Over the past two years, our website has converted a consistent 3% of

Question

Q> 
Over the past two years, our website has converted a consistent 3% of its visitors into sales, with very little 
fluctuation. Clearly, then, our goal for the upcoming year should be to raise the number of visitors to our site by any 
means necessary. If we can double our number of visitors by casting a wider net on pay-per-click advertising and by 
creating site content that is more search-engine friendly, we'll double our sales.

Ans> 
The author's argument that by increasing the number of visitors to their website by two folds, their sales will double as 
well is flawed. The assumes that the sales for the past two years give enough data to forecast future sales. Furthermore, 
the author implies that by using the two mentioned methods of increasing the number of visitors (a wider net on pay-per-
click advertising and more search-engine friendly site content) will have the necessary effects.

First, the author's assumption that the data from the sales of past two years is evidence enough to predict future sales 
is incorrect. The author fails to take into account current market conditions and compare them with those of the past two 
years. What if there is a recession in the market and the visitors do not have enough buying power. Then even if the 
number of visitors are increased, there is no telling if the website will still have a consistent 3% sale from its 
visitors.

Second, the author's conclusion that their sales will be doubled upon doubling the number of visitors is based upon 
insufficient premises. There is no way of predicting whether the new advertisement methods of casting a wider net on pay-
per-click will attract any new visitors to the website.

The argument can be strengthened if the author provides more data about current market situation and compare it to 
previous years. It can also be strengthened by using moderately strong words for the conclusion such as - "We may be able 
to double our sales by increasing the number of visitors to two folds". As it stands, however, the argument is weak and 
flawed for the reasons stated.

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Please review and let me know where and how I can improve. I had difficulty finding too flaws in this argument.

~Adi

BeckyRobinsonTPR · Answer

Adi - this is a good start but needs a bit of work to get top scores.

your introduction should contain a short dissection of the argument - mentioning the author's reasoning and be a little more clear on the fact that you are discussing the logical flaws - as written it is OK but feels like it is "missing something."

Your body paragraphs have good topic sentences a basic analysis but could be improved by including 2 -4 sentences of explanation, your second body paragraph seems conspicuously short.

It is fine to mention how to strengthen the argument in it's own paragraph but the essay should also contain a conclusion paragraph that is separate. As written I would give this essay a 3 or 3.5

makhija1 · Answer

Thank you for your reply Becky. What should the conclusion paragraph be like? And yes the second para is short because I could not think of any other flaw or explanation

I will try a few more essays and hopefully I will improve. Thanks, Adi

PrateekMittal · Answer

My quick take.............................

The Marketing director of a website company has issued a report correlating site visits and sales. According to this data, the Marketing Director has proposed to increase the visitors on the website through pay-per-click advertising and more search engine friendly content. However, the plan offered by the Marketing Director is intrinsically flawed because certain assumptions have been made without proper justification.

Firstly, it has been claimed that 3% visitors are converted into sales, and to double the sales, the number of visitors must be doubled. The correlation between website visitors and sales seems to be too narrow a factor to base future plans for doubling of sales. The sales might be coming from only a small section of visitors who are regular patrons on the website and not just first time visitors. In that case, doubling the number of visitors might not have the desired effect of doubling the sales. Might be, the new visitors add insignificant amount of sales.

Secondly, it has been assumed that advertising and creating search-engine friendly content would attract new customers. No thought has been given to the fact that the objects being sold on the website might not match the requirements of the future customers. Alternate strategies of providing discounts and coupons might be cheaper to attract new customers and increase sales to present customer than investing in advertisements and creating content that is search engine friendly.

Lastly, it has been assumed that pay per click advertising and search engine friendly content are efficient ways of attracting new customers. It might be noted that most people find online advertising obnoxious and it might turn off potential customers from visiting the website. Making site content search engine friendly might not be the best way to attract new customers as customers generally prefer to frequent websites that they are normally used to. This might achieve very few new customers. Instead, the content on website could be made more easier to navigate. This would help converting the visitors in to actual sales.

The above listed issues hamper chances of success of the plan. If these can be suitably addressed, then the resulting strategy would be more sound and practical.

Over the past two years, our website has converted a consistent 3% of

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