Following the traffic to the bank!

Following the traffic to the bank!
Scott Dennison
03-27-07

Already this month, if you have been following our series, you have learned that increasing the size (and quality) of the "footprint" of your website begins a serious flow of new, highly targeted and quality traffic to your doorstep.

This is a big advancement for many, because while the process of building a website has gotten easier for many, building traffic - at least quality traffic is still an elusive process.

What is often the larger challenge is converting your traffic to sales. That is what I want to focus on today in this post, again in my podcast tomorrow and also in our newsletter on Thursday. If for some reason you are not taking advantage of those resources - STOP - and click over here to register for our weekly High Tech & High Touch ezine and catch up on previous podcasts. Also take a look at our KeyThing TV segment, which is updated each week as well.

When it comes to converting traffic to sales, an old - sometimes overlooked - axiom applies. It is that "a confused mind says NO". You see, most of the traffic to your site is going to originate at the search engines. When you think about how YOU interact with a search engine like Google, you simply type in what you are interested in finding, right?

If your site is then returned as an option, that searcher may choose to visit you, and when they do, they are looking for something specific. You have about two seconds to capture their attention, or help them find what they were looking for.

Regardless of how much value the rest of your site offers that visitor, more often than not they will only be interested in the one thing they were searching for originally. The good news is that proper use of upsale opportunities can address that. I will discuss that more in a bit.

As I said earlier you don't want your site visitors to be confused, and you can avoid that by making their search easy. One way to do that is to use video to guide them in their search. Adding video to your site is a solid way of engaging that visitor and capturing their attention.

One of our clients sites is using video to "direct" traffic through their site. In a 40 second span, they guide visitors through the available options and describe the services offered. Also, they have defined a most-wanted-response (MWR) on the landing page, which is to ask visitors to sign-up for their service. It is no mistake that much of the video talks about that as the "best option".

Some other things to remember in trying to monetize or convert your traffic to sales includes:
1) Always make an offer to buy: Make it as direct a request as possible, make it appealing and make sure the prospective customer understands your guarantee too!

2) Give a reason to take action today: Whether that is through a series of bonus items, a discount, or perhaps free shipping, compel them to do it today.

3) Give clear instructions: With a reasonably well thought out video, you can remind them of everything your offer includes; state and even restate your guarantee, and perhaps even point out the security of your website. Once you have made those points, tell them to buy. Point to the button on your page and say "Just do it."

All of these things go a long way to reassure the visitor, now prospective customer that they have found a merchant online they can do business with.

When it comes to increasing the size of your sale, a quality shopping cart system like the one offered by 1 Shopping Cart makes the process of making the "upsale" easy. You can also send a confirmation email to a buyer with an offer to buy something else related to what they just purchased and increase your sales as well.

Always remember, in your quest to sell more of your site visitors that people do business with people - not companies.

More importantly, they do business with people they like and that they trust. When they arrive on your site, they have no reason for any of those things to be in place. It's your job to make them like you, trust you and want to buy from you...so that you can follow your traffic to the bank.

~Scott
KeyThing Marketing Technologies

How Footprinting Works

How FootPrinting Works
Andy Stetzinger
3-19-2007

Before Google, there were a handful of search engines on the Internet. People submitted their sites to the engines, the engines would verify they were there, and list them. Some "high tech" engines even jotted down links from peoples sites, and spidered them as well.

When Google showed up, they pretty much did the same thing. However, they took it the proverbial step further. They wanted to provide better answers than other search engines around. They developed "The Algorhythm". While the algorythm has changed, and will continue to change, there remain some constants among it.

One of the constants in the Algorhythm is how many other relevant sites link to you. Basically, Google is asking, "How many other people out there think this site is worth while?" The more that think you worth of a link, the higher your page rank will be. However, Google is smart enough to know about link trading services, and link farms. These don't do you much good - they will provide a boost, but then a drop later on when Google massages it's database.

Here's another tip: The key thing in Footprinting is the quality of the sites that link to you, and if you link back to them. I'm not referring to the graphics, or layout, or design of the linking site. The important factor is that the linking site has something to do with your site. For example, if you look at our Links page, we list the sites we recommend people do business with. Of course, those sites have all linked back to us in one form or another.

"Footprinting" is the key to relevancy. Relevancy is the key to page rank. Page rank is the key to search results. Search results is the key to traffic. Traffic is they key to sales. Once your footprint starts to grow, there really is no stopping it.

Once you begin the process, you're going to want to track the results of it. While your hosting provider may give you a free WebLog Analysis tool, there are a few other ones I highly recommend. Of course, Google Analytics is one (I'm on the fast track to becoming an Authorized Consultant for them). There is another one that I also use - it provides a different set of information, and the stats are provided real time. I'm currently assisting on the final re-development of the tool, and am negotiating a great price for our subscribers (see, another benefit to our newsletter!). More details on that soon!

In this weeks Newsletter, I will give away the method we use here at KeyThing. Listen to the Podcast for the step-by-step guide to the method, and a secret so hot that the people calling themselves the "experts" in this field don't even know about it. In the second installment of KeyThing TV, I'll show you just how easy it is to implement this for yourself, and watch your footprint soar.

~Andy Stetzinger
KeyThing Marketing Technologies

P.S.
Last week, we mentioned a bribe in our newsletter that I feel is worth repeating. We're giving away an Ipod Nano to the person who refers the most people to our free newsletter. Just have them reply to the email address the newsletter comes from letting us know you sent them. We'll tally the numbers up, and notify the winner!

Traffic Matters

Traffic Matters
4-12-07
Andy Stetzinger


The one thing all webmasters have in common, regardless of personal preferences in browser type, programming environment, or operating system choice is traffic. Every webmaster wants traffic. The more the better. Bring it on, give it to me! That's the only thing one needs to be successful. Traffic. Right? Actually, no.

A few years ago, I found myself working for a small support company with a handful of products. They were doing "OK", but definitely needed some guidance on systems and sales. After trying several times to steer the CEO away from the disasters he was headed for, I finally left the company. His mentality was to put as many things as possible up in front of a customer, and hope that "something" would stick. A fellow co-worker there coined our CEO's vision as akin to "a humming bird on crack". To date, the CEO hasn't changed, and the company continues to struggle.

The same thing will happen to your website if you think all you need is just traffic. Guaranteed.

Without relevancy, the traffic hitting your website will bounce off, much like the ideas the poor CEO was trying so desperately to get people to buy into. It simply won't work.

Recently, Scott and I finished up the "KeyThing 24". At the end of the event, we released a Press Release. The next day, we started getting an increase in traffic. Soon after, I released the latest installment of KeyThing TV, and it got picked up by Digg, Redit, and a few other aggregators. The next day, we got another increase in traffic.

The most interesting thing to me was watching what people did when they got to the website. The social linking sites outproduced the amount of traffic that the press release generated by about a 5:1 ratio. However, the Press Release traffic ended up producing far more new signups for our Newletter, and more subscribers to our podcast.

The reason is simple. The Press Release was targeted to webmasters, programmers, marketers, and people with specific interests. The social linking was directed to... well, everyone.

Relevant traffic far out weights general traffic. Sure, a whole lot of people saw our website, and that's not a bad thing. However, those people may or may not ever be back. On the other hand, those people who subscribed to the podcasts and newsletter... we'll see them from here on out.

The techniques I will be sharing with you always have the end goal of an increase of relevant traffic, and relevant traffic management in mind. Both of these will lead to an increase in your "list", or as Dan Kennedy likes to call it, your "herd".

Tune into the podcast this week for the first "Reveal" of many to come. I recently saw this concept being sold for about $200.00 (US)... the only thing you have to do is listen, and then act on what you hear this week.

Are You Ready For It?

Are You Ready For It?
Andy Stetzinger
3-6-2007
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The online business world has always been about traffic and conversions. Getting people to your website, and then getting them to do what you want them to do once you get there. For most people, this has been quite a challenge. For some, completely unobtainable. For a select few, the right ingredients, and the right strategy proved to be extremely profitable.

Over the coming months, we here at KeyThing Marketing Technologies are going to be taking you through an in depth study on traffic and conversions. We're going to discuss strategies and so-called "Secrets" that some "Gurus" are charging over a thousand dollars to share with you.

So what's the catch? There's got to be one, right? Well, if you consider reading our blog, listening to our podcasts, watching KeyThing TV, and subscribing to our free newsletter a "catch", then there ya go. We're breaking the information into segments and building on each one of them. This means you need to read, listen, and watch in order to get the full benefit of this subject matter.

The first installment begins next week, so you do have some time to get your family, friends, coworkers and associates all tuned into it.

We're greatly looking forward to sharing this information, and are certain it will prove to be invaluable to you and your business.

~Andy
KeyThing Marketing
Andy's Personal Blog