Ask HN: Spend time on increasing conversion rate or increasing site visitors?

From my experience 5% is generally (depending on service obviously) a pretty good conversion. The real question comes down to ROI though I guess. How much do you need to spend to increase conversion and how much revenue will that generate? Likewise how much would it cost you to drive more traffic? This ROI will change over time. Sounds like (albeit with limited info to go on) that it might be cheaper for you to drive traffic at the moment but as your traffic gets higher, and keywords you need become more expensive then they focus may very well shift.

You should increase both if you have low traffic and low conversion. But once you get to a certain point, focus more on conversion. Increasing visitor count doesn't necessarily mean the ratio of sign up will stay the same. Focus on increasing the number that matters.

i guess that depends on your current traffic. 5% sounds quite good to me, but it depends on absolute numbers. if you have 1.000 unique visitors a month you propably should focus on getting more traffic. on the other hand if you have 100.000 uniques a month a/b split testing would be a great way to increase sales.

hope that helps, martin