You Want the Traffic? You Can’t Handle the Traffic!

One of my favorite movie scenes of all time is the exchange between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in a Few Good Men.

I’m sure you’ve seen it. Tom Cruise keeps insisting that Jack tell him the truth until Jack is finally provoked into screaming the now famous line. “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

Most web site owners and people doing business online believe that the truth is they need more traffic in order to be successful. While that is definitely part of the truth there is a flip side to that coin that most online business owners don’t do too well with. That is converting traffic to leads and/or sales.

The real truth is that even if they had all the traffic in the world coming to their site the chances of anyone actually buying something from them is very slim.

Why is that? Well, there are a number of reasons for this. And they are caused by some very common mistakes that, in my opinion, most online business owners/operators make.

Here are just a few…

1. Unprofessional site design. People don’t trust sites that look like they were designed by the Jr. High kid down the street. If they don’t trust you they won’t buy from you. Heck they won’t even stick around long enough to see what you’re selling. Take an honest look at your site and ask yourself this question. “Would I buy anything from this site?” If the answer is “no” then hire a professional designer or if you’re using WordPress purchase a premium WordPress theme and pay to have it setup correctly.
2. Too many choices and no clear offer. Where am I? What can I do, get or buy here? Why should I participate? Quickly answer those three questions in the mind of your reader and offer them one easy call-to-action and your conversions will increase significantly.
3. Optimizing for “non-convertible” keywords. Just because a keyword can drive a lot of traffic to your site doesn’t mean that it will convert to sales. For example. If your site sells high-end luxury cruises and you get a lot of traffic for the keyword phrase, “cheap discount cruises” there is going to be a disconnect in the mind of your reader. They are not looking for what you offer and most likely will not buy from you.
   One of the best ways to quickly discover which keywords will convert the best with your audience and your offer is to use PPC. Run a short, inexpensive Pay-Per-Click campaign to a narrowly focused sales page with a measurable call-to-action. (i.e. free ebook, sample product, etc…) Use 25-50 of your top keyword candidates. Make sure you are tracking the conversion results using Google AdWords, Analytics or a similar tool.
   Within a matter of days it should be very obvious which keywords you should focus your SEO and Web 2.0 efforts on. Don’t focus on keywords based on CTR (click through rate) Base your decision on conversions and how many other advertisers are competing for that word. In this case the more advertisers the better. Yes, there is more competition but there’s most likely a good reason for that. Smart business owners spend their advertising dollars where the buyers are. Smart online business owners optimize for keywords that translate into conversions.
   Hopefully you will find keywords that have both a high CTR and a high conversion rate. That’s where the money is.

I recently came across a YouTube video that literally made me LOL. If you’ve ever worked in the graphic design or ad business then you will get a kick out of this. It’s not directly related to web site traffic but it does fit with the Few Good Men theme.

Enjoy, Barry O.

Fast Tube by Casper