Navigating the paths of commerce in the cyber world can be both simple and complex at the same time. It is simple in the sense that it shares the same basic principles that apply in any type of business. The complexity lies in the unexplored regions of cyber marketing that can either help you in your business or cause you to fold-up if don’t learn how to use it. One of the basic elements that you should consider in conducting businesses on the web is the online website traffic. This is a measurement of the number of visits or visitors that a website receives. It lets you know how many people are interested in what you have to offer in your site. The more people who are interested in your site, the more your business is likely to succeed. That’s where the simplicity ends.
You have to qualify the kind of visitors that you get in your site according to source and according to behavior. The most common sources of visitors would be the search engines, online advertising, article and forum links, and other online marketing campaigns that link to your website. These are your traffic drivers. Without these, you will not get any visitors, other than perhaps those friends or family members who regularly checks on what you are up to. You have to make sure that these drivers are directing quality visitors to your online business. Quality leads are defined based on your target market description. In short, you have to make sure that the traffic that is directed to your site belongs to the market segment that you want to sell to and have the means to buy from you. You can tap other related or complementary websites and online locations in your advertising and link building initiatives to improve your online website traffic.
Looking at the way your visitors behave on your website will also give you an idea of what you have to improve in your online website business. There are variables that could spell the success or failure of your online business. Aside from knowing which links and resources are giving you the best online website traffic, you also have to know which one gives you the most productive and profitable traffic. When you get visitors in your site, do they stay and read through your pages or do they click the exit button like it’s an emergency escape button? Find out about click through rates, conversion rates, and bounce rates. These three figures are important in assessing whether your online marketing strategies are working or not.
Click through rates tell you how effective your advertising materials and your articles and links are in getting readers to click the link to your website. As they get to your website, they have to stay and read about what you have to say. When your visitors leave your website within a few seconds of getting to your website, you will get a high bounce rate. This means that you are not effective in engaging your visitors so that they will be interested to know more about what you are offering. The conversion rate will then tell you how much of your visitors are actually buying from you. Having a high bounce rate and a low conversion rate could tell you that you are not reaching the right traffic or that you are not offering something of value to your consumers.
The online website traffic is just a part of the equation for a successful online site or business. You need to convert these visits into actual sales or purchases to earn profits from your venture. Your bounce rates and conversion rates have a lot to do with your content. Leading prospective customers to your site in the thousands would only serve to bog down your server without resulting in any sales for your online business. When you have a stream of targeted website traffic, you need to be able to engage them with your content so that they are enticed to stay on your website and avail of what you are offering.
In the end, even if you only have a handful of customers, you would not have to worry about your website traffic slump. Turning your targeted website visitors into loyal consumers and word of mouth marketers will give you a steady stream of business and customers to make your online business more sustainable over the long term.