Lots of Traffic Doesn't Necessarily Mean Lots Monetization

[bhartzer]

Just because you have a lot of visitors on your web site doesn’t necessarily mean that your web site is going to make you a lot of money. And you don’t have to have a lot of visitors in order to make a lot of money from your web site—you’ve got to have the right visitors looking for what your web site has to offer.

I realize that there’s a lot of different types of web sites out there—and it seems as if just about everyone has a different goal in mind. Bloggers blog to put their thoughts down online and share their thoughts with others, and other bloggers are passionate about their chosen topic (and thus they typically use Google AdSense to monetize their blog). Online businesses sell products using online shopping carts: their goal is to get someone to buy a product. Still, other web sites’ goals are to simply brand their products (many corporations’ products are too expensive to sell directly online). In any case, if you own a commercial web site you have a purpose for putting up that web site—and you want to somehow make money from that web site. If you don’t have quality visitors who are ready to purchase something or who are in part of the buying process, then you won’t be able to monetize your site; and you won’t make any money.

Many of us believe that if we rank well for a “generic term” related to our web site we will get thousands of visitors to our site and thousands of people will buy our products or click on ads and make us money. But, let me give you a warning—I recently had an influx of hundreds of thousands of visitors one day that proceeded to quickly and efficiently overwhelm my web site’s server, bringing it down. And, unfortunately, although there were a lot of visitors to the site, there was no way to monetize that traffic. Lots of visitors to your web site doesn’t always mean lots of money if you cannot monetize it.

Recently, I came across a new exciting search phrase related to my web site that was suddenly mentioned in the news. Being the entrepreneurial webmaster that I am, I decided to “cover the story” and put up a page about the topic. Of course, I performed the tasks necessary to make sure that that new web page would rank well in the search engines. I optimized the title and meta tags, I wrote several good paragraphs of unique content about the subject, I linked out to a few other resources that also talked about the subject, and I immediately started a linking campaign to get some good, quality links to this new web page on my site (I wanted to be the first with the “market share of links”). Low and behold, a day or two later I was ranking very well for the targeted search phrase. I proceeded to get lots of visitors (or at least so I thought) to the new web page. A few days went by and I noticed something strange happening; although I was getting a lot of visitors (tens of thousands each day), an extremely small number of these people actually clicked on ads (banner ads and/or contextual advertising on the page). I figured it was most likely the subject matter and the search phrase, and sort of forgot about the traffic and the web page; after all, I was getting a few natural links from other web sites who talked about this new subject, so I chalked it up to the “cost of doing business” on the web and enjoyed the additional new link popularity of my site.

Suddenly, about a week or two later, Yahoo! decided to pick up this topic and “mention it” in their Yahoo! Buzz Index (http://buzz.yahoo.com). Furthermore, they just “happened” to link directly from the Yahoo! home page (http://www.yahoo.com) to the search results for that keyword phrase—the exact phrase that I had targeted earlier and was enjoying top search engine rankings for. Whoa! I woke up one day and noticed that my blog was acting extremely slow when I went to make a post. It turned out that my blog was hosted on the same web server as the site that was essentially “linked to” from the Yahoo! home page (their Yahoo! Buzz Index was linking to the Yahoo! search results page where I enjoyed top search engine rankings). Needless to say, about an hour later and hundreds of thousands of visitors later, the web host had no choice but to shut domain down and deliver a “web site suspended” error message instead. Luckily, I was “on the case” and able to get the domain moved to another web server that could handle the influx of hundreds of thousands of visitors. At the end of the day, after hundreds of thousands of visitors, a web site taken offline for several hours, and a well-crafted web page with great content about the subject combined with relevant advertisements, I did not have a lot of additional money lining my pockets.

I definitely recommend being an “entrepreneurial webmaster”. If you hear, see, or read about news or something that’s new in your industry, feel free to add content to your web site about that subject. And make sure you that you get a few links from other web sites related to your topic to link to your new content; this will make sure that you’re the first one to get the “market share of links”. By being first with the “market share of links” to your new content, the search engines will consider your web page the authority on that subject—which will help your search engine rankings in the future.

My example of having hundreds of thousands of visitors to one web page and not “becoming rich” because of it proves that just because you have a lot of visitors doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to monetize that traffic. It only takes one visitor looking for exactly what you are selling to make one sale. Furthermore, there might be a sudden “buzz” about a product, person, event, or subject that everyone turns to the web to find more information about. And unless that “buzz” is about your product or your service (or a product or service you offer), there’s a slim chance that the “buzz” is going to make you rich.

I’ve been following many different subjects and topics for the past several years that are popular all of a sudden and it’s not the first time one of my web sites has seen a huge influx of visitors based on this type of “buzz” or “popular” traffic. There’s a strange phenomenon among certain many topics that suddenly “are hot” or “are mentioned in the news” that I’ve noticed. A lot of people will search the internet for something they hear about a new product, service, subject, or event, but they don’t immediately make a purchase (in fact, it’s very rare if they make a purchase). People who make purchases tend to “shop around” and not make a lot of spur-of-the-moment decisions when it comes to purchasing online. In fact, I am beginning to see a trend when it comes to web site traffic that comes from “buzz” or “popular hot topics” in the news: they’re readers and not purchasers. These visitors are not in the buying process.

So what can you do if you’re a web site owner? Like I mentioned earlier, if there’s a topic that everyone’s talking about and it’s related to your industry or web site, be the first one with a web page about that topic—and make sure you are the first to have the “market share of links” for that search phrase. But, don’t expect a huge windfall of monetization here; the windfall will come in the form of additional links and additional link popularity of your web site that you can then spread around to help promote the products and services that really make you money.

[lolmom]

WOW! That was an awesome post you wrote. I am very new at the whole internet marketing thing and have lots of plans on how to make money, but what you say is so true. I only hope that once I get my site up and running, I will be able to not only get traffic, but purchasers. We'll see.

[JKomp]

too right, my site (www.yourspacezone.com) gets around 700 uniques per day and makes around $1/day. While my content development site gets only around 30 uniques per day but makes much much more. It really depends on the quality of the traffic and the conversion rate of the site.

[smeagher]

It entirely depends on the content of your site and the ads it pulls in. I don't have a huge lot of visitors everyday but do well with adsense becasue the ads are high value dating ads.

[bhartzer]

do well with adsense becasue the ads are high value dating ads.

...and you have people who are interested in dating. It's not the high value dating ads, it's the quality of the traffic. Trust me, if your traffic was married people over 50 they wouldn't click on the dating ads, no matter how high quality that ads are.

[chowell]

The three most important aspects to consider with a campaign like the one you are trying are:

Quality traffic – The visitors that are searching the web for your particular term, are they searching because they need information about the product/service/news item etc? Or are they just window shopping because of the buzz factor?

Quality information - The great majority of users landing on your page are looking for specific information, if it is not delivered to them in a reasonable manner they will leave in a hurry.

Quality marketing – Just because the page delivers information that is relevant to their search, doesn’t always mean that the ads do as well. There have been numerous cases that have been well documented of pay per click ads that have nothing to do with the contextual copy on the page.

The pages you described are landing pages and should be treated as if they are the only page this user may ever see of your site. This is your one opportunity to pitch them on whatever it is that you want to sell them, be it a product/service or even an ad. Make sure the three points above align and you will see the success of your pages increase.

[weblaunch]

I found that the source of traffic also plays an important role in ad click rates. People who find your site through Google ads are more likely to click on your Adsense ads.

[kjohnson5576]

Funnny how traffic can just spurt from a single source rapidly. A few years back, I was approached by the manufacturer of the "the phone thong," a leather cellular phone holder that was thong shaped. I bought into this item and was the first on the web to have it in a web shop. Being first with the item made me first in the SERPS, on Google anyway.

One morning about 7 months after I began selling these items, WHAM...I got about 30 orders in one hour for phone thongs. I had no idea what was going on, but I'll take what I can get. I got a call from my father during that same hour and he told me he was watching CNN's technology segment and the anchor mentioned the "Phone Thong" as an inovative item for cell phones. Folks who were interested Googled it and my site was there, ready to sell them.

When we talk links, I wonder if these alternative media links to the internet, i.e. Television, Cable, Newspapers or magazines have ever been explored as far as conversions go? I know I'm a believer now in power of being mentioned on television. I just wish I could figure out how to be mentioned again. What is better, the a TV link or Adwords? Magazine ad or Adwords? (in my opinion, anything is better than Overture search). I wish I had the ad budget to figure it out, however, I'll bet someone has already done the work, I just don't know where it's at. Any ideas?

[incrediblehelp]

Bottom line is your happened to achieve ranking on term X that became very popular from recent events. You did your best to capitalize on this recent influx in traffic using banner ads, content ads, etc. No real money was made. Lots of eyeballs, not much cash. Traffic was still heavy and you basically were not willing to continue to pay for this hosting bandwidth since you were not making money on it.

I guess the magic question was what was keyword X? Of course you probably don't want to post it or maybe I missed it above, but I bet it could shed some great light onto why you could convert those visitors into $$ for yourself.

[wbmcl]

I've had a similar situation. My table tennis related site received a fair number of visitors based on keywords that included "Biba" (an attractive female player.) Concurrently, Biba had a number of articles in newspapers and national periodicals. I caved in to my constituents requests and created a Biba gallery. Lo and behold, I would received a surge in traffic once the gallery page was indexed and discovered. Other sites, in particular forums (computer and automobile-related) would post a link to the page which would cause traffic spikes. Even www.si.com (Sports Illustrated) had a link to the page. As with all of my pages, I have AdSense embedded but additionally I have CasaleMedia banner on that particular page. The monetization increased approximately 200-300% during those surges (from a typical $1 to as much as $3 per day - whoopee!)

My site is hardly an ecommerce site, but I gave the people what they wanted, and received traffic spikes and a few more pennies to boot.

Bill M.

[MtraX]

I've found that forums can create very nice traffic but it doesn't convert well since it's way too sticky!

[thecashcow]

What a fantastic insight, thanks so much for sharing your views with us.

[TheGarty]

Excellent Topic, thanks for a great insight... would love to know what the "phrase" was.

Cheers

[mantawebsolutions]

Internet Marketing works on the same principles that applies to any type of marketing. The same principles apply for all types...

Principle 1: Be the first one to provide a product or service (in whatever market)
Principle 2: If you're not the first to provide such a solution, create a new solution that is a first on the market within that market.

You can create a market for yourself this way, but it still does not mean that your product will bring the desired visitor to your site. Turning regular visitors into "shoppers" is something you don't have any control over.

Wish there was a standard principle to solve that problem !!

[weslinda]

Very well said. And I think that sometimes a lot of us are chasing the pack leader, versus working on things that set us ahead and apart from the pack.

Hey, we can all offer SEO or SEM services, but why should someone use me, versus you. That's the question and I think this is a great post to encourage that discussion.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by mantawebsolutions

Turning regular visitors into "shoppers" is something you don't have any control over.

Sure you do. It is called closed loop marketing and you better get good at it if want to stay in the SEO/SEM space.

[bhartzer]

Principle 1: Be the first one to provide a product or service (in whatever market)

If you take away anything from this thread, that's probably the most important point here.

Be the first with the marketshare of links for your keyword phrase and you'll be considered the authority.

[mantawebsolutions]

incrediblehelp wrote:

Sure you do. It is called closed loop marketing and you better get good at it if want to stay in the SEO/SEM space.

I guess I am not too old to learn anything.

Closed loop marketing explained:

Few factors can influence your business success as much as the quality of your customer experience. For businesses with an online presence, improving your site's user experience can quickly lead to:

* Higher conversion rates, which leads to
* More sales without a corresponding increase in variable costs, which results in
* Increased profitability for your business

Many companies pay little attention to the online user experience, focusing a majority of their online efforts on building partnerships or driving traffic to their sites - sites that are often difficult to navigate and use.

Unsurprisingly, lack of attention to the user experience results in unsatisfied customers, low conversion rates, and ultimately a web site that significantly underperforms relative to its potential.

Source: closed-loop-marketing.com

I've got some homework to do....Thanks to incrediblehelp :)

[bhartzer]

Few factors can influence your business success as much as the quality of your customer experience

That's true, but you have to make sure you present the material they're looking for when they perform a search. If someone searches for red widgets and you tell them that you only sell blue widgets that I don't care how good the user experience is--you're not going to sell them blue widgets if they're looking for red widgets.

There are many factors involved, and the whole entire process has to come together properly before you make a sale:

- the user has to search a phrase that would potentially involve a sale (some search terms bring traffic but those search terms are not related to anything that someone might potentially buy)

- the user has to be in a purchasing mode (some are just cage kickers or lookers or browsers or they're your competition)

- the user has to be able to buy (kids generally don't have credit cards)

- the user has to get to your website and your website should provide them with a good user experience and offer them some action to take

It's at this time we need to look at closed loop marketing, which is typically after you've gotten them to your site.

[isharli]

Any advice for those of us trying to break into a highly competitive market? When is there no room for an additional player?

[Meridian]

Some thoughts below on monetizing traffic may be relevant to those in the B2B sector.

For most B2B sites, less than 2% of traffic will ever convert. Product cost - configuration - delivery - service attributes - and a wealth of those who must touch the decision-making process prohibit a credit-card buy.

Instead, marketers must tune their B2B sites to effective lead capture mechanisms. Many techniques and tactics are now available to drive the rates of conversion - in B2B most often described as when the Visitor surrenders information about themselves for a future contact. Only then can an effective Sales Representative consult with the prospect on expensive and complex buying decisions... and nurture them towards Sale - and ideally, to an ongoing revenue-relationship.

Yet, best of breed B2B sites see conversion rates of less than 10%.

With conversion rate the ceiling, ROI's become stretched thin as the cost of "driving" those clicks (read paid-search) spirals upwards.

We recommend to our B2B clients new web marketing tools - such as VisitorTrack - to help drive improved ROIs from their online marketing efforts. These tools are akin to Caller ID for a website and capture detail on business Visitors without their having to provide any registration data. In this way a sales team can interact with substantially more Prospect Opportunities than typical registration methods provide.

For the B2B sector, the math to traffic monetization goes something like this.

Monetization =
Clicks (CTR% * Impressions Delivered) *
Conversion Rate (= Sales Leads) *
Close Rate *
Lifetime Value of Customer -
Cost of Sale

( We offer a free calculator from our home page to use your own figures to determine ROI )

We all know the importance of a "funnel" in B2B marketing. Focus on clicks as the mechanism is shortsighted - especially as they become more expensive and competitive. We believe generating internet leads, with effective and immediate sales outreach must also accompany the neccesity of driving invisible traffic to get to optimal monetization.

C. Jeffers
General Partner
netFactor Corporation

www.netFactor.com
www.Website-Leads.com

[bhartzer]

Any advice for those of us trying to break into a highly competitive market? When is there no room for an additional player?

Focus on a particle niche "section" of the market that doesn't have a lot of competition. Then, as you build up your business you'll have a chance to rank well for the more generic phrases related to your business.

So, for example, let's say you want to rank well for widgets. Focus on selling big blue widgets; then, as you get more well-known in the industry, you'll get more links and more traffic. Then you'll be able to focus on blue widgets and then widgets.

You might find, though, that you can build your business around the niche "section" of your market and not have to try to compete with the "big boys" in your industry.

[bhartzer]

best of breed B2B sites see conversion rates of less than 10%

Not necessarily. I've routinely worked on B2B sites where the "conversion rates" for downloading PDFs and capturing sales leads are typically 15% to 50%. (Where someone searches for 'red widgets', visits a site, fills out a form, and downloads a PDF and becomes a sales lead). If done right, B2B sites can easily bring in conversion rates must better than 10 percent.

We recommend to our B2B clients new web marketing tools - such as VisitorTrack

Why is it that people feel that they must promote and recommend their own products on message boards?