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Understanding
Search Engine Optimisation by Peter
Yexley
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Increasing
sales with less traffic
One of the biggest mistakes webmasters make is trying to gain
as many visitors to their site as possible. Feel free to read
that sentence again because it sounds like a contradiction.
Don't buy 'traffic' or join traffic exchange schemes - you
might get flooded with traffic (according to your stats) but
think of it a like a bus load of people visiting a bar ...just
to use the toilet. One person may possibly buy a cheap drink
but the cost of wear and tear caused by the other visitors
outweighs any spend.
Less traffic is often better, as long as the traffic gained
is targeted quality traffic. The key here is focussing on
your conversion rate. Let's say you have number one position
in Google for the keyword 'colour printers' and you sell printing
machines ... but the vast amount of traffic you achieve is
looking for a supplier of colour brochures, you won't any
colour printers and your conversion rate will be very low,
probably a big fat zero.
There are a lot of reasons why your site may appear to be
achieving vast amounts of traffic but very little in revenue.
Depending on your statistics and log files, you may get clues
as to whether they are genuine human visitors or spiders sent
by outside software.
If it is clear that the majority of visitors are human, you
will need to inspect the keywords used or referred pages because
this will provide a better picture of how you are being found.
My example of 'colour printers' illustrates the modern double
meanings that frequently occur. How about 'Plant Hire' - there
are companies that hire plants for interior design, shrubs
and trees etc, yet construction vehicle rental is also 'plant
hire'.
It may not be the amount of traffic you achieve but the
amount of orders you gain.
If you sold very expensive items but only sold one per day,
you may be delighted even with low traffic numbers, however
if you sold very low cost items, you may need massive traffic.
However if the traffic you attract are not in the market for
your goods, it is wasted traffic - no matter what volume.
It is important to target your website traffic and ensure
they are visiting your website for the right reasons.
There is another scenario; your website traffic is perfectly
targeted and plentiful - but sales are few and far between.
Why?
It is easy to blame the designer and your website may look
fantastic, so much so that even the website designers show
it off to prospective clients ...but it can't be found in
search engines and is not making money! - A bit like having
a Ferrari in the garage and nobody can enjoy it.
Generally speaking good website designers are good at website
design and marketing may not be their strong point. We could
equate it to interior designers don't make good estate agents
and equally an estate agent would make a poor interior designer....
horses for courses.
An attractive website doesn't make it an instant success and
as much as the designer may believe it is optimised, it may
be a far cry from up-to-date SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
Let's put the shoe on the other foot, a professional search
engine expert, doesn't make a good website designer.
So, without wishing to offend designers, the website may have
fundamental search engine issues, as much as it looks good,
it may need tweaking.
Copyright 2008 Peter
Yexley. All rights reserved.Website
Marketing Services
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