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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)

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Using Social Media for Long-Term Results

If you’ve had any success with using social media to increase the traffic to your website, you may have noticed that you usually get a spike in traffic which often goes back to original levels.  While getting a spike in traffic might be nice (or not nice if it crashes your website), if your traffic goes back to the original levels, you’ve lost an opportunity to convert some of those people to long-term visitors.  Traffikd has a good article with some ways to try to convert traffic spikes from social media into long-term visitors – Social Media Marketing: Getting Long-Term Results.  A summary of things to consider from the post:

  • Subject of your posts
  • Tone of your Posts
  • Targeted Social Media
  • Timing
  • Potential Impact
  • The Needs that are Met by the Post

While Traffikd’s post focuses mostly on blogs, these techniques can also be used on your business website.  It is important to maintain a customer-centric design by keeping the needs of your customers in mind with your content (and your design, layout, etc.).  The customers who visit your website are who provide the return on investment (ROI) for your website.

What’s worked for your business website in terms of social media?  Please share in the comments below.

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SEO Tips for Local Businesses

If you have a business that only operates locally, spending time and effort on SEO and marketing practices that go out to a national or international audience is probaby a waste of time.  Most SEO and Internet marketing techniques focus on driving as much traffic as possible, casting a wide net.  Techniques for local SEO are a bit different and Traffkid has some good tips in their post Search Engine Optimization for Local Business Results.

Do you have other tips for local businesses?  Please share them in the comments section below.