I don't remember how many ebooks and tutorials I have read to increase traffic to any website or blog. In today's world, from a small internet marketer to a huge online entrepreneur, everybody is talking about ways to get more and more traffic to their sales page so as to make more and huge profits.
It was only when I saw a website in the Flippa listings being sold which had an Alexa Traffic rank in four figures but a net profit of only two digits in a month!!! This thing caught my eye and I ultimately shoot an email to the owner. And to my fortune, he was kind enough to respond with some explanations. I decided to write this post as a summary of what I concluded after a conversation with him.
If you are keen on making decent profits from your website (by decent you know how much I mean), there are three things which you will need :
- Lots and lots of targeted traffic. Pay a little more attention on “targeted” here. A person looking for an iPhone has got nothing to do on a website which promotes weight loss products. Even a slight difference between what the visitor is looking for and what you are selling on your website can result in that visitor bouncing away from your website. The quality of traffic matters more than its quantity.
- Again a good percentage of the traffic you receive should get converted into customers and sales. Or what we can easily term as conversion rate. This conversion rate will decide a lot in the net profit you are going to make. I guess this was the factor responsible for the failure of the website I mentioned above.
- And in the end, you must learn to retain those customers as your valuable clients. This is important if you want to make a fortune with your online business.
Is Free Traffic Actually Free ?
Until you spend some money on advertising your website like PPC advertising to get some traffic to your website, you consider all other means of traffic generation to be free. You might consider Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM) as two sources of free traffic but I do no take them as free. The reason for this being that these two take a lot of time and a bit of hard work to implement which is of course worth some cost.
But if you consider your time and work to be totally invaluable, you can consider them free.
Relation Between Traffic and Conversion Rate
Now what is more crucial to make money from your website? Let us consider two simple scenarios to understand this.
Scenario 1 :
Lets say you have a website with following stats:
- Traffic :- 1000 visitors/ day
- Price of the Product :- $50
- Conversion Rate :- 1%
- Cost of Advertising (Pay Per Click) :- $0.50 Per Click
Now the total sales made from your website are :- 1% of 1000 x $50 = $500.
Wow, $500 a day is a real good earning. But wait, you paid some cost to get visitors to your website. Let's calculate that.
$0.50 Per Click x 1000 Visitors = $500.
So the net profit now becomes = $500-$500 = 0 !!
Though your sales were $500 at the end of the day, you actually made nothing. Now consider another scenario. Let us consider that you worked a few things better and your conversion rate increased to 2%. Â Now the stats become :
- Traffic :- 1000 visitors/day
- Price of the Product :- $50
- Conversion Rate :- 2%
- Cost of Advertising (Pay Per Click) :- $0.50 Per Click
Now the cost of advertising and the traffic is still the same. Only the conversion rate has improved. Now calculate your total sales and net profit for the day.
Total Sales = 2% of 1000 x $50 = $1000
Net Profit = $1000-$500 = $500.
Now this is a net profit of $500 which you have actually earned at the end of the day. Just by improving your conversion rate, you were able to make almost $500 bucks extra from the same amount of traffic and the same cost of advertising. So there is definitely a much greater need to improve the conversion rate. Imagine your earnings for a conversion rate of 10% (Quite Possible) . A few simple things like changing the headlines, better positioning of the ads and improved content writing can really make big differences to your earnings without the need to bring more and more traffic to your website.
I may be wrong on not giving much important to traffic here. But I would like to hear what you folks have to say on this.
Hi Vineet,
Unless your traffic is targeted it’s tough to make money online. You should attract people who are hungry to eat what you serve up. Using SEO and social media to drive interested folks to your website is a powerful way to drive sales. Smart tips here.
As for conversions, people who buy your stuff are usually hyper targeted, meaning you have done your SEO and social media homework if your conversions are high. One note: generating a high number of leads means little if your conversion percentage is poor. 5 targeted, hungry leads, super interested in what you have to offer, increases sales more quickly than 35 people who could care less about your offering, or 35 people who are tire kickers simply looking for a freebie or 1 cen t for opening an email.
This is why I don’t play the numbers game. I am an energy game type guy, meaning I simply keep a high vibe, work slowly, carefully and effectively to drive as many targeted folks to my website each day…and I am only looking for people who are hungry to eat what I have to offer.
Thanks Vineet!
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for taking time to read this post. You said it right here. Targeted leads will often produce more effective results than a bunch of visitors less interested in your stuff. Good to see that you target interested audience for your website.
Hello Ryan. I like this: ‘You should attract people who are hungry to eat what you serve up’ Th latest sales I’ve done was because of personal one on one interactions. Maybe some value shone through and it helped make that sale.
Hello Vineet. I like that you’ve shown simple math to illustrate how conversion rates can make your site not make money, even if you’re making sales. I liked the simplicity of the article and this Ryan has a good point, you have to get people targeted to ‘ need’ your product to your site, otherwise you’re wasting your time (and probably money too).
Yes Ivin, Ryan raised a very good point. There is no use of getting visitors not interested in your products. That will only waste time and money.
I find that for business like web design for example, and maybe similar services, PPC just gets too expensive to be feasible. Even if traffic is targeted, conversion rate is very low and hard to measure.
I find it that organic searches bring more traffic, however getting good rankings in web design it very tough too…
Conversions!
I wish that was the goal that I had set when I first started.
We, bloggers, clamor so much for traffic that we forget that it really doesn’t matter what numbers we’re bringing in – just that what we have works. I’d trade 90% of my traffic if it meant that I had more people taking action. I bet any business would.
Traffic is good for exposure but it’s not the deciding factor in what gets people to buy. I say: work on those conversions and then worry about ramping up.
It’s definitely an eye-opener.
Definitely Murray,
Good conversions can give you sales even if you are not getting those big numbers of traffic to your blog. Though once you get the visitors converting into potential customers, you can always look up to piling traffic to your blog.
Thanks.
Many times traffic is not giving much more sales because of many other reasons are their those giving you much more selling than traffic selling. Also for getting an unique traffic is an easy work but needed some smarter work.
Yes Janmejaya, Only traffic will not bring you sales many times.
Indeed, the most important factor in gaining traffic are the “targeted” ones. Without these targeted traffic, online product sales will never rise. I couldn’t agree more to your article pal. Thanks! 🙂
Thanks Deanne. Good to see that you understand the concept of targeted traffic.
Hi Vineet, you are right – conversion rate is much more important than traffic. But without traffic we don’t have visitors 😉
BR, Chris
Hi Chris,
What I tried to explain here is that conversions can increase your profits even if you are getting the same number of traffic. I never say that traffic is bad. But it is at its best if is composed of audience interested in your products. Thanks
Hi Vineet,
Great post about traffic and sales! Targeted web traffic towards your website, it’s even better. It will take time to develop highly targeted web traffic on your website. Since you understand the meaning of Targeted web traffic, focus your time, money, and energy to attract targeted web traffic for generate more sales.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Ajnabii for your views here. I really appreciate them. It does take time to build targeted traffic but once built, you can just sleep and while the money rolls in.
The big question at the end of the day is…
Which is easier / more cost effective : Doubling your Conversion Rates or Doubling your Traffic ?
Let’s look at an example:
Let’s say that I have consistently 100 visitors coming to my site each day and my current conversion rate is 1%. If my initial goal was to get 2 orders a day I could either double my traffic or my conversion rate.
In order for me to double my traffic I would have to; (1) increase my bid amounts w/ PPC engines, (2) Bid on more keywords/keyword phrases, (3) etc.
With that comes increased costs (which I don’t mind if we make the money back, but remember we’re still at only a 1% conversion rate).
On the other hand if I could double my conversion rate to 2% I could maintain the same amount of traffic and improve to 2 orders a day. And how much did it cost me? Nothing, just my time.
A very well illustration of your thoughts Shamelle. Increasing traffic might cause you some additional weight on your pocket as you said it. But again the question would be if that audience is really interested in your website or not. Though changing a few things to increase conversions for your website can give you increased profits without incurring any additional costs to your pocket.
Just my thought..What you have to say?
Love the scenario’s you displayed showing how conversion plays a huge role. You really made it easy to understand. But does generating more traffic also mean you move up on the search terms thus bringing you more traffic too?
Hi Lisa, Thanks for your appreciation. Moving up the search terms is just another tactic to bring n more targeted traffic to your website. the higher you rank for the search term, more your website will be found for that term bringing in customers related to that search term.
HI Vineed!
I am totally agree with you that little correction regarding conversaion rate can be great booster for anyone’s site and for that I believe needs some hard work & experienced with the usage or creation of the creative content of that landing page that attracts the readers. But thanks for great tips 🙂
Sure thing Ayaz…Creative content writing mixed with good marketing techniques can bring in a lot of sales and make your visitors your potential customers.
Hi Vineet,
Traffic is important, but the sales funnel we use to convert our visitors is what really matters. We need to take a look at our sales funnel and see if we have any traffic leaks.
Also it could be down to the sales copy or was inwhich something is being presented to people.
Hi Simmeon,
Sales funnel is also an important part. But before that we need visitors who matter. Thanks for dropping your comment.
Targeted traffic is the key to conversion. You can have all the traffic from social sites and all but what is the point if no one is going to buy anything. However if adwords or BSA are used properly, you’ll have good conversion rates. As you mention paying attention to those conversion rates is going to be important.
You caught it absolutely right Shalu. Conversions are going to play a crucial role once you get some people visiting your website. You need to extract customers from your visitors.
Vineet,
Targeted traffic is always more powerful then random traffic even if it’s a smaller number.
Total traffic doesn’t mean anything. All that matters is Conversions!
Thanks,
Ryan H.
Damn True Ryan…thanks for your views..
Great post once again. It is totally different when you want to make more money with your blog. The goals are different and achieving them can be difficult but imaginative as well.
Surely Rashmi…After all its the goal that matters for all of us..
Hi Vineet,
Nice article, High Traffic is good if you want more exposure but Targeted traffic is something that can highly increase the conversion rate and at the end all that matters is conversions.
Definitely Rehan, ultimately your products must convert into sales to bring in profits for you. Thanks.
Hi Vineet,
I agree with most of what you said above, but the fact is that it all starts with traffic. Without any traffic you have no chance of making any money. A brand new site would gladly accept any traffic that they can get.
Once you have some traffic flowing in, you can then work on making it as targeted as possible and writing better copy to improve your conversions.
You didn’t really cover how we can improve our conversions, but in general the point that you were making was dead right. Thanks for the advice 🙂
Hi Scott,
What I wanted to throw light on was that traffic alone will not give you profits you want. I never said that you don’t need any traffic. Of course you are damn right in saying that everything begins with traffic. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.
Hi Vineet,
I like the way you described the importance of converstion rate over traffic.
I don’t care what other folks say, but I must say that we can really increase the sales profit by improving the conversation rate.
Ehsan U.
Hi Vineet,
I like how detailed this is! Targeted traffic is essential, no matter through an ad or through inbound marketing, it all needs to be targeted so you’re not wasting your time or money. 🙂
Great insight!
Thanks Morgan. I appreciate your comment.
Great research on conversion rates, I believe sites over a 100,000 Alexa rank is making around two digits a month or less. I am working on mine to get ready for more money.
Hi Michael,
Alexa rank is just an indicator of the the amount of traffic your website is getting. It can never tell you about the exact popularity of a website. Still very helpful though. Good Luck for your website.
Hi Vineet.
Very nice post of yours.
I always get confused when my visitors are always down and down.
Any solution to help me? I have so much posted article.
Thank you.
Hi Quantum,
By down do you mean that its decreasing? If yes, then you should try and build more backlinks to your site.
I totally agree that only targeted traffic can concert into money. Nevertheless, I’m not that sure that Alexa ranking is highly relevant when speaking of traffic, as I see many sites that have a goof ranking but pretty low traffic.
Yeah Surely Julian, Alexa is not everything which tells you about the traffic but still it is a good indicator of where your site stands in terms of traffic.
Hi Jatin,
Add placements are just a part of improving your conversions.
I believe instead of more traffic we should try to concentrate on quality of traffic as it is that stuff will fetch you with more leads for the business. Apart from that I have believe we should even try to concentrate on medium where your end users seems to be revolving around as it make no sense to market your product which never come across your probable customers.
I am getting good traffic through article sites. I regularly submit high quality content and it gives benefit to my site.
Writing articles can always bring you good targeted traffic. Good Luck !!
Good point Vineet. If we consider organic traffic, then more traffic doesn’t hurt and even if the conversions are low, we’ll still be able to make a good amount of profit. On the other hand, if someone is struggling with organic traffic and invests in PPC, then obviously he cannot be in profit unless the conversion rate is at least 2% or the CPC for the niche is low.
Yes that matters too but I guess targeted traffic always brings in more profits thus giving you more returns for your investment and time.
Your article was a very good read for me, you made some good points on how to generate traffic and even pointed how much of a difference good traffic can make, when it comes to generating revenue. I also agree 100% that content is a great way to increase traffic, and not only that but your giving potential customers a reason to stick around or come back by providing good quality content.
I used only Google adsense
My Blog earnings are too low
and i get loads of traffic
any advice
Hi Derek,
May be you should try more with your ad placements and background colors.
Hi
More than numbers, i think targetterd traffic is important. Those who are interested to know something and really want something from your blog will be more beneficial. As only then you can make good sales and earn good money:)
Thanks for sharing the article.
Yes Sanjib, people interested in your website and what you are offering will bring in sales and money.
I like your style of writing Vineet. Simple and easy to understand for everyone, no matter what their level of expertise in online business or blogging is. I agree that many sites enjoy tremendous traffic but that does not reflect on their earnings. IMO it is better to get less traffic and more sales than more traffic with less / no sales.
Thanks Kavita for appreciating. Sales are always a thing to welcome on your blog. No matter what the traffic is.
Hi Vineet,
I agree that many webmasters (to their detriment) only focus on traffic. I find that in my industry (SEO) it is sometimes even worse and clients only care about obtaining a top search engine ranking for their company.
Conversions are all that matter at the end of the day and the best bloggers understand this fact. All the top rankings and surges in traffic to a website are meaningless if it does not result in a conversion of some sort at the end. Before designing and sending traffic to a site, webmasters definitely need to take this into account. Owners should possess a clear goal regarding the desired action of each visitor and create a clear site navigation that allows guests to complete that action.
One area I would disagree with you slightly is that traffic is needed for testing. One should certainly keep conversions in mind. However, a site with little traffic is unable to learn much from visitors. Whereas, a site that actually considered conversions, can then watch and make improvement to a website based upon how visitor’s interact when visiting a blog.
Hi Brent,
This is true that at the end of the day you need traffic to achieve anything. Be it conversions, sales, subscribers or any other goal. I just wanted to make a point about the power of conversion rates in an online business. Thanks for your awesome views here.
Thank you for the reply. You did an excellent job of making the point that focusing on conversion rates is a best practice that many overlook!
Unfortunately, even once brought to a person’s attention, the individual still may not priortize this on their ‘to-do’ list. Do you find that numbers work best at illustrating this to people (as in your blog post)? I realize it depends on the individual and company, but any other tips are appreciated.
Hey Brent,
Sorry for being late in replying,
I think you have put up a very good point. Its always good to use such kind of illustrations since people find it easier to understand. But again everything will depend on how you practise the things you have understood. Mere reading of such kind of tips will take you nowhere.
Hi Vineet,
I agree totally that targeted traffic is the key to conversions. From my experience the traffic you get from a well thought out PPC advert will convert a lot easier than traffic that has been generated through SEO. Maybe people are more inclined to commit to a sale when they know that you have had to pay for the advert.
Definitely Ray,
When people looking for something land on your sales page through Google Ads, they are more likely to convert into customers.
Well there’s a catch 20 in your scenario because it takes constant traffic to be able to test and improve conversion rates! So another solution is to seek lower cost traffic that still has quality and there are far more choices than just expensive Google ppc advertising like ppv traffic or even online classified advertising which is greatly overlooked but works 💡
Hey Caleb, I intend on following your link and trying the classified Ad Submission Service . Thanks!
Hi Caleb,
Definitely a good amount of traffic is always good for trying out many things. Traffic is good no matter what I agree on that. But what I wanted to put forward was that only traffic is not going to be of much help. That traffic should have atleats some percentage of visitors who are targeted and are interested in your blog or website.
Anyways thanks a lot for your tips I really appreciate that.
This is exactly what I needed to read today. I am getting traffic, but I need to figure out a “Call to Action” to begin to convert more clients. I very rarely even look at my PPC campaigns and I now know I need to do that as well.
Thanks for the GREAT read!
Hey Joe,
Good to see that you got what you were missing from your campaigns. Good Luck!!!
I believe getting more traffic means getting more prospective buyers or patronizers. It’s just the start of having online success. The real marketing comes next. Which isn’t really an easy thing. All these would really be helpful to know. More power!
Correct! Huge amount of traffic with low conversion rate is of no use. In order to convert visits to sales, every website needs targeted visitors. PPC and paid traffic are not a good source of targeted traffic as bounce rate would be high for the traffic driven from such services.
Thanks for the nice post Vineet. Keep up the good work 🙂
As a networker I kept on asking my self the question “How to Make Money”? and I didnt have a clear answer. Well, I found something that works really good and I am willing to make that contribution here for all to see and know. As a good networker, one of the best way to gain visitors to your website is by analyzing keywords. For that, you can use google adwords to find what keywords you should target, then you can perform Search Engine Optimization to your website and apply those keywords intelligently there, then eventually you will rank good for those keywords on Google.
So, if as a networker you have been asking yourself the infamous question “how to make money” well this is it, just apply this technique and you should be on your way to gaining visitors.
i did it with my way underestimating the google and the result is very less organic traffic so i would now use your tactics that you explained and try to figure out what i receive from google.and get back to you soon with my reports.thanks for help.
getting more traffic increase the probability of getting more sell of product.But the quality of traffic means a lot more than quantity of it.The basic of affiliate marketing is focus on targeted traffic. Thanks for these nice and valuable tips.