The Trinity: Traffic, Website and Analytics (Dallas, TX)

June 24, 2007 · Filed Under Tracking Results 

Phillip CrumSo which comes first? Traffic, the perfect website, or a way to measure it? The correct answer is, “yes”. They all need to exist in adequate supply to achieve your objectives but doesn’t that skirt the question? Nope.

The question is not relevant because none of the elements need exist first. If you absolutely need something be “first” then that honor should go to a properly constructed [tag]online marketing plan[/tag] that includes traffic development, site development and the needed analytics capabilities built in from the git-go. If that still doesn’t satisfy your chronic desire for a dominant task then I might suggest you consider professional counseling or at least lay down until the feeling goes away.

Plenty of traffic with a bum site equals a lot of nothing. A beautiful site with no traffic needs no explanation and both scenarios leave the analysis technician with a lot of time on his hands. Hence the statements above.

Use this thought as a back-drop when the question of needing more traffic comes up. There’s two elements in the question of conversion: traffic and every aspect of it, and the viability of the site itself. Before assuming you need more traffic take a look at your site and see what’s happening there. How’s your bounce rate for your targeted landing pages? How much time are your visitors spending on your site? On the critical pages? From where are they leaving? What’s your conversion rate goal and what are you currently seeing?

May be what’s needed is not more traffic (render Forrest Gump, box of chocolates, never know what you’re gonna get…etc, right about here) but a better conversion rate on your site. In other words, maybe what we really have is plenty of customers, the food’s just no good. It’s usually quite a bit cheaper to fix a problem in the galley than it is to win a new customer. Make sense? In an article he wrote recently on the topic, Hurol Inan says:

Instead of fixing the website’s problems by optimising its content and functionality, many website managers resort to search engine optimisation and marketing as their first of port of call. Their rationale is: “if the current conversion rate is 3%, when I bring extra 10% traffic, I will make an extra …”

Shift your mindset towards exploring ways to increase your customer conversion rate instead of simply throwing more traffic at something which is not performing well.

Whether traffic’s a problem or not spend your first nickel looking at your site to make sure it’s not a problem. Once you’re sure it’s more than adequate for the task then turn your attention to improving the volume and quality of traffic. Just don’t forget that none of that is worth your first nickel if analytics is not utilized to measure the take!

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Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com

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