When most businesses look to improve their sales, they often go first to search engine optimization (SEO). They figure that if they drive more (targeted) traffic to the site, their sales will increase. And they are right. Search engine optimization helps build site exposure, which increases traffic and produces more sales.
But there is another way to increase sales and it has nothing to do with getting more traffic: Conversion Optimization.
Conversion optimization is often overlooked in the sphere of web marketing. While businesses look to increase traffic to earn more profits, they haven’t considered that they can make the traffic they are already getting more profitable. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Instead of looking at how to bring in more traffic, conversion optimization helps convert more existing traffic into customers.[/inlinetweet]
What do you do if you don’t know where to start? Get the basic in place. There are an inherent list of “best practices” that provide a solid baseline for increasing your conversions. In fact, my web marketing checklist is a great resource for conversion best practices. Everything in there is based on what works almost universally for all sites.
Once you have the best practices in place, then you can dive into actual conversion and a/b testing. If you think something can be improved, test it out and see. If it fails, no worries, move on to the next test. If it works, well, you just increased your conversions!
[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]I believe conversion optimization should be a part of every web marketing campaign.[/inlinetweet] However, it takes time and resources. If it comes to having to choose between the two, go with implementing best practices and conversion optimization. Once you’ve improved your conversion rates, any additional money you spend on driving more traffic pays for itself.