The conversion rate describes the percentage of visitors taking action on a website. Usually this action will be making a purchase; but conversion rates can and should be calculated for any action item on a website, e.g. subscribing to a newsletter or filling out an inquiry form.

Conversion science is a hot trend in Internet Marketing that has long been neglected when online marketers primarily focused on the acquisition of traffic through search engine optimization and other online marketing techniques to improve visibility of websites on the Internet.

Research (e.g. by Forrester Research among others) has shown that conversion rates average at about 2% on retail websites.

While it is increasingly difficult to acquire traffic through organic search results, paid traffic remains the only choice for many website operators. Understanding the factors that turn casual visitors into paying customers hence becomes a crucial success factor.

While every business will require a different minimum conversion rate to be viable, here are some of the factors that generally influence the conversion rate:

1. Search Behavior - the more targeted the search or online marketing technique that brought a visitor to your website in the first place, the more likely that she is a qualified potential customer. While we cannot influence the search behavior of our visitors we can create specific content that will attract targeted visitors.

2. Products and Services