Last month this website did not make a lot of money.  No surprise.  I have become comfortable not making money with this website.  My world would be in chaos if this website made money.  What would I do?  How would I act? Who would I be?

Obviously making money does not motivate me to keep this website.  For motivation I need to look elsewhere.  Like the man who is suddenly happy because he finds an unscathed sock amongst the ashes of his burned down house, I too have something to smile about.

The Search Traffic Graph

There are many graphs on this website.  But none of them please me as much as the organic search traffic graph.  If I was a father and graphs were my children then the search traffic graph would be my favorite son.  The one that makes me most proud, the one that is going to grow up just like dad, the one I always take fishing.

When everything looks bleak and I start to feel like Sisyphus, all I need to do is to look at my beloved search traffic graph and everything becomes alright.

Every month organic traffic increases to this website.  Last month was a huge increase.  Almost 500 visitors from Google – twice the amount compared to the previous month.  For the entire year the graph is almost a perfect 45 degree upward slope.  For the last few months organic traffic has been doubling every month.  If this keeps up I will have 8,388,608,000 monthly visitors in 2 years.

It is a well known fact that to increase search engine traffic you need two things: time and backlinks.  As more time goes by the amount of search engine traffic should increase naturally – the older your website the better.  Google checks the date your domain name was registered to determine the age of your website.

(It is also claimed that Google checks the expiration date of your domain name.  If your domain name registration is about to expire, or registered for only a year at a time, Google thinks you are a fly by night operation – maybe even a spammer.  It looks better if your domain name is not close to the registration expiry date and is registered for the next three years.  It is claimed – I am not sure if it is true but it makes sense to me.)

Besides time you also need backlinks.  The last few months were a guest post frenzy.  Continuously spinning the lever on the guest posting machine gun:  Problogger, Dailyblogtips, JohnChow, Blogsessive.  Not because I want to entertain and inform people, I do it for the backlinks.  And it works; the graph keeps stepping up and up – 8,388,608,000 monthly visitors in two years.

The Real Value of Search Engine Traffic

500 visitors a month is not a lot.  There are websites a lot younger then this one that receive more search engine visitors in a single day.  But that does not make me envious because not all search engine traffic has the same value.  Some visitors are worth more then others and mine are worth more.

Google sends me visitors who are searching for “how much money can be made from a website’ and variations on this theme.  These are valuable keywords – I know because I tried to buy them.

Last month I created an account on Google AdWords.  I wanted to buy traffic.  I was going to pay money to have my website appear on search engine results in the sponsored links section.

I opened the account and then 30 minutes later I abandoned the account.  Visitors for this niche are expensive.  Imagine someone does a search on Google for ‘make money with website’.   My website appears on the side of the search results, if the person clicks on my link then I pay Google around 5 dollars.  5 dollars to have somebody land on my website, look around, and leave.  My earnings which took a year to accumulate would be gone in 4 hours.

Of course if I thought that the visitors would buy the ‘website starter kit’ then 5 dollars is a small price to pay.  I would be paying 5 dollars  and receiving 65 dollars when a paid visitor buys the starter kit.  To break even I would need 1 in 13 paid visitors to purchase the starter kit.  Being a realist, I know that is not going to happen.

My keywords are expensive so I cannot afford to pay for visitors.  But the flip side is that this website receives valuable visitors from search engines.  People looking for ‘make money with website’ are worth a lot more then people looking for ‘how to comb down a cowlick’ which  cost only 5 cents per visitor.

Last month I received 500 visitors from Google.  Visitors that if I had to pay for them would cost me around 2500.  In other words, last month I saved 2500 dollars.

This website receives only 500 search engine visitors a month while other websites receive 500 visitors a day because the ‘make money with website’ niche has a lot of competition.  Visitors who want to make money with a website are worth more because they spend money.  Visitors looking for hair combing tips do not spend money and that’s why they are worth only 5 cents – nobody wants them.  Other websites get 500 visitors a day, but these are messy haired visitors without a dime to their name.

Other websites get 500 search engine visitors a day worth (500*.05) 25 dollars a day or 750 dollars a month.  My visitors are worth 2500 a month.

Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with these valuable visitors.  I have them but how do I use them – how do I convert their value into cash.  People come to my store with cash stuffed pockets – how do I get them to give me that cash.  So far they just walk in, look around and leave.  Some of them accidentally dropped a few pennies on the floor but the bulk of the 2500 dollars that came through my door left.  I need to convince visitors to give me their money before they leave.

How to make visitors give me their money?  My days are spent thinking about this question as I lovingly gaze at my beautiful search engine traffic graph.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Actual Stats From The Website Used, Optimistic and Motivational

Your visitors are strangers. You know almost nothing about them. All you are told is where – where in the world they are located, and where on the internet they came from.

There are occasions when knowing the location of your visitor matters, if you are selling snow tires and your visitor is from Egypt then you will not make a sale. But for the majority of cases geographical location is irrelevant. At most it reveals the local time for your visitor. If it is morning for him then he is grumpy, if it is evening then he is either full of wine or tired – how you can use this information is unknown.

The other where is the important one. From where did the visitor come from? There are three possibilities:

1. Some other site
2. Search Engine
3. Address bar or Bookmark/Favorite

Knowing from where your visitor arrived is vital information. Because when you know from where they came, you know their intent.

Know Their Intent, Predict Their Behavior

Like the father of a beautiful daughter, your main concern is: what is the intent? A boy walks up to the door, rings the doorbell, father opens, “hello…what are your intentions with my daughter?” The coy boy replies, “Nothing much, we are going to play baseball. I like to pitch and your daughter enjoys being catcher. After the game we are going to a BBQ for some hotdogs, which reminds me, your daughter needs to bring some buns – I bring the wieners.” The father smiles and shakes the young boys hand, ‘you kids have fun’.

Unfortunately you cannot ask your visitors about their intentions, the best you can do is infer. And the most useful piece of information about their intent is to know from where they came. Unlike the word of a horny school boy about to take your daughter on a date, knowing how your visitors came to your site is a true description of intent.

Why is intent important? Knowing intent allows you to predict visitor’s behavior on your site.

Obviously you want your visitors to behave a certain way. For this site I want my visitors to do at least one of these four actions:

1. Click an Ad
2. Purchase an affiliate product
3. Purchase my product
4. Backlink to this site

Visitors who do none of the above can be ignored – they do nothing for this site. If you are reading this blog then you probably belong to the ignorable category. You are familiar with this site so you will not click on the ads or buy the products. The only way to turn yourself into a valuable visitor is to backlink to this website. Some of you have done it, but most of you have not and will not.

If I want visitors to behave in one of the four ways above then I need to look at their intentions. Once I know their intentions then I know how they will behave.   So once I know which traffic sources brings me the properly behaving visitors then I can focus all my energy into getting more traffic from those source.

The Intent of the Social Website Visitor

Social website visitors have no intent. They just drift around aimlessly from one website to another. They like funny, shocking, sexy, and strange. If you do not provide one of these then they are gone – looking for the next zap of instant satisfaction.

They are pigeons moving the mouse and pressing the button hoping to land somewhere that dazzles the eye. Click, look, click, look, click, look. If the there are lots of colors, pictures, videos and sounds they will clap their hands ecstatically and stay – otherwise they are gone.

These visitors have no intent. They are aimlessly wondering around the internet killing time. With no intent they are useless for this website. They are not interested in anything I have to offer. They arrive at the website; see all the words, yawn, and leave. That is why I completely ignore social traffic. No need to promote via facebook, digg, twitter. I give visitors the option to do it for me, but I will not do it.

The Intent of the Search Engine Visitor

These are visitors with direction and purpose. These people are not wasting their time walking around randomly hoping that something interesting happens. They arrive at your site with their intent written on their foreheads. Hello, I am here looking to ‘make money online’, can you help me? Yes I can. Click on one of these conveniently placed ads which will show you how to make $5000 a month online. Thank you, thank you too.

Hello, I am here because I want to know ‘how to build a website’, can you help me? Yes I can, buy my starter kit and you will have a money making website in no time. Thank you, thank you too.

See how pleasant it is when you know what the visitor wants. No guess work involved, no trying to find something that the visitor finds interesting. When you know exactly what the visitor wants you can easily direct their behavior into an action that benefits you.

Image you have a website selling a Philips screw driver. What would you rather receive – 10,000 visitors from a social website looking to be entertained, or 100 visitors from a search engine that typed in ‘buy philips screw driver’?

Intent is everything.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, What YOU Should Do