It's an amazing time to be an online marketer. Never has it been so easy for the average person to be able to create a viable, long-term internet business that can generate consistent income for years to come. Not only has the ability to make websites become much easier, but also the ability to track and analyze the results of your online marketing efforts. Internet entrepreneurs can now see what works and what doesn't work. The key stat that internet marketers are constantly trying to improve is the conversion rate. With effective search engine optimization, these rates can be greatly improved.

What's The Big Deal With Conversion Rates?
Which site would you rather have? A site that gets 10,000 visitors a month and has a conversion rate of 0.05%, or a site that gets 1000 visitors a month and has a conversion rate of 10% over a year's time? The second one of course! Even though it only gets 1/10th the traffic of the first site, because of its superior conversion rate, it will result in twice as many sales over the year.

The conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors that take the action that you want them to. This could be to purchase a product, sign up for a newsletter, complete a form, or any other task that you are trying to get people to complete. So a conversion rate of 1% means that 1 out of every 100 people did the desired action.

As an internet marketer, knowing your conversion rate is critical because then you can try to increase it. If you didn't know this stat, how would you possibly know if your current marketing campaign was more effective than your last one? Knowing your conversion rate gives you a baseline, a starting point. Any changes that you make to your website can then be evaluated. Your conversion rate is your indicator.

How Can SEO Help Raise The Conversion Rate?
"SEO" stands for "search engine optimization," and it is the process of making changes to your website so that it ranks higher in the search engines results for specific keywords. Normally, the difference between a site that gets lots of traffic and one that is a digital ghost town is the amount of SEO that was done for them. With millions of web pages being created every day, the ability to improve a website's search engine ranking can significantly determine the amount of traffic that it will receive.

An important point to consider is this: targeted traffic will increase the conversion rate. If you have a website about horses, and a thousand random, untargeted visitors see it, only a small percentage of them will take the action that you want. Compare that to 1000 visitors who are horse lovers and are searching specifically for horse-related information. The conversion rate of these individuals will be drastically higher.

By implementing proper SEO strategies to your website, you will be raising where your site will rank when people are looking for info relevant to your site. The higher your site ranks, the more targeted traffic you will receive.

But it isn't just about an increase in site traffic. It's an increase in TARGETED site traffic. A greater amount of people that are already interested in the topic that your site is about will be finding your site. This will cause the conversion rate to surge.

There are a variety of ways that online marketers can increase their conversion rates. One of the most effective methods to do this is by considering SEO strategies, and then modifying the website so that it's more optimized in the search engines for the keyword phrases that interested people are searching for.
Jen Silva is a writer for Choosewhat.com. ChooseWhat provides resources to help  startups and small businesses start and grow their business. Choosewhat.com provides detailed comparisions grids and product reviews on topics such as business cards and PBX services. Their goal is to assist the entrepreneuer or small business owner in obtaining their goals in starting a business while also cutting costs associated with starting and running a business.