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 If you're relatively new to the
internet marketing arena, I'd like to save you some time
and give you a big hint about something I didn't know when
I first started. Like most newbies, I was mostly obsessed
with traffic, and I didn't care where it came from. I
would purchase one cent pop-up traffic just to try to show
my website to anyone who may or may not be even remotely
interested! I figured any publicity was good publicity and
paid for banners are all over the internet, without ever
worrying about the source of the traffic. Suffice it to
say, once I analyzed my logs, I became very disenchanted
with the results.
I came to find out that traffic is meaningless. The only
metric that mattered to my business online was
conversions. I need people to buy, so it truly doesn't
matter how many people start out at the website, it only
matters how many of them end up at the order form. The
only people who are likely to purchase from a website are
a segment of active and interested people who are ready to
spend money, and ready to spend it right now. People who
are surfing around for related information, or worse yet,
someone picked off from an un-related website just can't
do much for your business because they barely, if ever,
convert. The more people you have like this, the higher
the server load, and nothing else. I learned that the best
visitor is one who is actively searching to buy a product
or service like the one you offer. If the customer isn't
ready to purchase, then there's little chance you'll
actually be paid anything.
I'm sure this revelation isn't a shock to everyone, but
for some people, they might see a bit of themselves in the
situation I'm describing. I've certainly talked to enough
people who were obsessed mainly by traffic. Who doesn't
love to see their log files explode? A huge burst of
traffic is appealing to the Ego, if nothing else. However,
log files don't pay the bills. If you can earn $20 on 100
page views, you'll realize quickly how direct conversion
traffic is worth more than any other kind. Even if your
website doesn't directly sell a product, you'll still make
the most money with very targeted traffic. Why? Because
these same consumers will be very likely to convert at the
advertiser's end. Advertisers are willing to pay the most
for traffic that results in sales. For this reason alone,
you can expect high rates of CPM by keeping your traffic
very narrow and primarily focused on the act of buying a
product or service. The closer they are to the act of
purchasing, the better. This means the best visitor is a
time-motivated person in the act of purchasing a product
or service. If you derive a large percentage of your
website's traffic in this fashion, you're sitting on a
gold mine.
Grouping your web pages on tightly focused topics is a
great way to ensure your traffic is qualified. The tighter
the focus, the more likely the visitor is to convert. A
person searching for "buy cheap online widgets"
is very likely far into the purchasing thought process. If
the visitor lands on your website and is pre-qualified by
the landing page, the work of the advertiser in closing
the sale is almost done. At this point, a click-through to
the advertiser's site is likely to generate a sale. Your
compensation for supplying such a pre-qualified lead will
be rich. If your entire website consists of pages
engineered in this fashion and covering a keyword category
intensely, you're extremely likely to succeed as a web
marketer. Hopefully this bit of advice will come in handy
to someone who's just starting out in the game. Save
yourself time and target narrow profitable niches right
from the start.
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