How Can I Get More Traffic To My Website?

The most commonly asked question of me is “How can I get more traffic to my website?“…

After which I immediately follow with “What are you going to do with it?“…

At this point I generally receive blank stares followed by a request to elaborate.

Here’s the thing – most website owners think that getting “hits” to their website is the most important thing in a web strategy. They don’t care what they are going to do with new visitors – just that they come.

This is a fundamental flaw in your web strategy. Granted – traffic is important but the most critical aspect in your web strategy is doing something with the traffic you get. By “doing something” – we mean accomplishing and executing on your website’s goals (you do have goals for your website, right?).

What’s the point of getting an extra thousand visitors to your site if you aren’t doing anything with them? If they aren’t signing up for your email list, buying your widget, leaving a comment, subscribing to your RSS feed, or whatever – than what’s the point?

Why do you need to generate more traffic when are doing nothing with the traffic you are getting now?

Our colleague Brian Kaldenberg maintains the idea of “It’s easier to double your conversion rate than to double your website’s traffic”. What he means is that it’s easier to optimize your website to meet your goals than it is to get more people to come to your site. It could also be more profitable…

Lets get technical…

All of this data can be found inside your web analytics.

Let’s assume your business, Acme INC, sells a single widget for $97. Currently, your conversion rate – percentage of website visitors who end up buying your widget – is 3%. And let’s say you get 2,000 visitors to your website every month. If we do the math…

• 2,000 visitors * .03 conversion rate = 60 widgets/mo sold on your website
• 60 widgets * $97/ea = $5,820/mo revenue generate by your website

So what Brian is saying above is that it will be easier to increase your conversion rate to 6% than it is to increase your website’s traffic to 4,000 visitors per month. Here comes more math

If you Acme INC doubles their conversion rate to 6%…

• 2,000 visitors * .06 conversion rate = 120 widgets/mo sold
• 120 widgets * $97/ea = $11,640/mo

But guess what – you can optimize your website RIGHT NOW and increase your conversion rate. Doubling the traffic to your website will take a lot of hard work, great content, advertising, and patience (like years). Both are important – but don’t you think Acme INC would like a 6% conversion rate BEFORE they double their traffic?

• 4,000 visitors * .03 = 120 => $11,640/mo
• 4,000 visitors * .06 = 240 => $23,280/mo

For Acme INC doubling their conversion rate before they generate more traffic is a difference of 12,000/mo … doubling their revenue.

Wrapping Up

Back to our main point… Instead of asking “How can I get more traffic to my website”, you should be asking “How can I convert more of my website traffic into my goals”.

Once you’ve optimized for conversion – than you should start generating more traffic. Look at the numbers and make data driven decisions.

If you have any questions, please let us know in the comments or jump into the forums!

How To Find Long Tail Keywords

Last week we told you about the strategy to target long tail keywords as part of your web strategy and content strategy plans. We also showed you why you shouldn’t ignore this advice and pay attention to long tail keywords.

Here we show you how to find long tail keywords…

Have a question about long tail keywords? Jump into the forums or leave us a comment!

The Long Tail Of Search Keywords Visualized

These charts from SEOMoz are based on research from Bill Tancer of Hitwise called “Sizing Up The Long Tail Of Search”. The basic idea is that the long tail of search generates exponentially more traffic than the most popular keyword phrases out there. From Bill’s research…

• Top 100 terms: 5.7% of the all search traffic
• Top 500 terms: 8.9% of the all search traffic
• Top 1,000 terms: 10.6% of the all search traffic
• Top 10,000 terms: 18.5% of the all search traffic

This means if you had a monopoly over the top 1,000 search terms across all search engines (which is impossible), you’d still be missing out on 89.4% of all search traffic. There’s so much traffic in the tail it is hard to even comprehend. To illustrate, if search were represented by a tiny lizard with a one-inch head, the tail of that lizard would stretch for 221 miles.

Does that make sense? The basic idea is that more people search for obscure, multi-keyword phrases than they do popular keywords. This has a lot to do with search users becoming smarter over the years to where most people search by phrase rather than by keyword – because they’ve been trained this behavior narrows results.

What does this mean for your business? Well you should start targeting long phrase, long tail keywords in both your content and SEO strategies. Using this method you can target multiple long tail keywords and still have a better chance at generating more traffic than optimizing for a single, popular keyword.

Here’s an example… A couple weeks ago I was talking to my good friend TJ about optimizing his e-commerice site RIPTApparel (cool t-shirts by the way). We were discussing keyword targeting. My advice was to quit targeting the keyword “t-shirt” and start targeting long tail, multiple word keywords such as “cool graphic tees” and “limited edition t-shirts”. Not only do you increase your chances of being found by targeting the long tail – there is much less competition for those terms in both organic and paid search results.

So if you find that you aren’t “being found” online, try some long tail and localized keyword targeting to increase your chances… Look at the keywords coming through in your web analytics to see what long tail keywords people are using to find you and start optimizing for those. And if you have any questions at all on targeting keywords – jump into the forums and ask away!

Charts via SEOmoz | Illustrating the Long Tail.

Google Local Business Dashboard

We’ve talked about using Google Local Business dashboard before but here’s a quick overview in case you have yet to use it. Not only does this give you a huge advantage in local SEO – it helps you manage your business online.

Official Google Blog: The Local Business Center dashboard opens its doors.

Free Google Analytics App for iPhone

We’ve written about the Google Analytics app for iPhone before called “AnalyticsApp” before that lets us manage our web analytics on the run. However while that iPhone app for Google Analytics cost $$$, this one is free. This app doesn’t include all of the features but it gives you a great executive overview…

Details Include…

Analyze This! is a free app that presents an executive overview of Google Analytics data to directors on the go. It does not show you everything that is available in Google Analytics. Instead it focuses on the measurements that matter—the ones that impact your bottom line.

Interested in monitoring goals, e-commerce, and campaigns, and how they develop daily, weekly, or monthly? Then this app is for you!

Analyze This! is intended for businesspeople who set goals, run campaigns, and track sales. It is not for people who just like to analyze visits, visitors, and page views.

The idea is to present only the key measurements that instantly tell you how your business is doing. There are other apps on the market, but ours is free and easy to use.

Analyze This! A Free Google Analytics App for iPhone

Keyword Research and Google Analytics

We told you about the awesome easy keyword research tool from WordStream. They’ve recently updated this tool to integrate with Google Analytics. What’s this mean? Better keyword targeting for your site.

Here are more details

Track Twitter Content With TweetMeme

We use TweetMeme (click the retweet button to the right) to track Twitter content with basic analytics such as number of clicks.

Or – you could take it to the next level with TweetMeme Analytics…

Why would you need to know more than clicks? Here’s what TweetMeme analytics offers:

• Monitor the performance of the content on your blog/website.
• Know how far your content has spread virally through Twitter.
• Find out which user demographics were interested in your content.
• Find influential users and click sources for your content.

Looking for Twitter analytics? Here it is.

Using Data To Better Connect With Your Customers

Are you making data driven decisions?

“Attracting the right customers to your website will help you finish off 2009 strong and charge ahead in 2010. Few marketers realize that there is free data available, which is easy to access and can help you better target your advertising.

Avinash Kaushik leads a discussion to share ways for Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers. You’ll learn how to find and use data from Google Trends for Websites, Insights for Search, and Ad Planner. Avinash offers tips for using this data to focus on your most relevant audiences and maximize your return-on-investment immediately. And you’ll walk away knowing how to make the most relevant decisions to drive your business forward.”

via YouTube and Think2010

Google Analytics API

Google engineers discuss the Google Analytics Data Export API.

Bottlenecks To Implementing Web Analytics

“34% of Fortune 500 Companies Don’t Use Analytics”

Wow.

Are you making data driven decisions in your business? Did you know you can make money with analytics?

What are your bottlenecks for using web analytics? Let us know in the comments or stop by our forums!

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