Money Comes From Traffic? Wrong! It Comes From Targeted Traffic!

You may think that the equation for making money online is quite simple, the more people you have coming to your website the more money you are going to make but that isn’t always the case. You have to consider into that equation that people don’t only have to come to your site they also have to interact with it in the right way to give you the money. They have to click on your adverts, buy your products or act on your ‘calls to action’. If they simply come to your site and the read your content and leave it’s great but it isn’t making you any money.

Real life example

One major example from my own experience is when I used stumbleupon advertising. I chose a couple of articles from my blog that I thought would be of interest to most people interested in making money online. I did indeed have a massive traffic spike and got well over 5 times my usual traffic but the bounce rate as well was 30% higher and I wasn’t getting any more money than usual. This is because people on stumbleupon generally aren’t that interested in the deeper content of a blog or the upsells but they want something which is initially visually appealing.

Type of traffic that you do want: Organic Traffic

I would argue that the best traffic that you want on a steady basis is google search engine traffic. People who come to your site for the first time through google have already done their own search and the search has come up with what they are looking for (hopefully your site). That is one advantage in your favour. The next advantage is that you have the chance to write a little snippet of information that shows up in the search and the title, this means that the searcher has already read this and decided that they want to see your site. Both of these factors create a level of trust with the searcher/reader that is totally unavailable through sites like stumble upon.

Once the readers have entered your site they are already comfortable with clicking through links to get to the information they want so there is less to stop them from clicking on your adverts, particularly adsense text ads because they come in a similar format to the search results.

Guest Post Traffic

People who come to your site through guest post links are usually there because they liked what you had to say on the guest site and they want to read more. Now this won’t help you get more advert clicks really but it does give you another layer of credibility. The user has come from a well renowned site that they probably trust already and they have read a sample of your work and are looking to get into more of what you have to say. Because of these levels of trust that have been built up they will be more likely to listen to your product recommendations and pay attention to what you have to say.

What I am trying to say really is people will not spend money on your site if they don’t have any reason to trust you or they don’t have and reason to be on your site ready to spend money. You need to develop your relationship with your readers from the moment they see a link to your website all the way to where they take an action on your site. Pay attention to the user experience and it will pay off in the end.

John Burnside

About the Author: John Burnside blogs about making money online as well as internet marketing and general blogging tips to help you along your journey. If you want to hear more of what he has to say then please visit his blog atMoneyin15minutes.co.uk.