What does an ex-basketball coach know about pulling web metrics?

By Jason Blackston
Posted Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Actually, my previous JOB life, I was a physical education teacher and the varsity girls basketball coach. This is where I learned about testing, or as my mentors on the internet say, "Pulling Web Metrics."

Simply put, pulling metrics is just testing your product or service. Your objective is to see how many sales you get out of a certain amount of clicks to your web site.

So what does my previous life as a coach have to do with your success on the internet? Great question, and now I will give you a great answer.

As a coach, I would test my girls in practice to see how many free throws each girl could make out of 100. I would do this everyday.

*For those of you who are not familiar with Basketball: A freethrow, also known as a foul shot, is awarded to a player who gets fouled by a player on the other team.

*I could get more technical with the rules, but this is all you really need to know about, for me to get my point across.

Now if Jane averages 70 made shots out of 100 freethrows, she is a 70% freethrow shooter. O'kay, next let's say Cathy averages 45 made shots out of 100 freethrows. This means Cathy is a 45% freethrow shooter.

Here's what I've learned from testing these players:

First, Jane makes more freethrows than Cathy. So if the game is close at the end, I want the ball in Jane's hands.

Why?

Well, if the score is close and Jane gets fouled, the odds of her making the freethrows are better than if Cathy gets fouled. This means more points...

And more points means victory for Jane, Cathy, and the entire team!

**Online Business is not much different**

On the internet you can test your products similar to how I tested my players in basketball. Now as a coach, I put my players on the freethrow line and asked them to take the shot.

Same rules apply online. You want your products put to the test. An easy way to do this is by utilizing Pay-Per-Click search engines. Google Adwords is a great place to start.

You can find out more about Google Adwords at: (https://adwords.google.com/select/?hl=en)

By utilizing Google Adwords you can test your products. Pay-Per-Click means you'll pay a certain price each time someone clicks on your advertisement.

However, you can find great keywords at low cost. If you need help finding good keywords, I suggest downloading Good Keywords. It's a free software program and has helped me find some great search terms.

(http://www.iwanttips.com/gkwds/index.html)

Marketing on the internet is somewhat different than my coaching experience. The statistics are much different. In basketball, I wanted someone who could make 70 to 80% of the freethrow shots taken in a game.

On the internet, I am shooting for a 2 to 3% conversion rate. That's right, I'm looking for 2 to 3 sales out of every 100 clicks. That doesn't mean I don't want more, but 2 to 3% conversion is a good mark.

Let's you are paying 10 cents a click, and out of 100 clicks you got 3 sales. And your price for your product is 40.00.

*3 x $40 = $120.00
*.10 x 100 = $10.00
* $120.00 - $10.00 = $110.00 Net Profit.

You've got a good product that you can continue to test and market. If you had gotten 300 to 400 clicks and no sales, you'd have to take a good look at your product.

Sometimes people fall in love with a product before they test it. I've been there! It's always best to test, test, test!

Going back to my basketball analogy. The fact remains that Jane made more freethrows than Cathy. I want her on the line when the game is on the line.

Same rules apply when it comes to marketing online. I want to promote the products that "Pull the best Metrics."

And you heard that straight out of the ex-basketball coach's mouth!

*This article can be viewed and downloaded at (http://www.govisitors.com/jb/article3.html)
------------------------------------------------------------
"Discover how to turn your website visitors into paying loyal customers!" Sign up for your free 5 day ecourse at (http://www.govisitors.com/epackage.html) Course delivered over 5 consecutive days.

About the Author
None