Many people like to build general interest or information based websites. Other businesses like to sell their products on the Internet. E-commerce is growing rapidly, with the UK seeing billions of pounds of trade occuring on the Internet. Today, much like anything else in the business world, websites have become a commodity. And like any commodity, they can be evaluated. Websites generate traffic, and can provide revenue through advertising sales. Services like Adsense and Adbrite help to monitize your website.

Many websites offer information in specific niches. These are usually in the format of regularly updated diaries or blogs. Of course, once a website has been subject to Search Engine Optimisation, it can usually earn better due to the higher amounts of relevant converting traffic it gets.

The criteria for evaluating a website are:

Daily Traffic

Daily traffic provides the primary indicator of a website’s success. The more traffic a website gets, the higher the chances of it bringing in sales or converting.

Conversion or Click Through Rate

This is what ultimately affects your bottom line. The conversion or sales rate is defined by the number of conversions/sales divided by the number of clicks to your website.

Traffic sources

It is important to know where your visitors are coming from. That way, you can better target your products and your search engine optimisation efforts. For example, a certain percentage of your traffic will be coming from organic Google or Yahoo searches, while another percentage may derive from PPC marketing.

Traffic can come from paid or organic search. Organic traffic is generally more valuable since it indicates a self sustaining website that can generate natural traffic.

Traffic geographical location breakdown

This is extremely important, as it can identify non-converting traffic due to non-interest. Knowing where your visitors reside is important to deciding what to sell to them, and how.

Both SEO and E commerc e are modern day buzzwords that we’ve all heard a billion times already, both on the Web and off it. Search Engine Optimisation refers to the management of a website in order to make it rank higher in the search engines, and e-commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods or services electronically (hence the “e” in e-commerce). Of course, electronic commerce is dependent on the world’s greatest independent network of computers, the Internet.

Search Engine Optimisation and E-commerce are inextricably intertwined. While the realm of e-commerce has other avenues of promotion available, search engine optimisation is by far the most cost-effective and sustainable of all the Website promotional methods. Search Engine Optimisation is low cost, long-term and provides excellent returns.

Websites selling products and services need to attract visitors in order to make sales (or converisons as they are commonly known.) Traffic is the quantity of visitors that arrives at the website in any time period. Revenue and profitability are therefore inextricably tied to website traffic.

Search Engine Optimisation can increase website traffic by putting the website where it is seen first: high up in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This ensures that the website obtains a steady stream of relevant traffic. Relevancy of traffic is also important, because it helps to ensure sales by attracting people who are interested in what the website is offering. In this way, SEO helps to increase an e-commerce venture’s profitability and bottom line.