In our last
issue, we looked at the top 10 strategies you can use
to drive traffic to your site -- without spending a dime!
If you've read it, you may be thinking that you now know all
the essentials about driving as many qualified visitors to
your site as possible.
Wrong! Sure, those 10 strategies
will get you a long way toward your goal... But if you're
really serious about driving huge numbers of visitors
to your site, then you should also look into traffic-generation
techniques that cost a bit of money -- but are well worth
the cost!
In this issue, we're going to
take a look at some paid traffic-generation tactics that have
proven to be extremely successful when used correctly. If
your business is new, or if you haven't been able to attract
many visitors to your site yet, these cost-effective strategies
are the fastest way to boost your visitor count --
and your sales!
Before you can begin experimenting
with these strategies however, you need to know how much you
can afford to spend on each new visitor to your site. And
that means you need to understand the value of your visitors...
What
are your visitors worth to you?
Once you know how to calculate
the value of a visitor to your site, you'll be able to figure
out how much you can afford to spend on advertising without
draining your wallet.
There are a few simple calculations
you'll need to make in order to determine the value of your
visitors. In order to make these calculations, you'll need
to know your total number of sales, gross revenues, total
expenses, and unique visitors for a set period of time (let's
say a month). Once you have these figures at your disposal,
you're ready to do some math!
Step 1: Calculate the
conversion rate of your site
Your conversion rate is calculated
by dividing the number of unique visitors to your site by
the total number of sales you made in a given time period.
Here's the equation:
Unique Visitors / Total
Number of Sales = Conversion Rate
For example: if your site got
5,000 unique visitors last month, and you made 40 sales, then
your equation would be: 5,000 total visitors / 40 sales
= conversion rate of 125 unique visitors per sale
If you don't know how many unique
visitors your site gets, contact your Web server and ask to
see your server logs. Your logs contain a lot of data about
your traffic and are a goldmine of information!
Step 2: Calculate the
net profits for every sale you make
In order to determine the true
value of a visitor, you'll need to know what your "take-home"
profits are for each sale, after all your expenses have been
subtracted. Here's the equation:
(Gross Revenue - Total
Expenses) / Total Number of Sales = Net Profit per Sale
If you sold 40 items for $79.95
each last month: 40 sales x $79.95 per item = $3,198 gross
revenues
From your total gross revenues, you'd then subtract your monthly
expenses. If your total expenses came to $1,566, your net
profit would be: $3,198 gross revenues - $1,566 expenses
= $1,632 net profit
Next, divide your total net profit
by your total number of sales to calculate your net profit
per sale. For example, if you made 40 sales: $1,632 net
profit / 40 sales = $40.80 net profit per sale
For every $79.95 item you sell,
$40.80 goes straight into your pocket as pure profit!
Step 3: Calculate your
visitor worth by dividing your net profit per sale by your
conversion rate
Now that you have calculated
your sales conversion rate and net profit, here's how you
calculate the value of a visitor:
Net Profit per Sale /
Conversion Rate = Visitor Worth
If your net profit per sale is
$40.80 and your conversion rate is 1 in 125, then your equation
will look like this: $40.80 net profit per sale / 125
conversion rate = $0.32
This means you can afford to
spend up to $0.32 to attract a single visitor to your site.
So if you invest $50 in testing an advertising technique,
it should bring you at least 156 visitors to break even --
and one of them needs to buy your product. If you receive
fewer visitors than this and no one makes a purchase, then
your test has failed, and you'll need to move on to the next
test!
Create
a stampede of traffic to your site with our top 4 "smart
advertising" techniques
People are often reluctant to
put a lot of money into online advertising because they're
not confident their investments will pay off. The truth is,
well-planned paid advertising strategies can RAPIDLY increase
the number of visitors to your site -- and put you on the
fast track to success!
The trick is knowing which strategies
to invest in. We've tried a lot of different forms of advertising
over the years, and the four listed below are by far the most
profitable. We strongly suggest you give them a try before
exploring any other types of advertising out there.
1. Get your site listed
on the major pay-per-click search engines
Without a doubt, pay-per-click
(PPC) search engines are still the best value for your advertising
dollar!
If you want to get listed on
a PPC search engine, bid on keywords that relate to the content
of your site. If you're the highest bidder on a given keyword,
your site will be the first listing that appears at the top
of the "results" page when someone performs a search
for that keyword.
And getting listed on a PPC search
engine is the easiest way to get listed at the top of the
major search engines -- fast! Plus, when you're in the top
three listings on Overture
(the industry leader in PPC search), your site will be featured
as a "sponsored listing" on highly trafficked sites
such as Yahoo!,
Altavista,
CNN.com,
InfoSpace,
and MSN.com.
If you monitor the click-through
and sales conversion rates of the keywords you're bidding
on, there's no way you can lose money. Just be sure
to keep your bids lower than your visitor worth,
and you'll be set!
To explore PPC search engine
strategies in more detail, check out Issue
#97 of the Marketing Tips newsletter.
You may also want to check out
the following PPC search
engines:
- http://www.overture.com
- https://adwords.google.com/select/
- http://www.findwhat.com
2. Place text ads in
popular e-zines and online trade journals
E-zines are popping up everywhere
on the 'Net these days, all catering to very different niche
markets. And just like offline magazines, a lot of them need
to sell advertising in order to stay profitable.
By placing an ad in these publications,
you can increase your site's exposure and "piggyback"
on the e-zine's reputation, encouraging readers to click on
the ad and check out your site. But first, you'll have to
do some research to discover which e-zines and online trade
journals are popular with your niche market.
Try to place your ads in well
trafficked e-zines with content that's directly relevant to
your target audience. For example, if you sell bulk recycled
stationery, advertise in an e-zine geared to office workers
-- not in one that's meant for rock climbers!
The cost of running an e-zine
ad can vary anywhere from $20 to $100 per ad, depending on
the e-zine and the type of ads they publish. It's generally
safe to assume that more popular e-zines charge more for their
ads.
To learn more about which e-zines
are going to be the best places for you to advertise, here
are a few sites to check out:
3. Get your
site listed on paid inclusion directories and portals
A great way to get
your site seen by a lot of different people -- AND boost your
ranking with the free search engines! -- is to buy a listing
on paid directories or portal sites.
A directory is an
indexed listing of sites that's managed by human editors (as
opposed to the free search engines, which are entirely run
by computers). Some directories are free, while others charge
anywhere from $10 to $100 for a listing. Do some research
to discover which directories are popular with your niche
market before deciding where you want your site to be listed.
Portals are "megasites"
that provide a wide range of resources, information, and services
to their visitors. Yahoo!
started off as a directory but has grown to become a popular
portal site that offers search capability, news, entertainment,
and other features in addition to its indexed listings.
Yahoo! gets a lot
of traffic, but it can also be very expensive! It costs $299
to get your site fast-tracked and reviewed for inclusion by
Yahoo!'s human editors, and even then your site isn't guaranteed
to be included.
If you want to get
a good listing on the Yahoo!
directory, you should probably focus your advertising efforts
on Overture,
Yahoo!'s pay-per-click search engine, which can get you listed
on Yahoo! for just pennies a click.
4. Post
a banner, classified ad, or pop-up on industry "hot sites"
Whenever you come
across sites that are popular with your niche market, do whatever
you can to get your site listed on them.
If they sell classified
ads on their site, buy one! You can even submit your ad to
classified ad web sites and databases automatically using
software like
Power Submitter.
You can also pay
these industry "hot sites" to place a banner ad
or pop-up on their site.
Banner ads have
declined somewhat in popularity, but that's mostly due to
people using them poorly in the past. Skyscrapers (vertical
ads placed at the edge of a web page) and discreet banners
that look like they're part of the web page can still be very
effective.
Pop-ups have gotten
a poor reputation, but again, that's due to people using them
in intrusive or offensive ways, such as pop-up "loops"
that take over your computer. We've found that a tasteful
pop-up presenting people with a valuable offer, such as a
free subscription to a newsletter or a coupon, can still generate
a high click-through rate -- especially when it's placed on
a page with relevant content.
Of course, pop-up
blockers are becoming more common, and that can be a problem.
But there are new technogies available that allow you to create
ads that look like pop-ups, even though they're actually built
into the HTML coding of the web page itself. We use Hover
Ad Creator -- and when we switched over to using it, we saw
a 162% boost in our sales -- in less than 24 hours!
You can read more
about Hover Ad Creator at: http://www.marketingtips.com/hoverad/
Final
thoughts
When you're exploring
your advertising options, you may be tempted by "short-cut"
strategies offered by companies that are often more interested
in your money than in helping you get the word out about your
site. These sites typically offer so-called "targeted
traffic" or "targeted e-mail lists" for sale,
and will try to convince you that they're offering quality
traffic. More often than not however, they can provide only
general traffic -- people who have no particular interest
in your product or service.
The best way to
discover which paid advertising techniques work best for your
company is to test, test, and test again. There's going to
be some trial and error involved. You may lose a little money
on the "errors" -- but once you discover the techniques
that lure scores of visitors to your site, you'll find that
all your testing was worth it.
As we always say,
test small so that you can fail small... then, once you've
determined which advertising brings you the best return on
investment, roll out your campaign in full -- and succeed
BIG!
