By Terry Dean

Traffic...it's what everybody wants.

It's the number one question asked online, "How do I generate traffic to my web site?"

It's why those "guaranteed" traffic scams work so well. People desperately think traffic will solve all their problems.

Then when someone offers it to them at an almost unbelievable low price, they jump on it. It's their chance to instantly become rich from their web site. Just hand "Joe" $500 and you now have a hugely successful site.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Having hundreds of thousands of visitors at my web site doesn't pay my bills. My BUYERS pay my bills and enable me to live the lifestyle I want.

Who cares about the ten thousand people who just surfed through? They sure make my traffic stats look pretty, but I don't need them.

Good grief.

I don't even want them!

All traffic does at your site is make it load slower because of their bandwidth use.

What I want are targeted visitors who are ready to buy something. In fact, I want them desperately looking for what I'm offering. Ten buyers are better than a million visitors.

The whole "traffic" minded syndrome is a left over of the years when web sites made their incomes from selling ad space. The more eyeballs you had, the more you could charge for advertising.

Now that selling advertising has went bust as an Internet business model, the number of visitors doesn't really matter anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I look at my stats. I don't do it though to brag about the number of visitors. I examine them so I can do my math about how many visitors I'm selling to.

Am I selling 1%, 3%, or 5% of my visitors? If I change my headline, what happens to the number of sales? What about if I change the price? My traffic stats are there for the testing process.

Let me say one phrase I hope stays with you...

"You Can't Deposit "Traffic" in the Bank"

The only time you'll hear otherwise is from someone trying to sell you traffic!

Telling you that traffic is like money in the bank is a SALES PRESENTATION. Sure, you have to have traffic, but they must be targeted visitors who are already interested in your product or service.

Otherwise, who cares?

Having 10 people ready to buy at your web site is better than 1,000,000 just surfing...or who show up there by accident.

In many of my articles you even see me separating up visitors into four categories:

Visitors
Leads
Customers
Clients

A visitor isn't worth all that much. A lead is what they become once they give me their email address. They become a customer when they purchase something. They become a "client" when they purchase multiple times.

My goal is to create as many clients as possible. Those people are as good as money
in the bank...because whenever you have something to offer, they immediately reach in and give you money.

They've learned you provide value so they purchase over and over again from you.

The visitors are not valuable unless they choose to give me their email address and become a lead...or they make a purchase to become a customer.

Note - Real leads who signed up for your opt-in list create money-on-demand. You can make money whenever you want to by mailing a large number of them, but they're nowhere near as good as your client list.