Keith Goodrum

Chicken or the egg, which came first? This is discussion you hear about often - traffic vs. conversion. There are two camps on this discussion. The side that say that you should get as much traffic as possible and live with the low conversions. Then the side that says you should get your conversions up before you start getting traffic. Which one is right? I believe that both are correct… to a point.

The argument that you can get traffic and let the conversions go up over time has a very valid point. After all you need sales to make money. And you can suffer with low conversions as long as you can get the traffic to maintain the sales goals you need, or have set. After all not everyone is a copy writing wizard. Massive amount of traffic can more than make up for any lack of copy writing skills. Good point… to a degree.

What if you are in a low traffic niche? Let’s say you are selling products to left-handed golfers from Topeka, KS. How big is your market? It probably is not enough to waste poor conversions. The main concern with this is maximizing each unique visitor. Every person you loose is one less opportunity to make a sale.

On the other side of the coin is make sure you have your conversions optimized before your start driving traffic. That also makes perfect sense. Why would you want to drive traffic if you are going to waste all those visitors? You shouldn’t let any opportunity slip through your fingers.

Which do you think I would side with? You probably think that I going to fall on the side of get your conversions before traffic. After all I’m a copywriter, and my focus should be on converting traffic. Your guess would be wrong.

Traffic and conversions go hand in hand. Or like Forest Gump said; “Two peas in a pod!” Focusing on one over the other will cause you problems somewhere down the road. Both are key to online success… You can’t have one without the other. James Brausch has said it all about traffic + copywriting.(Plus product, but that’s for another article) Ken McCarthy coined the phrase traffic plus conversions equals profits. Both must get equal attention, and your online marketing efforts will be much easier.

Which one have you been focusing on at the exclusion of the other? I’d bet most of us have at one point or another been guilty of this. Now, that you know this… what are you going to do about it? Continue to make excuses and ignore traffic over conversions, or conversions over traffic? Hey it’s your call…