When I speak with clients and online marketers, the one thing that comes up consistently is everyone wants more web site traffic. On the surface this makes perfect sense. Send more traffic to your web site and they will surely buy.

If life was only that easy online. Sure, brute traffic will generate more sales and/or opt-ins. But the question is how much did that traffic cost? If you spent $100 to generate your traffic, and your conversion value is $50, was the traffic worth it? On the surface, most web site owners would answer no.

If the answer was only that easy online. You see the hidden answer to that question is how much the web site owner was able to monetize from that customer after the first capture. Was he able to up-sell and cross-sell additional products and/or services to that customer over time? If the answer was yes, then there stands a chance that the $100 that the web site owner paid for that traffic could return a profit after all. If the answer was no, well then the $100 resulted in a $50 lost.

Web site traffic, you see, is only part of the equation. For many people, they see traffic as the only part of the equation because most web site owners are starving for it. If only they knew how “easy” it is to get traffic. They can take their pick of traffic from SEO, SMO, PPC, CPV, email drops, co-registration, mobile ads, banner ads, contextual ads, thank-you page ads, ezine ads, online videos, RSS placements, podcasts, blog commenting, forum posting, profile creation, press releases, articles, guest blogging, online classifieds, directories, pay-to-post, picture tags, pop-ups, print ads, radio ads, tv ads, … the list of traffic sources is long.

The meatier part of the equation is conversion. How well does that traffic convert to a sale or an opt-in after it hits your web site? The meatiest part of the equation, however, is the hidden part: How well can you monetize that conversion in the back-end? In other words, do you have a business system that maximizes the value that you deliver to your customer while at the same time is efficient enough to be replicated? And by the way, is it low cost?

The business system is the critical part of the online marketing equation that can set your business apart. Everything up to that part — keywords, traffic, niches — are all transparent. In other words, your competitors have full access to that data. What they can see and monitor, they will steal. Count on it. Your business system is hidden. Only you know what happens after the customer enters your system. And that is your secret sauce.

So stop worrying about getting more web site traffic. I’ve showed you that that part is easy and can be duplicated by your competitors. Instead, focus on the part that will bring you the most value to your business. In fact, I would argue that it is your business. And that would be your business system.

Apart from size, the number one difference between a big business and a small business are systems. I’m talking about how-to guides that are documented and followed by most employees. More than that, these systems are so ingrained into the big company that it has essentially become intertwined with something known as company culture.

Don’t get me wrong. Small businesses follow systems too. However, many small businesses remain small because they have to reinvent their systems over and over again. In essence, they don’t have a system; at least not one that they can package and sell.

A number of years ago, I was worked for a very small business. My boss at the time asked me to complete a mini-assignment. I went to work on it and turned in my finished project in a flash. I was proud of myself for being speedy. In exchange, the trade-off that I made was that my finished project was not exactly reusable.

Wouldn’t you know it? My boss snapped at me and said, “We are a small business. The last thing we can afford is to rewrite code every time! Make your code reusable and document it in a binder so that you can step away.”

I was in my early twenties at the time, yet his words stuck with me to this day.

If a small business wants to become a big business one day, the small business owner would be wise to start writing down systems. The goal of every small business owner should be the ability to step away from his business and have it still hum along fine.

One more thing, if your business is even smaller than a small business, creating and following systems becomes even more important. This is because you need your systems documented in order to outsource. A really small business can only survive for so long with it’s owner doing everything. Eventually, as in, soon, the owner will crash and burn.

Don’t risk crashing and burning. Create systems, outsource, then grow to the next level.