When you first design a website, you’re eager to get started. You want to have the best, fastest, most efficient website that earns as much money as soon as possible. Unfortunately, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, this isn’t possible. Since your budget and resources are limited, you’re faced with some hard choices.
Understanding the Importance of Website Traffic and Your Conversion Rate
Traffic is the number of people who visit your website. There are a few ways in which to get website traffic (e.g., social media, organic search, other websites), but ultimately you want as much traffic as possible so that as many people as possible see that you design a website.
On the other hand, your conversion rate refers to the action people take (e.g., watching a short explainer video or completing a form) while on your website. These actions will hopefully result in revenue eventually.
Both of these are important. When you don’t have traffic, your conversion rate is meaningless. When you don’t have conversions, your traffic is meaningless.
Why You Should Start by Optimizing Your Website Traffic
The first thing you want to do after you design a website is work on getting more website traffic, as your conversion rate will follow. Even if you have a low conversion rate initially, it’ll rise as you bring in more traffic which is why it won’t matter if it’s stagnant temporarily.
Making a Case for Reputation Management
Your conversion rate and revenue generation are vital. However, if you care about the future of your business, your reputation should be an even bigger priority. Website traffic isn’t just about having people buy your brand. It’s also about making them more familiar with it while also improving your brand’s reputation with those who aren’t your customers yet. This is why it can be valuable to build your traffic before you worry about your conversion rate.
It Takes Time to Grow Traffic
Traffic grows slowly and requires a lot of effort and money to get it. Even when you invest in it for weeks at a time, you may still need to wait to see results. This is why most people want to start building traffic as soon as possible. This ensures that they aren’t affected by delays and can start reaping its results sooner.
Why It’s Easier to Improve Conversions when You Have More Traffic
Once you design a website and start having traffic flowing through it, you’ll have more data available to measure and analyze. This allows you to gain a better understanding of people’s behavioral patterns when they arrive at your website. With this understanding, it’s easier to optimize for conversions.
Why People Optimize Their Conversion Rate First
You’ll hear that traffic is meaningless when you don’t have any conversions. They believe that if you can’t get any conversions, you need to fix this issue before doing anything else. However, when compared to the cost and time value it takes to get more website traffic, conversions are cheap and easy to get. This is because you can quickly conduct experiments, click to make a change, and see how this works out within a few days. This makes fixing the conversion rate when you first design a website an “obvious” first choice for many people.
You Won’t Lose Out on as Many Opportunities
When you start off concentrating on getting more website traffic, you’ll grow confident that your idea is working. With each new visitor, you find someone interested enough in your brand to possibly make a purchase. However, if you’re somewhat pessimistic because you haven’t optimized your conversions yet, you may see this traffic as a stream of lost opportunities. This is because you’re getting lots of visitors who aren’t converting and who may even move on to visit your competitor’s website and never return to yours. You won’t have this issue if you work on conversion optimization soon after you design a website, so you’ll have fewer lost opportunities.
It’s Decision Time!
When you design a website and don’t feel led in one direction or another, it’s best to balance your time and resources to work on both simultaneously. Doing so can be difficult, which is why you may need some help. In that case, turn to us at the Local SEO Tampa Company in Tampa, FL, and you’ll start seeing steady, reliable revenue improvements over time.
