First off, do you know what your conversion rate is?

If your marketing is to be effective you not only need to know your conversion rate, you must also understand your conversion goal.

Everyone’s conversion goal will be different. It could be:

• Newsletter sign-ups
• Brochure downloads
• Sign-ups for a free trial
• Email enquiries
• Phone enquiries

As soon as you know what it is you’re measuring, you can begin to track the effectiveness of your website or landing page through Google Analytics.

But there is one vital element you need to get conversion and that’s traffic. You can’t have one without the other. Using your analytics you will be able to instantly see how many visitors you are getting, where they are, how they’re finding you, even the keyword that’s pulling in the most.

However, it’s not just a numbers game. Even if you are getting thousands of visitors to your website every week, if they are not being converted into sales and leads, there’s something wrong.

Why is my website not converting?

1. Traffic jam but no takers

If you’ve got lots of visitors but few conversions, you have a problem. First, check your keywords to make sure you are targeting the right ones.

Every page of your website should target a different keyword, so if you have a high bounce rate, your may not be attracting the right audience.

2. Empty promises

Staying with your keywords for a moment, if you are targeting the wrong ones, people are landing on your website expecting to see one thing, but being shown another.

This mismatch is caused by poor keyword choice. Review them and refine them to reflect the exact market you are after.

4. Call to action

Your lack of conversion could simply come down to a missing call to action.

You must always tell your reader what you want them to do next – call now, email now etc. Make sure it is clear, commanding and above the fold.

5. Your website’s copy

In fact, not just your website copy, but your website too.

Your website has to be fast to load, easily navigable, pop-up free and pleasant to look at. Then, your copy has to be interesting, relevant, benefits-led and it must address your reader directly.

If  you can tick all of those boxes, your products are good, you’re targeting the right keywords and you have strong calls to action, you stand a great chance of achieving that all important conversion goal.

If you’re an online marketer you need traffic – and a lot of it.

Why?

Because your traffic is your customers and more customers means more money.

How do you actually get more traffic though? And, once you’ve started to get it, how do you convince them to buy from you?

There are various things you can do to encourage more people to your website and make it more visible in the search engine rankings. And no, that doesn’t mean plastering it in bright colours with loads of flashing images.

Here are 4 ways to help boost your traffic. Remember though, gaining more traffic isn’t going to happen over night. It is something that’s going to require commitment on your part.

1. Keywords

This is hardly going to be a surprise as keywords are vital when it comes to online marketing.

You are the person who knows your business best and your market. As such, you should have a fair idea of what they are likely to be searching for when they need your products or services. So by using those keywords, you’ll attract more of your target market.

Of course that doesn’t mean stuffing them in your web copy left right and centre. You must incorporate them sensitively within your SEO website content, articles and blogs. Oh yes, keywords aren’t just for your web copy. Everything you write and publish on the web has the potential to drive traffic so make sure you optimise all your opportunities.

The main thing to remember is to ensure your choice of keywords is correct and relevant to what you do. After all, loads of traffic is all well and good but not very useful if they are not looking for what you offer.

2. Adding video

Have you noticed how many companies are now using video marketing?

More and more people are watching videos online so it makes sense to give them what they want by adding one to your website or setting up your own YouTube channel (which can be linked to your website).

What should your video be on?

Well, you can make short videos that showcase your products, act as interactive ‘how to’ guides, case studies and even video testimonials. The possibilities are endless.

3. Picture galleries

When you walk into a physical shop you have the advantage of being able to see what you’re going to buy, you can touch it and even try it out.

But online marketing doesn’t allow you to do that – well, other than see it.

No one likes to buy something without seeing it first so make sure your website offers high quality images of your products (coupled with detailed descriptions) so they know exactly what they’ll be getting.

4. Regular contact with customers

Keeping in touch with your customers will open up sales opportunities and allow you to add value by giving advice and tips.

Whether you do that through newsletters or email marketing it gives you the ability to maintain regular contact with your customers and prospective customers.

These 4 ideas are simple to instigate but very effective and can make a huge difference to your traffic.

Your website needs traffic if it’s going to be effective. If you’ve invested heavily in your online presence it makes sense to ensure people see it.

But it not only has to attract visitors, it also has to convert them into buying customers. You can read more about conversion here.

Sally Ormond, freelance copywriter, comments on Kieron Hughes’ post “Using YouTube as a keyword research tool for SEO” that appeared on SEOMOZ.org

When talking keyword research, most people think about what they’re selling (products and services) and probably their geographical location.

For many people, the primary tool used is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. But there is another, frequently overlooked possibility.

YouTube.

Yes, you would normally associate YouTube with hours of entertaining videos (and some not so entertaining) but it can also be used as an effective keyword research tool. I first came across this idea when I discovered a post on SEOMOZ.org by Kieron Hughes – in his post he discusses the merits of using YouTube as a keyword research tool for SEO.

Uploading videos to YouTube couldn’t be easier. If you have a computer and internet connection, you’re in business. So how can it help with your research? Well it’s not actually the videos that help, it’s the descriptive content that accompanies them that is a gold mine of information.

In his blog post, Kieron uses the example of speech therapy to illustrate his point. By searching on YouTube he generated associated words such as:

•    Autism
•    Oral motor exercise
•    Chewy tube
•    Down syndrome
•    Oral motor therapy
•    Apraxia

This kind of detail wouldn’t be picked up through Google’s tool. When you’re researching for a client or for yourself, YouTube is invaluable as a research tool to help you uncover potentially lucrative keywords.

Because people from all walks of life use YouTube as a platform to share their knowledge and experiences it is a rich resource just waiting to be tapped into. These users are also the ones who use the search engines daily and so are invaluable sources of information.

By using YouTube you could change your initial site navigation from:

To something that reflects your industry with greater SEO potential:

Next time you need to do some keyword research remember to take a look at YouTube as well. Added to your other research material, it will help you develop an intricate SEO strategy that will get your business noticed.