The Difference Between Your Online Failure or Success
Traffic? Customers? What's the difference?
Quite a bit, actually. Erroneously, some people think that traffic equals customers, which is anything but the case.
Consider a website that has over a hundred visitors every day, but where no one is buying. Why would having two hundred, three hundred, or even a thousand visitors daily change the situation? Even if you bring in a thousand visitors a day, if you don't convert any of them into customers you'll still go out of business… Perhaps even faster than if you had less traffic!
A quick review of the math will prove the importance of converting website visitors into customers.
Let's say you have two websites selling the same $100 product. One site has 1,000 visitors every day and converts 2% of them into sales. The second site has only 500 visitors each day, but it converts 10% of them into customers. Which site would you rather own? If you selected the second site, you understand the difference between traffic and clients, in this case a difference of 30 sales a day or $3,000… That's an additional $90,000 per month in your pocket!
So, how do you make sure you're converting your website's traffic into customers?
Successfully Converting Your Website's Traffic
Innumerable details are involved in the process of turning website visitors into paying customers. However, the common thread of all of them is that your website's message matters far more than the technology.
Besides helping our clients master the Internet sales cycle, we look at several key factors to make sure your site is doing all it can to maximize the returns on the visitors it brings in:
- Is Your Website Relevant?
Is the traffic coming to your website the result of poor keyword research?
You need to define your most valuable keywords first. This is akin to targeting your niche. If you don't know your keywords you can't create successful content. You have to know who you really are and who you want to sell to in order to find the best keywords to target. A lot of people will guess at the keywords they should be targeting, but this is like taking shots in the dark… Not the best way to go about creating a successful online business.
There are two types of keywords: long-tail and generic. Generic keywords are your main niche/target-market keywords and are usually only one or two words in length. Long-tail keywords are the specific phrases people will type into the search engines when looking for a solution and are usually 3-4+ words in length.
For example, a generic target-market keyword might be "tires." If you're looking for a tire for your car, you wouldn't go to a search engine and type in "tire" because you'll get all kinds of results that aren't worthwhile (bike tires, go-cart tires, truck tires, etc.). If you need a tire for your car, you're looking for a specific tire (e.g. a Goodyear, steel-belted radial tire). "Goodyear steel-belted radial" would be a long-tail keyword. These are the keywords that are commercially viable. When somebody types that phrase into the search engine, they have their credit card in their hand and they're ready to buy that tire.
We always make sure our clients steer clear of generic terms because, while they can bring you a lot of traffic, the visitors they bring are usually all "tire-kickers." You don't want tire-kickers, you want buyers!
- Is Your Content Compelling?
Websites often fall short in generating the desired sales results because they have not been constructed using effective offers, appeals, headlines, or copy.
Content is critical to your website's success. People who come to your site expect to learn something or take away free information when they leave. The more free content you offer, the more likely they'll visit again and again. But what kind of content?
What characteristics make online content persuasive? Why does one Web page make a lasting impression and sell merchandise while another falls flat and doesn't generate enough revenue to pay its own cost?
To be persuasive, your content must gain your prospect's attention, focus on their needs, stress the benefits of your product or service, differentiate you from the competition, establish credibility, prove its case, build value, close with a call to action, and give the user a reason to act now instead of later.
Using the easy, conversational tone of spoken language — short words, short sentences, the personal touch — and the time-tested principles of direct marketing copywriting that are applicable to the Internet, Kethyr Solutions has helped our clients out-distance their competition and show measurable returns on investment (ROI) of 50%, 100%, 300%, and more!
- Does Your Website Build Relationships?
Building relationships with your customers is the key to the long-term health and prosperity of your business.
Posting articles, reports, reviews, and other non-sales information on your website makes it a "preferred destination" for potential customers. If people like what they see when they land on your site… if they don't feel pressured to buy and instead feel that you are providing them with "added value"… they will keep coming back for more. You will start to establish a relationship with these people. That gives you the opportunity to provide them with more help and information — and make more sales.
Marketing studies have consistently shown that your prospects need to be exposed to your message at least 9 times before they'll take action. In online sales, once you've found who you're looking for — or, more accurately, they've found you — you need to get them in your "sales funnel." That means get them on your list. The best way to make this easy is to offer something of value for free, such as a free e-zine or e-course.
On your website, getting visitors on your list should be your first objective! Why? Up to 99% of your first-time visitors will not buy from you or even contact you. They'll take a quick look and then click away, and you've lost them forever. These people are already valuable prospects — they took the time to find your site and are interested in the subject matter or products you deal with.
Does your home page or landing page give your visitor a bazillion choices? If so, ditch the clutter and give them a compelling invitation to sign up for your e-zine so you can start building a relationship with them as quickly as possible.
The Message Matters More Than the Technology
There are countless ways to drive Internet traffic to your website: search engine optimization, search engine marketing, article marketing, video marketing, pay-per-click ad campaigns, banner advertising, and social media marketing campaigns, to name but a few. However, no matter how much traffic you drive to your site, your efforts will be wasted unless you convert those visitors into paying customers.
Too many Internet marketing companies spend too much time trying to sell search engine optimization services, pay-for-placement advertising schemes, or other online promotion techniques. Kethyr Solutions isn't interested in simply selling you our products and services. We want to make sure you succeed online! Why? Because our success is determined by your success.
Kethyr Solutions follows a very clear set of step-by-step processes for creating, writing, and disseminating Web messages and employs numerous strategies and tactics that get your online customers to take the action you want them to take.
Kethyr Solutions will work with you to understand your online objectives and goals, determine the prospects you need to target, and make sure the traffic we generate for your site has a direct, positive, and lasting effect on your bottom line.
Contact Kethyr Solutions today for more information or call us toll-free at 888-538-4971.
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