That's right. According to a recent study by Nielsen/NetRatings, Amazon.com converts 12.8% of its visitors into sales.

Do you know how they do it? (I do?)

I'm about to let you in on a little secret that 99% of online marketers (even most of the so called "experts") don't seem to understand?

The smartest, most successful online marketers and businesses invest as much time and money into improving conversion rates as they do in building traffic.

Now that you know this "secret", ask yourself:

"Do I spend more time and money building traffic than I do improving my website's conversion rates?"

If you are like most online marketers, I'll bet you answered "yes" to that question.

Why do companies like Amazon.com invest so much time, effort and money into improving conversion rates?

It's simple? They know that even small improvements in your conversion rates can produce huge impacts on your bottom line.

Often, boosting conversion rates by even 1% can double or triple the effectiveness and profitability of your traffic building efforts.

Do you ever wonder how some of your competitors can afford to bid 2 or 3 times as much on certain pay-per-click keywords as you can?

The answer is simple? Their websites are more effective at converting traffic into sales.

Let's say your site converts 1% of your visitors into customers, and you earn a $100 profit on each sale.

With those numbers the most you can afford to spend on each visitor is $1.00 per click. (And, if you want to make a profit, you need to bid less than that?)

Now, if your competitor is selling the same $100 profit, product and his website converts 2% of visitors into customers. Your competition can afford to bid $2.00 per click to break even. (The worst part is? Your competitor can out bid you at $1.01 per click and earn a $0.99 profit per visitor, while you are just breaking even at $1.00 per click!)

The bottom line is this?

If you double your website's conversion rate, you double the effectiveness of every marketing dollar you spend.

Want to improve your conversion rates? Eric Graham is the CEO of several successful online companies. Internationally recognized as a top authority on eCommerce, Website Conversion & Internet Marketing, he's an in-demand speaker & consultant.

Visit http://www.web-site-evaluations.com today for an in-depth evaluation to boost YOUR websites conversion rate!

Get expert tips, advice, news and commentary on improving conversion rates, split testing, web usability, copywriting, internet marketing and more. Just visit Eric's popular Blog: http://www.conversiondoctor.com/conversion-blog/