Profit Driven Websites

The goal of your websites should be to increase your business.

To get the most bang for your buck you need to monitor several key metrics to track the flow of  business opportunities that come your way.

Depending on your business model you could track traffic to your website, the number new subsribers to your newsletter, the number of phone calls, the number of walk-in customers, etc.  All of these represent the same thing … a potential customer … and to keep it simple we will call them all leads.

The more leads you have, the more sales you will make, the business you will do, the more money you will make.

Once you are tracking your leads you can track lead conversion.  Lead conversion is the number of sales divided by the number of leads.

Now you have four things to track and test:

1. number of leads
2. number of sales
3. lead conversion or  sales/lead

By tracking these you will know how much you can spend on lead generation or advertising.  A good time frame to check these metrics is on a monthly basis.

The more leads you can afford to buy the faster you will grow your business.

How are you using your website to get referrals?

One way is to give your loyal customers a coupon or something free for referring new business to you.  This works well for offline and online business, but the beauty of the internet is that you can automate this process.

You can create a special page so that when customers submit their email addresses or phone numbers, they can automatically download a coupon, ebook, audio or video file.   You want to provide something of real value that they can use.  Don’t be cheap, but don’t go overboard either.

If you have an offline business you should be building a “house list” and using direct mail to communicate with people who have expressed an interest in your business.  When you mail them they may not need your services at the moment, so offer something for providing a referral now.

Have you partnered with businesses that already have targeted traffic in your niche?  For example if you have a landscaping business then you should seek to partner with a plant nursery.  You could work out a deal where you will provide plant delivery for them if they will refer people to you for plant installation.

You already know where to find these potential partners, you meet them at industry conferences, call them on the telephone, and just get to know the people in your local community.  Once you have the agreement in place  make it easy for people to refer others to you.  Give them business cards, flyers, free samples, whatever you have, but focus on making it a win win for each of you.