
- Test different prices
- Test using different numbers of testimonials
- Test putting testimonials in different places on the page
- Test using audio or video on your page
- Test long copy vs short copy
- Test using different number of “order” links
- Test using different images within the page copy

In other words, test everything. Test one element at a time
on your page, and track the difference that this made in
your conversions. Do split testing where you compare the
results on 2 or 3 different pages. Then use the page that
did the best as the control and move on to testing the next
page element. That’s how you increase your conversions over
time from 2-3% into the double digits.

Seasoned marketers will tell you that marketing is nothing
more than tracking and analyzing your numbers. This is true.
You need to know exactly what result each change on your
page had. Fortunately, there is software out there that
makes this job very easy. Some of it is even fr-e-e. There
are also manuals that explain how to test most effectively.
These manuals are how I was able to not be intimidated by
the math and calculations that you DO need to do.

If you’d like to know what split testing software I use,
and what I consider to be the best book I’ve ever read on
the topic is, just send a blank email to my autoresponder
at: willie3-60621@autocontactor.com
This information will totally blow your mind and put you
ahead of 99.999% of your competitors. That’s not hype,
that’s a fact.

You test because you cannot guess what the market wants.
Top marketers and copywriters such as Jay Abraham, Dan
Kennedy, and Gary Halbert all relate that when they tried
to guess what the market wanted, they guessed WRONG! That’s
why they are consummate testers.

Testing often reveals surprising results. I’ve heard of
marketers improving result for example by REMOVING the
guarantee. I’ve heard of marketers improving results by
doubling their price, or getting rid of a header graphic on
a webpage. Those little things often prove to make a big
difference and over time these differences can equal an over
1000% improvement.

After you’ve gotten a decent conversion rate, THEN you need
to focus on getting more traffic. The secret to doing this
is to learn what those getting tons of highly targeted
traffic are doing, and do something similar. Study why the
techniques that they use are successful at attracting not
just any traffic…but highly targeted traffic, then apply
those lessons.

You’ve invited to join me and 2 very successful marketers
as we reveal ways of generating highly targeted traffic. This
traffic is people who come to your site, looking for what you
are selling. This is the only type of traffic you should put
your time and other resources into generating… and it’s a
lot easier than you think. For details on a teleseminar we’re
hosting, visit:
http://www.profitautomation.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=66804

I’ve just revealed to you the very essence of a successful
website. Continuously test and refine the website until you
have an OUTSTANDING conversion rate. Then drive massive
traffic to that site using techniques others have already
discovered and proven to work. The third element that
separates the ultra-successes from the failures is simply
acting upon what you learn. What are you waiting for?

———————–

Willie Crawford has been teaching others how to build an
on-line business since late 1996. Frequently featured in
radio, magazine and newspaper articles and interviews, Willie
teaches the average guy what the top marketers are doing but
seldom talking about. For example, Willie demonstrates the
power of automated residual income through his system at:
http://ProfitAutomation.Com Visit now for a business boost.

 by Ryan Smith

The Internet is a revolution and all that, no doubt, but the most important thing about it is that it is a medium of making businesses. The volume of business transacted each day on the Internet is immeasurable.

More than three-fourths of the websites today are conducting some sort of business or the other. Even those websites which seemingly provide only some information on their sites are conducting some sort of business underneath all that information.

You must be having a business website too. In that case, your first intention would be to increase the traffic on your website. Obviously, the greater is the traffic, the more will be the business you will make through your site. Today, there are several techniques available to increase the traffic on websites. The following are six great ways to increase the flow of traffic on your website:-

(i) Article Marketing – Article marketing involves the writing of some keyword-rich articles that will show up on the search results. These articles are submitted to article directories with a back link of the website below them. When someone reads the article, there’s a very high chance that they will visit the website also. This is currently the most popular method of building traffic on your website.

(ii) Search Engine Optimization – SEO has become the most-heard word in the Internet world today. It simply means designing the website in such a way that it is better picked up by the popular search engines. SEO is generally done by making the webpage rich in a popular keyword.

However, designing the page format in such a way that the search engines rank it better is also a part of SEO. One way to do this is by keeping media files to a minimum on the page. Also, there should be a sizeable amount of content on the page for it to be ranked.

(iii) Forum and Blog Submissions – People with online businesses find some forums and blogs that are relating to their products. Then they participate actively on these forums and blogs by making submissions. The submissions could permit a link to their own websites. In this way, there is better exposure of the website, which could directly mean better traffic.

(iv) Link Sharing – Link sharing is a seemingly easy process, but it might be actually quite difficult to do. It is the exchange of links with some other website. In this way, a person visiting one website will probably visit the other one too, since its link is present on the webpage.

Link sharing can be both paid and free. Websites that already have a good presence on the net will put other websites’ links for a fee, while new sites will do it for free since they will also want to increase their visibilities.

(v) Directory Submissions – There are some open directories on the Internet, where websites submit their links. These directories could be both free and paid. The purpose of putting links on the directories is that the site becomes more prominent on the Internet and hence attracts better traffic.

(vi) Lead Generation – Leads are prospective clients who can make business with the website. Any information, such as email ids, of these people is also called as leads. Every website has their leads. In most cases, they would swap these leads with another website or sell them for a fee.

Then these leads could be pursued through email marketing. Through these emails, a website can invite people to visit their website. This is a much focused way of garnering some Internet traffic.

These are some of the prevailing methods online businesses use to drive traffic to their websites. After all, traffic is the most important thing for which all Internet businesses hanker.

About the Author
Ryan Smith is the author of the hot, new, ebook “Article Marketing Success.” Download your free copy at http://www.e-profitsubmissions.com