Just One Number

As someone who is interested in promoting your website, you no doubt are convinced of the importance of two things:

a. getting traffic to your site.

b. enticing people who visit your site to take some specific action once they have arrived there.

In these two types of actions is embodied the ENTIRE process of all-things-Web. That’s it. That’s the whole enchilada. That’s the game. That’s the thing you need to do.

Well, as anyone who has been doing “stuff on the Web” for any length of time knows, getting those two all-important things to actually happen isn’t always easy. And, after having tried a few tricks you had up your sleeve that might or might not have borne fruit, you may have already realized that you’ll need to actually get serious about using metrics to measure your site’s performance.

And by metrics, of course, I mean numbers. Many of us – businesspeople alike – are a bit numbers shy. Others are just plain math-phobic. However, I strongly encourage you to get over any math aversion you have and start working with the numbers a bit at a time. Getting metrics-savvy is your first step toward really managing your Internet activities toward better performance.

Here’s a first step in your journey to a metrics-centric view of your online activities: figure out the One Number that is arguably the most important number you need to know about your site. And that One Number is this: the conversion breakeven point.

Put simply, the conversion breakeven point is defined as the maximum amount of money you are willing to spend to get someone to take that all-important action (i.e., buy something, sign up, call you, etc.) on your site.

Once you know this number, a whole slew of additional things flow from that. For example: how much you are willing to pay per conversion (and even per click) for your PPC campaign. How much you are willing to pay for SEO. And even how much you should charge for your time, services and products. All of this information is in part a function of this One Number.

To simplify your life even further: you can figure out the One Number for your business using my free conversion breakeven calculator at: http://www.jcjinteractive.com/ppc_seo_conversion_calculators/.