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There is one goal to keep in mind in your marketing strategy. It starts with the product you choose to promote. It continues with the branding you place on it, and on into the search engine optimization you use to compete for visibility. It can often extend well past the sale. The ultimate goal of all you do is to turn your traffic into customers, otherwise known as conversion.

Conversion, by its definition in marketing, is turning visitors into buyers. Everything you do up until the money exchange, and often afterwards, is about achieving that goal. After all, cancellations are a loss of the converted, and ultimately a loss of money.

To start with, the product you promote has to be appealing. Selling the Ebola virus on eBay isn't very likely to generate a conversion, and you could probably get arrested for it. However, there is a possibility of selling stuffed plushy Ebola virus dolls on eBay. Yes, I've actually seen these dolls for sale on the Internet.

Not only does it just have to be appealing, it has to also be promoted in the right places. While it is theoretically possible to sell ice cream to Eskimos, it would take a lot more work to make a conversion on ice cream in the Arctic Circle than to try it in Los Angeles.

The branding you place on your product has a great deal to contribute to conversion, as well. There is truly an art to this part. Back with the ice cream reference, everything from the font you use, to the name, to the logo and mascot, all have to reflect "ice cream."

Unless you're selling habanero ice cream, it's best to avoid using flaming letters, logos that have fiery images, or devil mascots. Conversion just isn't likely to happen that way. Try frosty letters, icy logos and polar bears as mascots, for example.

Search engine optimization is such a complex matter that it deserves its own book. The keywords you use on your Web site should include "ice cream." So should the title tags on your pages, as well as your meta descriptions, the content, and so on. It should all come together in such a way as to demand a conversion.

Apart from keyword placement, every other element of your search engine optimization should be geared toward making a conversion. Make your Web site easy to navigate…at least to the confirmation page. Including links back to the home page, or in any direction other than to the sale, can be confusing to the viewer.

Particularly if your Web site involves subscriptions to a product, you have to also prevent cancellations, or reverse conversion. Customer follow-through, support services and due compensations for the occasional Web site glitch go a long way toward customer retention.

While ice cream is probably one of the most difficult things to sell on the Internet, these ideas are pretty universal. If everything is handled correctly, you can bet that mass conversion will come.

I started my first internet business in 1999. Since then, I have generated over 2,000,000 leads and sold over 160,000 customers in 119 countries. Referred to as the Big Dog of internet marketing, I regularly head the list of top promoters for any internet marketing launch. Go To www.ShawnCasey.com