Inspiring your target market to follow through with a call to action is a conversion. That can mean motivating people to buy your book or encouraging a prospect to call you for a service. It can mean providing great information on a particular subject and presenting affiliate links that lead the visitor to the item that pertains to it. It can mean presenting a cause in a way that moves people to donate.

That’s why identifying the target market should be your first step in creating any communication vehicle whether that’s a website or an ad. Once you define this group, you can research them, find key words that pertain to them, market to them, talk to them, buy a mailing list that reaches them, define a strategy that will appeal to them and ultimately inspire them to follow through with the action you set as your goal.

Once you do that. You get conversions. Marketing only gets people to your site. The site has to do the sell. Do it well and your bank account will show it.

What if it’s not your goal to make money?

There are people who create a website for reasons other than making money. You might want your website to deliver information and reach out to parents. You might want a site that furthers a cause you’re passionate about. You might want to start a cult and need some cultees to sign up.

Whatever your goal, and you need to define it, it needs to be clear and it needs to speak to your target in a way that they follow through with the goal. If you’re getting 300 visitors a day and no follow through, you need to take a look at your site and figure out why.

Getting them there is only half the equation. Getting them to follow through with a goal is the other half.