Hello,

I keep hearing this where ever I go, your online business will be successful if you have a high conversion rate. What is a good conversion rate, 1 sale in every 100 is supposed to be the norm. I would be happy with a conversion rate like that. I would say the conversion rate would be proportional to the average length of time a customer stays on your site. Does anyone have any other opinions on this..

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www.afocus.biz

I wouldn't necessarily count it in those terms. I'd rather look at the ROI. For example, I'd take a site with a 1/10,000 conversion rate that made $1,000,000 net per sale over the 1/10 conversion rate that made $0.01 net per sale. The conversion rate is useful mostly when you have a relevant measure, for example if you know your closest competitor's conversion rate.

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Peter T Davis
Frixer, Inc.
Helping people make profitible businesses on the web.

I agree with both Peter & MVD. In that you want a good ROI and if you get that the conversion isnt really as much of a big thing. But...

I havea site which over the last four months has attracted 2200 visitors. I have converted 4 sales from that site, which works out to i think 0.001% conversion rate which sucks, but the ROI has been closer to $3 for ever $1 invested, I am not making a fortune from the site far from it turn over less then $1000 but if it was converting more sales i could be happy making triple what it is costing me.

The conversion rate and ROI depends on literally hundreds of factors, You could convert hundreds of people a day and make nothing because you havent calculated the costs of processing hundreds of orders, along with the costs of hosting and your time working on it, but you could make good money just converting 2 or 3 people with a high price product. At the end of the day how many people you convert doesnt realyl matter as long as you are making a suitable ROI and youa re happy then be it 0.1% or 10% converted it isnt much difference

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Joel Brown - Orion Networks
Techie-Central - Forums | SEOPTIMISA
Books | PHP

Hmm I think that there's a number of other components that shouldn't be overlooked.

Here's a nutshell of some of what I cover on this topic in my 'What Smart Marketers Know' ebook:

There are pre-sales, fulfillment and post-sales costs associated with every sale made.

In the real world, both pre- and post-sales costs will differ depending on the what exactly you are doing to generate leads. Depending on what you are selling, fulfillment costs can also vary.

Highly targeted prospects that visit your site are likely to generate a higher conversion rate. But these prospects might cost you much more to get to your site than general leads. So many factors can also affect the fulfillment and post-sales costs as well.

So looking at ROI is what you want to do on top of considering conversion rates, but you should also be trying to determine your ROI from different marketing methods.

It's almost 4:30 am here and I'm still UP, otherwise I'd write more extensively. Feel free to ask any q's. This is the stuff I live and breathe

Sharon Tucci
Work Smarter, Not Harder!
The 20 Rules of Online Business Success
http://www.WhatSmartMarketersKnow.com