Want additional sales and new visitors to your web site?
You’ll be happy to learn that there are many ways to get more (or even some!) visitors to your website. Search engines AREN’T the be all and end all of all online marketing strategies. It is interesting to note that Google currently (2008) handles almost 83% of UK searches, so when we say Search Engines, we commonly think about Google as the number one.
How many visitors you may expect will depend on what manner of business you are and who your customers are. If you are selling shirts, you can have around half the population to , if you are offering a service to Chief Executives of FTSE100 companies, you are likely to have fewer targeted visitors. Horses for courses.
Here are a few dependable methods to increase the visitor numbers:
Free Google Listings
Google Adwords System
E-Mail Marketing Campaign
Direct Mail (yes PAPER!)
Online Press Releases
Free Directory Entries
Blogging
Social Networking & Forums
Virals (not a disease!)
Of course it’s not solely about capturing visitors, but the right type of visitors. There is almost no use in getting 1000 schoolkids to your site selling bath taps simply because they are producing a school project. Getting a few plumbers or DIYers on to your web site when they have typed ‘buying chrome bath taps’ into Google could actually result in a few sales. Turning a browser into a buyer is called conversion.
The art of conversion is the holy grail, because it’s certainly easy to ‘buy’ lots of visitors, but for most sites, this is simply not going to result in sales or enquiries.
We have a few tried and tested strategies in converting, some simple (make sure you have your phone number is on every page of your website, for example) and some complicated tools which can link into Google to show you how your latest customer found you, and what phrase they typed into the search engine to find you. It can also tell you how much your orders or enquiries are costing by key phrase. Try getting that level of detailed analysis with a newspaper advert! It’s not too expensive, well, not as expensive as getting it wrong.
So, you are selling products online, but you are sure you can do better? First of all you will need to get your measures right so that you can see what effect your actions are having.
Here are the basics:
Measure 1: Visitors
How are you planning on measuring this? Only one way – Google Analytics. This one is dead easy to implement, and quite easy to figure out. Don’t confuse visitors with hits, unique visitors are the only visitor numbers you need.
Measure 2: Orders
How many orders are you recieving? Easy (I’d hope!) just count ’em up. Using this you will calculate the next measure.
Measure 3: Conversion Rate
This is how many orders you are getting as a percentage. Divide the number of visitors by the amount of orders. When you push your sales buttons, and pull your delivery levers, this will help you decide if it worked or not.
Measure 4: Total Sales in ?
I would guess this is uncomplicated to get hold of. How much did you sell this month?
Measure 5: Average Basket Value
Maybe not the ABV that first springs to mind, but this measure is a key one if you are hoping to grow your sales online.
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