I have noticed an interesting trend on one of my B2C sites… one with extremely high organic traffic and search engine penetration.

Your Low Days?

The circled two days are Saturday and Sunday.  This helps me to deduce the following:

• My traffic is highest, of course, during the week.
• That site visitors must either spend more time on the internet during the week OR
• Site visitors have a higher opportunity to surf the net at work.

Now, if I can just crack the nut that helps me monetize that weekday traffic!

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Online dating is a huge market online.  We straddle the fence between Match.com and BlackSingles.com.

For us, BlackSingles has a better reception as far as media conducive to our demographic and better yet, they take the time to keep their banners fresh and up to date.  Our experience shows that Match.com has a seemingly larger database of potential dates…. But what good is that if no one is getting to those landing pages?

Here is an example of the testing that you should clearly do to effectively monetize traffic via all of your affiliate programs.

Goal: To get as many site visitors into a conversion funnel to become a dating customer.

Traffic Sources: Mostly organic traffic on one of our test sites:  www.blackatlanta.com

Our ClickThrough Stats:

Dating Impressions and Click Throughs for Multiple Banners

Please note that Revenue can still be generated on this clickthroughs!   As with most affiliate programs, we are most concerned with:

• setting that all important cookie
• getting them to sign up for an email list for the affiliates to market and convert
• a direct conversion, (which did not happen yet on these clicks)
  

Banners:

Banner 2401

Banner 2408

Banner 2413

Results

So out of 253 banner impressions, the 3 different banners got varying degrees of rotation.

Per the results, Banner 2413 was the winner with 80 impressions and 4 clickthroughs (5% ).  This banner also received ALL clickthroughs!

Some Reflections

Now, some may say that should clearly promote a winner only after a solid test number of impressions given.  Sure, we could have waited for 100 impressions a piece for ALL banners, but sometimes, a HUNCH can help you in making money.  Just ask Warren Buffet.

So clearly, the last piece of this is that we immediately go into our ad server and deactivate the two losers!

Now, these results were click through summaries for that the Affiliate program has provided to us.  You can use your analytics program or vendor programs… JUST GET STARTED!!!!

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Update:  as of 2/10/09, Our study still stands… The Click through rate has decreased…. but with over 300 shows a piece, still has a better click through than the other two.

Click Through Is Still The Winner

DEFINITELY turning all traffic towards Banner 2413.

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I was telling a colleague the other day that one of our sites, brought in about 600K visitors from January – November 2008.  The site is well monetized… or at least coded for offers… but conversions are low.  We talked about Quality vs. Quantity of traffic in our post “What’s More Important:  Quality or Quantity?”

What does work is this:  Google Adsense… Why?

Organic/Relevant Search Engine Traffic

My hypothesis is that the contextual basis of Google’s algorithms deliver the most conducive content based on the organic traffic coming to the site.  (WELL… EVERYONE knows what Google Adsense does in delivery of the contextual ads based on the content –>  So, it’s really not a hypothesis.  More so a confirmation!)

As we see in the graphic, the results of the search engine search are very pertinent to the user’s interest… So we have the best opportunity to make that cash.

So for 2009… As a marketer, I am faced with a good problems to have….  Having lots of traffic, but with a need to segment and address it….. or  finding ways to get more qualified traffic for conversions.

2.1 Million Page views.

If I can convert 1% of these page views from January – November 2008, with a $5 offer… how sweet life will be for 2009!   1% is 21,000 of the page views… OR Perhaps doubling that and making $2.50 per page view … Can you do the math with me?

For 2009, in a recession-ridden economy, it is very important for your site to have the best opportunity to convert.  To do this, you must either:

• Feed your site’s ecommerce engine the best fuel (qualified traffic) OR
• Have ways in place to study, analyze, and segment the traffic that you have, in order to convert.

The all so famous sales funnel

That famous sales funnel is so correct… IN 2009, let’s all focus on increasing the leads, and as our friend Mwangi stated in his comment for increasing “…sales, sales, sales!”

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I was reviewing my stats for one of our sites:  BlackAtlanta.com.  That site received:

• 13 million hits from January to November 2008
• 3.1 Million page views
• 650K visits
• 501K unique visitors

But I have to admit.  Funneling that many visitors into a conversion path on my own products or even affiliate products was not done in the numbers that I wished and hoped for. 

So now, I must either:

• focus on better traffic or
• improve landing page experience for existing traffic or
• learn the site visitor and what they are looking for!

For 2009, I am focusing less on BIG HUGE unqualified numbers for traffic and more on focused traffic where we can funnel those users into a great conversion funnel. 

What are your website traffic goals for 2009?

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Hair and Fashion have a huge market place online.  Do a web search for Hair Braids or Hair Braiding or Braids By Breslin to see how…

A couple of years ago, I advertised on BlackAtlanta.com for a company called “Braids By Breslin”.  The banners did not really have a very high click through rate for the general population of site visitors.  However, I quickly noticed in the stats that the term “Hair Braiding” was quickly becoming very popular as far as natural organic traffic for the site.

This was because of some ancillary content that I had added as a landing page for the terms.

So I contacted Braids By Breslin by email, and coincidentally, they were starting an Affiliate program.  I was their first affiliate.

For months, I enjoyed easy affiliate commissions from natural search engine traffic for “Hair Braiding”, and was even able to tweak search engine optimization for other keywords like “hair weaving” or “Kinky Twists”.   And then the GOOGLE flip out occurred.  Google flopped on me and my stream of revenue went down the drain.

Some Key Learnings

• Search engine optimization is a GREAT way for free traffic opportunities.  It is also VERY direct, in that the end user is definitely looking for your product or service.
• However, when Organic traffic is the ONLY source, if SEO efforts flop, then one should be prepared to supplement traffic in other ways.

A Solid Hair Braiding Product

Another key learning opportunity was basically that, you should promote strong products.  In this case, promoting an affiliate program, with strong products.  Here are some high quality Hair Braiding Examples!

With The Complete Training Package, You Get…

The Braids By Breslin “Four Hairstyles In One ” DVD

The Braids By Breslin “Cornrow Compilation” DVD

The Braids By Breslin “Weave Compilation: Volume 1 DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Weave Compilation: Volume 2 DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Master Wig Maker DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Fusion DVD”

And The Braids By Breslin “Extensions” DVD

So,

1. Look for a niche in your traffic (Check your Stats!)
2. Then look for a product in which you could put in front of that demographic to buy!

Good Luck!

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