There are two critical factors to a profitable, income-generating site: traffic and conversions. Obviously, a website that does not get any traffic can't possibly be profitable but on the other hand, all the traffic in the world is no use if the website doesn't convert visitors into buyers. Here are five things you can try on your website in order to boost it's effectiveness.

1. Clear Call to Action

It's absolutely vital to have a clear and strong call to action on your landing page. Focus this call to action on just one thing and don't divert the visitors attention by offering too many options. For example, if your goal is to get people to sign up to your list, make sure that the opt-in form is very clearly visible and at least one benefit of subscribing is listed.

2. Above the Fold vs. Below the Fold

For pre-sales and sales, test order-buttons above and below the fold. Often, when people need to be convinced before they are ready to buy, having an order-button too high up on the page can have a negative effect on the conversion rate. The idea here is to convince your prospect's that the really want your product and not showing them the order-button before they have made up their mind about it.

3. Interaction

Test a multi-page setup against a single-page sales-letter. Getting people to interact (even if it's just clicking on the "next page" link) can often significantly increase conversions.

4. Visual styles

Test different text- and background-colours. Test different type sizes and different order-button images. Just keep testing and you'll often be surprised at how small such changes can make a big difference.

5. Opt-in vs. Sale/Pre-Sale

If the website in question is a sales-page or a bridge page, try gathering e-mail addresses instead of sending the visitors directly to the offer. Sometimes, people are more likely to buy when they have had to "work" for something (submitting e-mail, confirming, waiting for next e-mail etc.). Apart from that, having people on your mailing list gives you more chances to get in touch with them and pitch them an offer.

You probably recognize the common factor here: It's that you can never test enough! Make sure that you have a good split-testing script in place, because that can make your life a lot easier. For a free option, you can try Google's website optimizier and for WordPress sites, there's a very practical plugin called WP Split Test. And remember: If you aren't testing, you're leaving money on the table!