There are many elements in your business that are important, but there are two crucial ones that determine its success or failure. These elements are:
- Traffic
- Conversion
Let’s see how this works… You can have the best product in the world with an excellent website and a marvelous sales letter. But if nobody knows about your product, you are not going to make any money.
You need people visiting your site to make sales. With visitors at your site, your website and sales letter can play their role and you can make money.There are tons of traffic generation methods. Some are free, while others require you to pay. You have to select and employ those that will really work for you.
Many people are obsessed with getting thousands and thousands of visitors per month. A lot of effort is put into driving traffic to their sites, but they don’t consider one of the most important principles in business. That is that what really matters is the quality, not the quantity.
When you are driving traffic to your site and you don’t know what type of traffic it is, you are wasting a lot of time and effort. You want visitors that are interested in what you are offering, you want people that land on your site and do what you expect them to do. In other words, you want traffic that works with your business and decides to opt in or buy.
Some people only think about traffic and this is the only thing they do during the whole day. They try to generate traffic from every source possible – social media sites, blogs, forums, networks, eZines, articles, etc… no matter if it converts or not.
Don’t make the common mistake of driving a lot of traffic to your site, looking at your traffic statistics and getting excited. It is the wrong approach, because if these big traffic statistic numbers don’t bring in money it is a complete waste of time.
You have to drive targeted traffic to your site and in order to do this you need to keep two things in mind:
- The quality of the message you put out
- The place where you deliver that message
Your message has to be delivered where your prospects are and it has to make them visit your site. Sometimes you are delivering the right message, but you don’t know if you are doing it in the right place.
So, what to do? The answer is very simple, you just have to track your links to know where your traffic is coming from and how it is converting. There are lot of services out there that you can use to track your links, hypertracker is one of them.
When you know your numbers, then you focus only on the sources of traffic that are converting better. This way, you will save a tremendous amount of time and money and you will be more efficient and productive… You will make more as you have the people visiting your site that will pay you for your service/product.
In conclusion… track your traffic, for the traffic sources that don’t work out you can change the message you are delivering, and if after this you see they still don’t work out, just remove them from your traffic source list.
If you could choose between a huge amount of traffic with a low conversion rate or a small amount of traffic with a very high conversion rate, which one would you choose?
Now I would like to invite you to discover how to get your Internet business up and running in record time when you visit: StartUp Internet Business Acceleration
Thanks,
^PV Reymond
44 Comments
Joy Adams
April 7, 2009Hi Reed,
Well this is a bold statement indeed when everyone else is telling us that traffic is the most important thing above all else. Makes me curious to see what his Acceleration business is all about…!
Joy
Joy Adamss last blog post..Dog Mouse
Shaun Ellsworth
April 7, 2009You are absolutely right. Traffic is great, but if it doesn’t convert, you are just wasting time and money.
When I set up a PPC campaign, I focus on the click through rate, but once I get the CTR and CPC where I want it, I put all my efforts into increasing conversion.
I use Google Analytics for my tracking and I discover things there that I never could have guessed in a million years. Tracking is absolutely essential.
Shaun Ellsworth
Get your free Internet marketing DVD at:
http://www.internet-marketing-dvd.com
Make Money With Casey
April 7, 2009I totally agree with your message. As a matter of fact I was one such person who wanted traffic from every possible angles. When I first started out I was using traffic exchanges and would surf for the whole day. Now I know why I wasn’t getting any result. 🙂
Anyways just want to say that I enjoy your post and looking forward to read more.
Peace out.
David Enders, D.C.
April 7, 2009Yes, you need to balance the quality of the content with the volume of traffic – Ying & Yang. The better you can target your traffic and the better your content is, the higher your conversion rate will be, which = $!
nicolson fortune
April 7, 2009yes i,m very interesting about the ideal i willy wont to be part of it i read everything i love every part .
Rommel Ramos
April 7, 2009Hi Reed!
Certainly ONE great post!
TRACKING YOUR LINKS and analyzing them for all its’ worth has done a lot of good for me personally. It helped me focus on those links that interest and helped my subscribers and properly aligned my content with what they needed and wanted the most.
Thanks and glad to see you giving out these great tips for people not wasting their time not knowing what works!
~ rommel ;p
Dave
April 8, 2009This is really where I am at.
“Your message has to be delivered where your prospects are and it has to make them visit your site. Sometimes you are delivering the right message, but you don’t know if you are doing it in the right place.”
I am not sure I’m delivering my message in the right place.
Working on it.
Dave the How To guy
Daves last blog post..Popular Kitchen Designs
Kitty Jellinek
April 8, 2009I totally agree, quality traffic – rather than quantity.
Surely organic traffic from a search engine is the most targeted traffic you can get.
Instead of chasing traffic have it come to you by concentrating on developing a site that shows up at the top of a search engine query.
Tracking everything can also become obsessive – taking valuable time away from your continued site development.
Google analytics – which is free does an excellent job for me.
data
April 8, 2009yeah… driving traffic with a target one is very cool to convert the traffic with a huge income. if have a lot of traffic but don’t give you extra income you need to get target traffic for better income online. let’s rock traffic target.
Gary David
April 8, 2009This is a wonderful post Reed. A lot of people are getting excited when they see their traffic stats, but the most important thing is the conversion together with traffic, not just traffic alone. I can honestly relate into this, as I bring decent amount of traffic to my site, I get most of my traffic from article marketing, viral marketing, forum etc.. but one thing i’m missing, CONVERSION! Thank you for this post Reed as I will be learning to balance traffic and conversion.
Kind regards,
Gary David
http://www.privatelabelunlimited.com
normz2
April 8, 2009Good post. I am getting more and more traffic, but my conversion rate is lousy. I guess I have to get more specific traffic.
Joe
April 8, 2009I agree, you don’t need a lot of traffic, well even though it’s good to have but conversion is more important. I have done different types of marketing and my paid traffic has always been low conversion.
About tracking, yes it’s important but I think it can hurt business also, people like there privacy and don’t like to be tracked including myself. It’s not normal for me to answer an aweber mail just because I feel I’m being tracked, it’s just the thought of seeing that long tracking number.
I think it’s important to hide your tracking but that’s just my thoughts. There are ways to hide tracking, scripts work good and people don’t see them, if you keep it anonymous I think it will increase traffic.
To your success,
Joe
websites for kids virtual worlds
April 8, 2009Hi Reed,
I agree that it is the quality that matters, not quantity. No use having high traffic but lousy conversion rate. Great tips you have there!
Eric Alexander
April 8, 2009Hi PV
I agree that you need to deliver your message to the right market for any sales to take place. You need to establish who they are and where they are. At the same time, I think any kind of traffic is welcome as even if some don’t convert, your site gets visibilty and others may get to know about your site through these visitors.
Phil Williams
April 8, 2009Absolutely right. Targeted traffic is a whole lot more effective than blasting out your message out to everyone with a set of ears.
You do save time and money doing it this way
Percival
April 8, 2009An internet marketer should be a master of one thing – conversion. He must convert a surfer to visitor, a visitor to subscriber, a subscriber to buyer, a buyer to affiliate, an affiliate to partner. So you see, there is only one basic function of an internet marketer – conversion.
pvidia
April 8, 2009Hi, I agree with you, quantity is not enough to make sales. My site has more than 2000 unique visitor a day, unfortunately the conversion rate only 0.1%
Urpo Salonen
April 8, 2009Hey Reed,
I agree 100% with this article. I’m using Google Analytics, but will try others too. Allways like your post.
Have a nice day
PV Reymond
April 8, 2009@Joy Adams Traffic is CRUCIAL but if the traffic you are driving to your site doesn’t convert it is like nothing… you are only wasting time and effort. You need traffic that converts.
@Shaun Ellsworth You’re doing the right thing, keep doing this way and always try to improve it.
@Make Money With Casey I see you could figured out why you were not getting good results and that is great, now you have to focus on what works for you and improve it.
@David Enders, D.C. Right, traffic and conversion those are crucial elements of your business.
@nicolson fortune Thanks!
@Rommel Ramos Keep working and improving, that’s great, thanks.
@Dave Yes, you have to work on it because you need to deliver your message where your prospects are.
@Kitty Jellinek Thanks for your great comment.
@data You’re right, targeted traffic is what can help you to make a lot of money.
@Gary David Find out the sources of traffic that are working out and focus on them. Maybe you can tweak those that are not working to see what happens.
@normz2 Right, you need targeted traffic.
@Joe I agree with you, people don’t want to be tracked, but there are many ways in which you can ‘hide’ your tracking links, it shouldn’t be a problem.
@websites for kids virtual worlds Thank you for your words.
@Eric Alexander Any kind of traffic is welcome if you are not spending time, money and effort with it, if you do it and the traffic doesn’t convert your business risks to stay paralyzed.
@Percival Conversion is important but an Internet marketer should do other things, for example innovate.
Bro. Dan
April 8, 2009It concerns us beginners most of all. Having been misled to focus on social traffic, many wasted time waiting just for other MARKETERS to pay a courtesy visit. An ugly site can make money from AdSense at least by relying more on fresh search engine traffic.
Bro. Dans last blog post..Blogging Tip – RSS Feeds
Reach Success Online
April 8, 2009Great post. We sometimes get so caught up in the traffic numbers and Alexa rating that we forget that it’s the targetted traffic that really matters. I have not done much trcking and I’ll start now. I’ll check out hypertracker. Are there any other resources to help up track our traffic?
Thanks,
Luca
Felix Makmur
April 8, 2009Thanks for sharing this great article. The most important thing is attracting “targeted” traffic to our site. Last time I used to rely on traffic exchanges to get traffic and I just realized that it’s just completely waste of time, since I got lots of junk traffic every day that does not convert to sales or even leads. Anyway, great post and thanks for sharing.
Felix Makmurs last blog post..Make Money Online with Blogging – Step-by-Step Instructions
BigTicketDepot
April 9, 2009Good Post,
I totally agreed with the post. Targeted Traffic from sites like Article directories can convert well into sales.
Richard
April 9, 2009Spot on Reed, traffic is essential, but monster traffic with low conversion rate is NOT the way to go.
Richards last blog post..Paid To Click Programs – Are They Worthwhile?
PV Reymond
April 9, 2009@Urpo Salonen There are many tolls out there that you can use, the point is to know where your traffic is coming from and how it is converting.
@Reach Success Online Yes, get started as soon as possible because it is crucial for your success. Here is another tool, but it is not free http://getclicky.com
@Felix Makmur Now that you understand that you only need targeted traffic start working on it.
@Richard That’s 100% right, thanks!
PV Reymonds last blog post..You Don’t Need That Traffic To Make A Lot Of Money
Kevin
April 9, 2009Hi folks
I have to admit that I have been guilty of the “gotta drive traffic” scenario. I have started to realise though that a lot of the people coming to my sites are just “cyber” tyre kickers.
But I am learning fast !
Kevin
Rick Burdo
April 12, 2009Hi Reed
Happy Easter to You and Your Family.
This is an Awesome blog, Great content that hit the nail right on the head.
Thanks for Giving.
Have A Great Day
To Your Success
Rick Burdo
List Pros
http://www.sendaemialaday.com
(Send a email aday to help
out Our Veterans everyday)
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Dominique
April 13, 2009Qualified target traffic is what I am driving for. Even though the numbers are small if they are converter/stayers it is still better then having a massive “dud” list.
Altis Lo (Beaulife)
April 15, 2009Bravo. It’s really enlightening to have read this post. It’s a choice between quantity and quality. My Best Buy and Idea Blog (http://www.bestbuyidea.com/) has neither of them. I feel that I can choose quality when I have that kind of quantity first. But, quality is the longer mileage to live a blog with more conversions. You are very right Reed Floren, that conversion is the key to survive. Thanks!
Altis Lo (Beaulife)s last blog post..5 Successful Blogging Tips
Harris
April 16, 2009Hi Reed,
This makes me have second thought.
I always believe traffic is above all in order to make money. But you don’t seem to agree with what others say.
Harriss last blog post..8 tips penting sebelum memilih perusahaan hosting
Jason
April 26, 2009Great post. I think the key is finding targeted traffic and to know your audience. I agree that hypertracker is the way to go. Glad I stumbled on your blog.
Jasons last blog post..Micro Niche Finder Tutorial – Part 4
don
May 8, 2009Oh yeah! Targeted visitors with an agenda 100xs better than simple visitors. You can all the traffic from traffic exchanges a guy could ask for. But then thats traffic whos goal is sell you their product. Not often buy yours. Give me the hard earned or expensive traffic everyday.
Free Animations
May 14, 2009I think the premium on traffic is like the marketing hype myth of megapixels in SLR cameras.
Eric
June 6, 2009So true! Many people often mistake any traffic for good traffic. If the audience you are attracting has no interest in your topic, the traffic isn’t of much use.
Erics last blog post..Turbo Cash Generator Review
Aaron Whiston
June 30, 2009Traffic is the hook used to sell lots of product to new entrepreneurs who don’t understand the basics. Clearly we all want to see ever increasing visitor flow to our sites and blogs but as you point out, it’s QUALITY per visit, i.e. conversions, that really matter.
I focus primarily on quality content and then on targeted traffic. This results in daily sales even for sites with under 100 daily uniques. Once such a good foundation (of quality content and targeted traffic sources) exists the wind is at one’s back and as traffic inevitably grows the real profits roll in.
Karl Foxley
July 29, 2009Great post PV and so very true. I was into traffic quantity rather than quality in the early days but now I’d rather have one visitor who is highly targeted and more likely to convert than a 100 casual browsers.
Regards,
Karl Foxley
Avis Williams
August 13, 2009I think its important to have both quality information on your blog, as well as driving targeted traffic to your blog, cause at the end of the day you need potential interested readers and people that are interested in purchasing your service or product.
its also very important to track traffic that is coming to your website, so you can see what traffic methods are working and to adjust your traffic strategies accordingly.
Kevin Njoroge
September 18, 2009Thanks Reymong for the great post. It’s really true that traffic doesn’t equal to sale and traffic is not generated equally.
In other words the quality of traffic varies and targeted traffic should be what you are mainly interests.
what’s put simply people who are likely to take your desired action be it to sign up to your newsletter or buy your product(s)
Many people get scattered chasing all manner of traffic and as a result, their traffic generation effort doesn’t pay them back quite well. They fail in their traffic generation and never make any money online.
The keywords and the language you use to describe your business are very important because they determine how your business is perceived among the online crowd
You should try also to determine where your prospects hang online and get the message about your website right there in front of their eyes
To your success,
Kevin Njoroge
Kevin Njoroge
September 18, 2009Thanks Reymond for the great post. It’s really true that traffic doesn’t equal to sale and not all traffic is generated equally.
In other words the quality of traffic varies and targeted traffic should be what your mainly interest.
put simply, this refers to people who are likely to take your desired action be it to sign up to your newsletter or buy your product(s)
Many people get scattered chasing all manner of traffic and as a result, their traffic generation effort doesn’t pay them back quite well. They fail in their traffic generation and never make any money online.
The keywords and the language you use to describe your business are very important because they determine how your business is perceived among the online crowd and whether or not you make any money.
You should try also to determine where your prospects hang online and get the message about your website right there in front of their eyes
To your success,
Kevin Njoroge
Tom Harvey
October 6, 2009Some great points about the importance of targeted traffic and conversions. Its all too easy to get masses of traffic to your site from various sources but as you say whats teh use if it doesnt convert!!?
OnlineIncome
October 10, 2009I totally agree,there has to be good content where you are sending the traffic or what is the point??
Goldring
October 27, 2009When I read your post it seams to be all so clear and easy but the reality is that I have this problem and it is not easy to get quality customers for me.
Internet Business Coaching
November 1, 2009I would rather have a small amount of traffic with high conversions.
I once owned a site which brought in 250-500 hits a day. I sold it because the traffic did not convert, they didn’t even click my adsense ads! I was getting 1 click for every 1000 impression which is very BAD.
Peoples main focus for getting traffic should be SEO, once you have that down, PPC will work amazingly because you will know which keywords convert for you.
Like Shaun said above, use Google Analytics to track everything.
Dawn Kay
April 14, 2010Hi Reed
What works best for me is that I try and concentrate on one method of traffic generation at a time whether it be article marketing, free reports or forum marketing.
Once I’ve perfected that method then I’ll try something else.
You only need a few methods of targeted traffic to see good results.
Thanks for the tips.
Warm Regards
Dawn Kay
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