By Jennifer Johnson
[January 30th, 2002]

See Also   Email Marketing Primer   How to Increase Your Online Sales   Take Advantage of Google's AdWords   Using Foreign Search Engines to Boost Your Sales   Getting Sure Profits Through Google, Goto.com and DirectHit   Ten Places You Must Submit Your Site   Clever Profit Growth Software   The Power Of Personalized Email   How To Go Long With Your Web Marketing   How NOT to Promote Your E-business   Winning the Search Engine Wars   Latest Tips on Search Engine Marketing   Are You Wasting Your Money Online?   Should I Hire Another Salesperson or Invest in an Affiliate Program?   The Death of Positioning?   Links: Why You Need Them and How to Get Them   Your #1 Overlooked Business Asset

Disappointed with your online sales?

What would you say if I told you, chances are, your less-than-stellar sales can be attributed to one of three problems?

If you aren't making the sales you envisioned, it's probably due to one of these three things:

1. You aren't getting enough traffic
2. You aren't getting the right kind of traffic
3. Your site isn't converting your visitors to customers

I'll discuss the first two problems in Part I of this article and Part II will address some ways to increase your conversion ratio.

PROBLEM ONE: Not Enough Traffic

Simply put, no visitors = no sales.

You can have the best product in the world, but if no one can find you online, what good does it do you?

You must devote a significant amount of time daily to attracting visitors to your site. There are lots of ways to do just that.

Here are a few means to attract visitors:

• Submit to the major search engines and directories.

• Launch one or more pay-per-click campaigns. Overture and Findwhat.com are two PPC engines I like.

• Start your own email newsletter in order to maintain contact with visitors and (hopefully) convert them to customers at some point in the future.

• Utilize banner ads. Many publishers now offer pay-per-click banner advertising in addition to the traditional CPM (pay-per-impression) model, so you can get more bang for your advertising buck.

• Locate email newsletter advertising opportunities. Try Ezine Ad Auction or simply look for rate cards/advertising info on the sites and in the newsletters where you want to advertise.

• Become a "regular" on high-traffic message boards whose subject matter relates to your product/service. Many boards allow you to use your SIG file to discreetly promote your site. NEVER blatantly advertise your product or service! Most boards don't allow it and an obvious ad probably won't get any attention anyway - at least not the good kind of attention.

• Subscribe to several quality Internet marketing newsletters. Trafficology's newsletter is my new favorite. You'll be amazed at the unique traffic-generating ideas people submit each month. Some are super, some are off-the-wall, some are downright sneaky, but they're always unique.

PROBLEM TWO: Untargeted Traffic

We've established that visitors are necessary in order for an online business to survive. Traffic, in and of itself, however, is worthless when it comes to selling your products or services.

Yes, I know I just said "no visitors = no sales"; and it's true. BUT, there's a corollary to that rule: the "wrong" visitors - even lots of them = few/no sales, too.

We're all taught from the time we're baby webmasters that traffic is the ultimate goal, but the reality is, it's not.

The ultimate goal is to sell your product or service - and unless your product or service is advertising, traffic alone is useless.

You need targeted traffic.

Here's the bottom line: you want people to visit your site that are actually interested in what you have to sell.

If you own a site that sells DVDs, visits from a million die-hard VCR users who don't even own a DVD player might give you an ego rivaling Texas in size when you view your stats, but it ain't gonna put any money in your pocket.

It's better to have fewer visitors and make lots of sales than to have lots of visitors and make few sales, right?

Granted, if you have 100,000 visitors and your conversion ratio is 0.1%, that equals 100 buyers. The same amount of buyers you'd have if you converted 2% of 5,000 visitors...I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the task of herding 5,000 people to my site than trying to attract 100,000.

Spend your hard-earned cash on getting your ads in front of your target market's eyes. Do a little research; find out where they hang out online and pursue advertising opportunities there.

You don't have to have huge numbers of visitors to make lots of sales...IF you have the right kind of visitors.

Now, one exception to this rule is that cheap - or better yet, FREE untargeted traffic doesn't hurt. In fact, you may actually pick up a few sales from people who aren't your typical customer. They might have a friend that is interested in your product or service and pass your link along to them, or something along those lines.

If it doesn't cost you much, go for it. Save the big bucks for advertising to your target market, though.

That wraps up Part I. Be sure and read Part II to learn how to more effectively turn visitors into customers.

More: Turn visitors into customers...