As a webmaster you work hard to attract visitors to your sites. You invest money in promoting your sites via pay per click searches, banners and other forms of online advertising and you spend valuable time in optimising your website content for search engines. Plus perhaps, you invest in traditional marketing techniques, such as press release submissions, public relations activities, newspaper advertising, and word of mouth strategies.

Much of this will sound very familiar to you. Most webmasters spend an enormous amount of time and money promoting their sites. But not many achieve the results they’ve been aiming for. So why is this?

First, all your efforts will come to nothing if you have a site that just doesn't convert your visitors to members, or a product that falls short of the expected quality standard, with the result that members won’t buy it.

Second, you may target an audience that is not interested in your product or service, so that high volumes of traffic do not translate into high revenues.

World Dating Partners has already addressed the first issue described above, by developing sites that are designed to sell. Here is how we have achieved this:

• All of the "must have" features of the modern dating community have been integrated into a system that allows each member to create their own personalised profile by entering personal information and initial relationship preferences. The result is a site that is proven to be the ideal place for singles to find their perfect date.
• Smart text banners, which are geo-targeted using members’ IP-addresses, deliver the right messages to the right audience, thus increasing your conversion rates of unique visitors to registrations by 25%.
• The member payment page is formatted in an extremely persuasive manner. As soon as a new member registers, the payment page appears instantly, providing a number of options encouraging members to join-up immediately. Plus the page is structured in such a way that members frequently choose the paid options when they first register.

Read more about all the facilities and features that your members receive in the "How your web-site works" section, which explains how your members go about finding – and interacting with - their ideal match. This section will also help you understand why visitors to your site will want to join up in the first place, and in doing so, buy the products and services that you sell.

To address the second issue described above, you need to identify the audience that is the most likely to buy the products and services offered on your site. The visitor’s interest level is maximised by matching the right visitor, in the right place, at the right time.

Bear in mind that owners of sites that are targeted towards specific interests, geographies or communities enjoy higher conversion rates (from visitors to registrations) than more generic sites. For example, on general sites you can expect up to 10% conversions; on targeted sites 25+% is the norm. You need to remember this when creating your site – your visitors must “get the message” immediately.

Once a site is created, it’s vital to target your advertising, which can be easily achieved through PPC campaigns where geo-targeting is available, optimising your site to relevant keywords, trading links and banners, with the sites that provide content relevant to your audience.

Conversion rates from registrations to sales also depend largely upon the quality of your traffic. For example, sales statistics over the past four years show that members from Europe, North America, Australia and South Africa are currently more likely to buy than members from other countries. This is why, before putting time, money and effort into advertising your site, you need to ensure that your future members are potential buyers. To estimate your probable average conversions and the profitability of your site, we suggest you use our Revenue Calculator. This calculates likely conversions and profitability using your traffic figures compared to the average conversions within our system.

By working with World Dating Partners you can be sure that you have a product that meets the needs of your customers. Good targeting on your part and clear audience definition will ensure that the time and money you spend on marketing your site achieves a maximum return, and customer interest turns into maximum profit for you!