Website Traffic Conversion

What type of traffic is your website attracting?

Traffic, traffic, it's all about the traffic!!

Or is it?

As an SEO firm, we get calls from all over the country almost every day from website owners looking for more traffic to their websites. Many are under the impression that the more traffic the better, no matter what kind of traffic it is.

Maybe that's how marketing works for brick and mortar businesses. But for websites, that simply is not the case. In fact, it's reversed!

Marketing for brick and mortar businesses involves the business hunting for customers.

Marketing for websites involves the customer hunting for the website.

So, I can completely understand how difficult it must be for many businesses to try to comprehend this switch. I mean, if they've been in business for a while, then they're accustomed to being the Hunter. But now, with a website on the Internet, they have to trade places and become the HUNTED!

You may be asking yourself, "If I want to be HUNTED, wouldn't it be better to have 5000 visitors to my site than 500 visitors?"

The answer to that is, not necessarily. It depends on what those 5000 visitors are looking for. Here's an example:

We'll use a website that sells hurricane shutters (after all, it's that time of year!)

Let's say the website is in south Florida and they sell hurricane shutters for single family homes and condominiums.

If they market their website for "hurricane shutters", they'll get plenty of traffic, but, it's general traffic. When an Internet user types in "hurricane shutters", what are they looking for?

Information on hurricane shutters?
Installing hurricane shutters?
Replacing hurricane shutters?
Price of hurricane shutters?
Hurricane shutters in Nassau Bahamas?
Hurricane shutters in New Orleans, LA?

Get the idea? The phrase itself is too general. This phrase attracts browsers from all angles, not necessarily targeted buyers.

Using general keyword phrases to market your website is the same as paying for a billboard advertisement and placing it in the wrong geographic location. In other words, if this hurricane shutter company purchased a billboard advertisement and placed it in Minneapolis, MN, well, that would be the same as using a general keyword phrase. Yes, they would get traffic, but not the right KIND of traffic.

So, as the HUNTED, they would be found by the Internet Hunters but they would soon, thereafter, be tossed away.

The beauty of Internet marketing is that we already KNOW what people are looking for. Through keyword research, the website owner can identify what his target market wants.

Here are some real time (as of September 4, 2008) keyword phrases related to a south Florida hurricane shutter website...

"miami hurricane shutters"
"south florida hurricane shutters"
"cost of hurricane shutters"
"aluminum hurricane shutters"


Using phrases specific to geography and products helps to narrow down the targeted audience to your website. Also, using phrases that answer a problem or question greatly increases the chances of attracting a targeted, ready to buy, type of audience.

Clearly, if a hurricane shutter company in Florida added 4 pages to their website, each one marketing one of the keyword phrases above, their traffic would INCREASE, and it would be traffic that is specific, targeted and more likely ready to BUY.

So, whether you're selling name tags or diabetic supplies, it's all about knowing what your targeted audience wants and then simply giving it to them.

Now, that's what I call, well spent advertising dollars!