The conversion rate is the key stat for a website. As long as you are paying for clicks, the efficiency with which you convert those clicks to sales is really the only measure that counts in determining your website design. When I started my UK silk tie website it took a while to get enough data to start tracking and conversion rate as you need at least ten sales to get any sort of statistically valid result. It took a couple of weeks to make the first ten sales and I calculated my conversion rate at 0.5%. As I was paying 25p per click, this means that it was costing me 50 per customer. Even with an average order size of 30, this was a long way from profitability. Luckily, conversion rates can change quite dramatically with things like the website design, sales copy, products on the front page, range of products, product descriptions, guranatees, pricing, ease of payment etc. etc. In short there are many things you can do to get conversions up.
The great thing about internet businesses is that you can make a change, measure the result and if it doesn’t work, then change it back. I am constantly trying new things to see if it affects the figures. Initially I changed...