Sometimes, it is easy to get caught up in some of the aspects of SEO and forget about one of the basic and essential elements: conversions. Your site can be ranked at the top of Google, but it is pointless if you don’t get any conversions. Conversions are when a unique visitor takes a desired action on your web site, which differs from site to site. The first step is to define what you want them to do.

Web sites can be divided into three different types: lead generation, e-commerce, and ad-driven. For a lead generation site, the primary goal of your site is to get the visitor to fill out a lead form. A secondary goal for a lead generation site might be to have the visitor send you an email and a tertiary goal might be to have the visitor call your company. For an e-commerce site, the primary goal is for the visitor to buy your product. Secondary goals might be to have them add a product to their wish list, or have them call you. Finally, for an ad-driven site, a primary goal is to have the visitor click more pages. A secondary goal would be to have them join your site and a third goal might be to have them subscribe to your RSS feed.

Site goals are going to vary, so it is important to take time to decide what you want your site’s visitors to do. If there are other people in your organization who have a stake in the web site, have them look at it and give their input on a list of desired actions. Here are some of the questions to ask when coming up with your list:

• How do people find your web site?

• How do you get customers?

• What do you want people to do on your site that makes your company money?

• What information is critical to the success of your sales efforts?

• Who are our most valuable customers?

• Who are our most regular customers? Do we want more of those?

• Are there particular products or services that we're trying to sell more of right now or in the near future?

• Are there customer service objectives for our web site or only sales objectives?

• What audiences (investors, employees, technical support, news media, and so on), besides customers, use our web site?

Think over these questions as they are vital to your list of desired actions and tomorrow we will discuss the path to conversion.