Companies tend to focus solely on increasing website traffic, but more important is what visitors actually do once they are on your website. Profits are determined by sales and so an effective website is one that will persuade users to take the action you desire practically every time and make the sale.

Conversion optimization refers to structuring a website to be as user-friendly as possible so that more visitors are converted into customers. You might have taken steps to increase traffic to your website but perhaps you are not seeing a proportionate increase in your sales.

In order to convert as many users as possible into customers, you must take several aspects of your website into account:

These are just a few examples of the ways in which any website can be enhanced to optimize conversions.

In order to increase your conversions, you must first ask yourself what the ultimate goal of your website is: an online purchase, download of information, signing up for a newsletter, etc. This goal can vary widely depending on the nature of your business.

Once you have identified your website’s goal, you can more easily determine what changes should be made in order to make the user’s experience a great one, so that they cannot help but become your customer. Focus on making the process from home page to your conversion easy, friendly and quick.

Increased traffic is a step in the right direction, but more conversions will ultimately help your business reap more profits. Focus on your conversion goal and remember to see your website from the user’s perspective.

Hacker Safe is a service that scans your website daily to insure that your server and site will provide maximum security for your visitors and potential clients. While this is a good practice on it’s own, having the Hacker Safe logo on your website, reporting the daily scan, and providing a link to confirmation that your site is safe can provide dramatic results in conversions.

Hacker Safe certification increased web site conversion by nearly 10% for PETCO Animal Supplies during a recent A/B split test. The 780-store pet specialty retailer recently ran a test to analyze how the shopping behavior of petco.com visitors was affected by independent certification of its web site security. Out of a total of approximately 9,500 online orders recorded during the test, visitors who saw ScanAlert’s Hacker Safe certification mark while shopping made nearly 400 more purchases compared to the control group that did not see it.

ScanAlert reports that the average conversion increase for merchants is around 14%. We implemented Hacker Safe on our ecommerce site back in December 2007, and saw an absolutely staggering 125% increase in sales! Do the math, and you’ll see that the seal paid for itself in just the first few days.. If you’re skeptical, you can set up your own A/B split test, and analyze your results. If you’re not happy with the product for any reason, you can cancel within the first month or so for a full refund!

And for the SEO obsessed, how about 3 free listings in the PR8 Hacker Safe Merchant Directory? That alone is worth the price of admission!

They’re also offering 20% off monthly and annual subscriptions to this service through our site! Hacker Safe definitely falls into our list of recommended resources. You can find more information and get 20% off by visiting the Hacker Safe site.

As I mentioned last week, sellers decided to boycott eBay in response to the new fee structure, as well as the changes to the feedback system. Unfortunately, eBay is claiming that the boycott had no affect, even though an independant third-party saw a drop to 13.5 million listings at one point last week. Ultimately, they have no plans to roll back fees or feedback changes, and sellers are at a crossroad now.

Many sellers, both big and small, have vowed to leave eBay and never return. The problem, where do you go? eBay is a giant monopoly, and while others have tried to compete in the auction game, none have been able to make any headway. Some sellers have expressed plans to open their own ecommerce stores, in which to sell their goods. While that sounds good on the surface, it’s not as easy as they might think. The beauty of eBay is that you’ve got tens of millions of people visiting the site each day, and your listings are going to get more than a few views on any given day.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out.. I’d think this would be the perfect time to introduce a new auction website to the public. With the right amount of publicity behind it, things could really take off for them!

If you’re serious about taking your business to the next level, then you should consider attending the Elite Retreat in San Francisco this April. This is a serious seminar, with a serious price tag: $4,950!

But where else can you get some one-on-one time with the who’s who of the Internet marketing world? The Elite Retreat brings together Jeremy Schoemaker, Neil Patel, Aaron Wall, Andy Liu and Brian Clark together for two days of intense training that will take your Internet business to the next level. There will also be a special keynote by Guy Kawasaki.

I’m sure everyone would love to the go to Elite Retreat but very few people can afford that kind of entry fee. Not only that, but they’re capping attendance at 35 - And it’s already half sold out!

Lucky for you, John Chow and Rocket Profit have teamed up to offer one lucky winner a free ticket to the Elite Retreat! All you have to do is choose an offer from Rocket Profit, and explain in a blog post how you would market it. (PPC, SEO, E-mail, Social Media, etc) After making the post, you send an e-mail to John Chow with the URL or your post, so he can check it out. On February 8th, him and Shoemoney will sort through the entries and pick a winner. That person will receive a $4,950 ticket to the Elite Retreat, compliments of Rocket Profit. Good luck!

Edit: John is offering up another ticket to Elite Retreat!

Over the years, I’ve gone through a number of different web hosting companies. It’s a tough business, built on razor-thin margins, and often service and performance suffer as a result. Some hosts try to cram too many users on a single server, which results in pages coming up very SLOOOOWLY.. Worse yet, many places skimp on their support staff. Of course, you’ll never notice this when things are working correctly, but when your site goes down and you try to contact support, you’ll soon discover what a hellish experience it really is!

Thankfully, there are still some good guys out there giving us great service at reasonable prices. How does this sound?

10 Gigabyte Hosting Space
Host 6 Domains on 1 Account!!!
2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
250 GIGS of Transfer
SSL, FTP, Stats
CGI, PHP, MySQL
2000/2002/2003 Front Page Extensions
Free Domain Forever!
Free Site Builder (NEW)
Superb/Responsive Support Engineers
$6.95 Per Month

And BlueHost specializes in customer satisfaction.. Sure, I wouldn’t mind more domains hosted on one account, but most people don’t have such needs.. For $6.95/mo, nothing can touch it.. If you’re serious about your website, then sign up with BlueHost and put those worries to bed!

It’s a simple concept - Don’t rely on a single source of income, because if that revenue stream dries up, you’ll be screwed. And that’s exactly what happened with Henry and Wilson, twin brothers from Baltimore who got banned from Google AdSense earlier this year and lost roughly $200K as a result! AdSense was the only way they were monetizig their websites, so this was a devastating blow.

If Google suspects that you’re involved in click-fraud, they’ll ban you first, and ask questions later (if ever). It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again. It’s great that they’re so proactive when it comes to click-fraud, but many innocent bystanders have unjustly fallen victim to Google’s ban-stick.

Never let yourself rely on a single source of income or traffic. Making money online is all about maximizing income and traffic from multiple sources. Yahoo banned one of my sites about 6 months ago for no apparent reason, and my pleas to them fell on deaf ears. Has it affected my traffic? Sure, but I’ve worked around it, bringing in other streams of traffic to compensate for it.

Below are some AdSense alternatives that you should consider implementing on your site:

Some Good Affiliate Programs:

You’ve got nothing to lose, so try them out - The results might just surprise you!