Understanding Conversion

My friend Dianna Huff, at DH Communications, is a MARCOM writer and one who "gets it" when it comes to the Internet.

Today she sent me an article about conversion and it made me think:

Most people don't even know what conversion is or take it into consideration when developing a strategic online marketing plan or designing a website.

Here are some thoughts I'd like to share related to conversion:

1) Conversion is what it's all about. You can have all the traffic in the world, but if it doesn't convert, it's worth nothing. If the source of your traffic doesn't have quality traffic (i.e. brides who need your products and services) the result will be poor, or no, conversion. Start thinking QUALITY and not quantity.

2) AGAIN, conversion is what it's all about. You might have what you think is a "great website", some brides might even tell you they like it, but the brides who found it and didn't like it didn't call you to tell you it's lousy, trust me, they just left looking for your competition.

3) Conversion takes place ONLY after a bride has done these four things:

a) Read your page copy
b) Determined that you have what she needs or is looking for
c) Has connected with your unique value proposition.
d) Is ready to move to the next step

Conversion is usually a phone call, an inquiry form filled out, or some other form of desired action (i.e. she had downloaded your "take-away").

4) If you're not tracking and measuring conversion, you really don't have any idea how well your website is really working - or if the investments you make in your website and online marketing are really paying off.

Calculating Calculation

1000 visitor sessions
50 inquiries or phone calls
Conversion is 5%

Conversion doesn't "just happen" and if your competition understands how important it is, and you don't, you'll lose sale after sale to them.

You can buy a special report I wrote, with tips and advice to help you improve your website conversion, Conversion: Turning The Brides and Grooms Who Visit Your Website Into Inquiries and Sales, here.

Buy it online, mention you heard about it at my Blog, and I'll include a one-hour follow-up phone consultation, a $150 value, to answer your questions and evaluate your current conversion ratio.