How To Increase Your Business's Revenue Stream Online
Ever thought of expanding your business by adding on-line revenue streams? Or creatng a new business on-line? If so, there are many "gurus" around who'd like you to pay them high fees for the intricacies of their expertise.
Some are very good...However you'd better know exactly what kind of help you're going to need, or these fees will eat into your profits long before you're even close to getting a return on your investment.
Put simply, building an on-line revenue stream requires skills in 2 areas:
1. Bringing the right kind of visitors to your web site 2. Persuading them to take the action you want
Let's examine an example wherein:
- Selling your product for $100.
- Attracting 1000 visitors monthly to your site.
- Expecting 1% of these visitors to purchase your product.
Next, your short-term revenue is derived from the following
formula:
(No. of visitors) x Product Price x (Percent of Buying
Visitors)
Or, 1000 x $100 x .01 = $1000 per month
So, your options for increasing your revenue, based on a given product price, are:
- Increasing traffic flow to your site.
- Increasing the percentage of visitors who purchase (also referred to as conversion ratio).
- Do both of the above.
But traffic and conversion ratio are not independent factors. The type and source of your web site visitors can, and will hugely impact your conversion rate.
So what options do we have when it comes to getting visitors to come to my web site? There are probably only a few key
stratgies:
1. Buy Traffic
There are many ways to buy traffic. Some of these are Pay-per-click (PPC), Banner ads, leads, or off-line advertising. These are generally quick methods of getting visitors to your site. But they can be expensive, and complicated. Unneccessarily so, especially if you're inexperienced, and make some of the mistakes common among PPC buyers.
2. Develop traffic.
That entails optimizing your website so it rises to the highest position in results from a search engine. Although this can be very effective and result in lots of "free"
traffic, constructing traffic requires experience, time and constant effort by management to achieve and hold an enviable place on the first page. Additionally, your hard work can be quickly upset by competition or by a search engine's policy change. If you don't already have this experience, you must climb a steep learning curve or pay an SEO consultant to perform this for you. Kind of blows away the truth behind "free" traffic!
3. Dig up traffic.
By this, I'm referring to digging up existing customer lists of yours and directing them toward your new online offer.
This approach is excellent, especially if you already have an accessible list of customers that are prime for the new plan. However, what if you don't?
4. Bring in traffic through public relations.
Create opportunities to promote your offer on TV and radio or in newspapers and magazines. Also, include your website address on press releases, "advertorials" and articles for people to take the next step to learn more about your topic.
If you're wise and maintain good media contacts, public relations are effective avenues.
5. "OPT" - Other People's Traffic
There are literally thousands of on-line magazines and newsletters with editors hungry for good, relevant content.
They may well have circulation lists with thousands of subscribers. You can probably find several related to your topic. If only they'd publish your article, or even your advert, with a personal endorsement, to their list, you might receive a tidal wave of visitors, which would soon fall back, until you do the same again to another list, or offer another article for publication.
But of course you can't do everything all at once! So what sort of start-up sequence should you consider?
1. For a fast market test, buy traffic from a highly keyword -targetted source. Test the viability of your niche, your offer, and your advertising copy.
(Of course, if your exisitng client base is good for your new offer, test first with current clients.)Provided buying traffic remains profitable, keep this as a key part of your on-going traffic strategy.
2. Satisfied your niche is viable? Established your conversion rate or opt-in rate? Then you're ready to use other people's traffic. Take your offer to your target publishers and negotiate a good deal for both of you for them to carry your article or ad. You should do this regularly over a period of time, using publishers who reach different market segments.
3. Follow the key Search Engine Optimization rules when building your sales website. Include developing in-bound links, relevant content, a clear and focused theme, and so on in your site. By increasing your site's visibility on major Search Engines, your traffic is bound to grow over time.
4. Keep your news newsworthy. That is, as soon as you have news, find ways for TV, newspapers, radio and such to carry it.
As a final point, repeat these online revenue streams as long as profitable.
Some are very good...However you'd better know exactly what kind of help you're going to need, or these fees will eat into your profits long before you're even close to getting a return on your investment.
Put simply, building an on-line revenue stream requires skills in 2 areas:
1. Bringing the right kind of visitors to your web site 2. Persuading them to take the action you want
Let's examine an example wherein:
- Selling your product for $100.
- Attracting 1000 visitors monthly to your site.
- Expecting 1% of these visitors to purchase your product.
Next, your short-term revenue is derived from the following
formula:
(No. of visitors) x Product Price x (Percent of Buying
Visitors)
Or, 1000 x $100 x .01 = $1000 per month
So, your options for increasing your revenue, based on a given product price, are:
- Increasing traffic flow to your site.
- Increasing the percentage of visitors who purchase (also referred to as conversion ratio).
- Do both of the above.
But traffic and conversion ratio are not independent factors. The type and source of your web site visitors can, and will hugely impact your conversion rate.
So what options do we have when it comes to getting visitors to come to my web site? There are probably only a few key
stratgies:
1. Buy Traffic
There are many ways to buy traffic. Some of these are Pay-per-click (PPC), Banner ads, leads, or off-line advertising. These are generally quick methods of getting visitors to your site. But they can be expensive, and complicated. Unneccessarily so, especially if you're inexperienced, and make some of the mistakes common among PPC buyers.
2. Develop traffic.
That entails optimizing your website so it rises to the highest position in results from a search engine. Although this can be very effective and result in lots of "free"
traffic, constructing traffic requires experience, time and constant effort by management to achieve and hold an enviable place on the first page. Additionally, your hard work can be quickly upset by competition or by a search engine's policy change. If you don't already have this experience, you must climb a steep learning curve or pay an SEO consultant to perform this for you. Kind of blows away the truth behind "free" traffic!
3. Dig up traffic.
By this, I'm referring to digging up existing customer lists of yours and directing them toward your new online offer.
This approach is excellent, especially if you already have an accessible list of customers that are prime for the new plan. However, what if you don't?
4. Bring in traffic through public relations.
Create opportunities to promote your offer on TV and radio or in newspapers and magazines. Also, include your website address on press releases, "advertorials" and articles for people to take the next step to learn more about your topic.
If you're wise and maintain good media contacts, public relations are effective avenues.
5. "OPT" - Other People's Traffic
There are literally thousands of on-line magazines and newsletters with editors hungry for good, relevant content.
They may well have circulation lists with thousands of subscribers. You can probably find several related to your topic. If only they'd publish your article, or even your advert, with a personal endorsement, to their list, you might receive a tidal wave of visitors, which would soon fall back, until you do the same again to another list, or offer another article for publication.
But of course you can't do everything all at once! So what sort of start-up sequence should you consider?
1. For a fast market test, buy traffic from a highly keyword -targetted source. Test the viability of your niche, your offer, and your advertising copy.
(Of course, if your exisitng client base is good for your new offer, test first with current clients.)Provided buying traffic remains profitable, keep this as a key part of your on-going traffic strategy.
2. Satisfied your niche is viable? Established your conversion rate or opt-in rate? Then you're ready to use other people's traffic. Take your offer to your target publishers and negotiate a good deal for both of you for them to carry your article or ad. You should do this regularly over a period of time, using publishers who reach different market segments.
3. Follow the key Search Engine Optimization rules when building your sales website. Include developing in-bound links, relevant content, a clear and focused theme, and so on in your site. By increasing your site's visibility on major Search Engines, your traffic is bound to grow over time.
4. Keep your news newsworthy. That is, as soon as you have news, find ways for TV, newspapers, radio and such to carry it.
As a final point, repeat these online revenue streams as long as profitable.
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