Sazbean

Many business owners get caught up with the need to increase traffic to their business website in order to increase sales and/or revenue.  Increasing traffic to your website may or may not help increase sales depending on who the traffic is (whether they are potential customers).

Sales from a website are based on the number of potential customers who come to the website (a lead) and the percentage that actually purchase something (a conversion). To increase sales from a website, there are three options:

1. increase the number of potential customers coming to the site (leads)
2. increase the number of actual sales on the website (conversions)
3. both #1 and #2.

While increasing traffic can help, it will only help if the traffic includes more potential customers (leads).  Just increasing traffic, if none of the people are interested in making a purchase, does nothing to help sales.  So it is very important to increase the number of potential customers (leads), which is sometimes called qualified traffic.

Sometimes sales are not happening because information on your website is not clear or potential customers are not sure how to make a purchase. Increasing the number of potential customers who actually make a purchase (conversions) is another way to increase sales from your website. Taking a look at where people may be leaving the site, as well as whether marketing information entices a purchase can help increase conversions.  Advertising should take potential customers right to an “action” page where they have all the information they need and can make a purchase.

Just increasing traffic to a website without increasing the number of potential customers and/or conversions will probably not increase your sales, leaving you wondering why your efforts are not working.

(photo by Burning Image @ Flickr CC)

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