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News & Notes

Aaron Worsham / Oct 10, 2008

Higher Education

Clock TowerI have heard it often enough to credit it to common belief that in tough economic markets, the smart and the scared go back to school. I wonder what college rates in the US will be by this time next year.

There are some who feel that advanced degrees earned at ivy covered institutions are the cause of all the world’s prescient financial problems.  I am not in that camp.  No, I am firmly planted in the firmament that believes only those with a higher understanding through education can hope to lead the rest of us numbskulls out of this Minitorian maze.

Knowing full well she would never mention it herself, I’d like to share something with our readers.  Sarah was recently accepted to one of our nations highest regarded and most competitive business schools as a Masters student.  Sazbean will continue to be her day job, her hobby, her profession and her pride.  She just now has to find a spare 50 hours a week for classes with professors who have literally written the book on modern business.  Knowing online business as she does, I bet she still manages to teach a thing or two herself.

I only mention this because Im proud and I get to say it here because I control half the blog and she can’t stop me.

Sarah Worsham / Oct 9, 2008

Just Increasing Traffic May Not Increase Sales on Your Business Website

trafficburningimageMany 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)

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, internet strategy, internet marketing, internet consulting

Aaron Worsham / Oct 8, 2008

Commitment free entertainment

clockgandmWho knew that in 2008 there were still coffee shops without free wifi?  Decaf mocha in hand, I sat down in my local Starbucks for some internet research only to find myself completely offline.  Bummer.  Fortunately, like a boyscout, I came prepared with a high resolution analog information storage device called a ‘book’.  Older patrons smiled up at me from their papers while the younger crowd rolled their eyes dramatically between texting sessions on their Treo’s and jam sessions on their MP3 players.

I have noticed that the rituals of my youth are starting to loose meaning.  We used to schedule our evenings around our favorite shows (Friday nights with reruns of the original Star Trek).   Prep our tape recorders for radio countdown shows to grab our favorite music.  Even go out on Saturday night to the movie theater.  We had to earn or ad-laden entertainment through monastic dedications of commitment, and gosh darn we were thankful!

Well, not really. It came as a realization last night to how much of a pain those commitments were.  I was on the site Hulu.com and having scheduled half a dozen shows to queue up episodes for me to watch whenever I want, I was drifting in and through old-geek nirvana.  I felt liberated.  I also felt I was somehow cheating.  My friends tell me that I need to get over it, oh and to also get a DVR.

During the recent weeks of the financial crisis on Wall Street, I have tried to keep up with my Wall Street Journal.  The desire was there, I only lacked the spare hour to really get through some of the denser articles.  Old me would have given up.  New me found Planet Money Podcast, an NPR production that has covered this historic event with an inch thick coating of modern journalistic audio goodness.  Podcasts as a news feeds can fill those down minutes in your day when you are waiting in line at the bank or cleaning the kitchen.  I like This American Life for yard work and cooking.  Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell help with the dishes.

I’m not of the pirate persuasion, so movies still cost me money.  I’m still awestruck, though, at the myriad ways I can legally get my occasional flix fix.  October signals horror movie month in my brain so having choices like Comcast On Demand, Apple iTunes movie store, Amazon UnBox, Hulu.com and Netflix over Internet has been both a blessing and a curse.  Sony won the next gen DVD war just in time for streaming content to come in and wash out their footings.

There are still holdouts in my life that are time-honored events that demand a commitment.  Sitting in a college football stadium with a hot dog on a sunny, crisp fall day while the kids play down on the field will never be replaced by tape delay.  Not in my lifetime, anyway.

Photo attributed to G & M @ Flickr CC

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About Sazbean


Sarah Worsham (Sazbean) is a Webgrrl = Solution Architect + Product Management (Computer Engineer * Geek * Digital Strategist)^MBA. All views are her own.

Business + Technical Product Management

My sweet spot is at the intersection between technology and business. I love to manage and develop products, market them, and deep dive into technical issues when needed. Leveraging strategic and creative thinking to problem solving is when I thrive. I have developed and marketed products for a variety of industries and companies, including manufacturing, eCommerce, retail, software, publishing, media, law, accounting, medical, construction, & marketing.

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