Is Quality Better Than Quantity When It Comes To Web Traffic?
For most businesses, when they launch a website it is often a relief just to be able to see web traffic visit and it’s even more exiting watching the traffic rates grow from month to month. However, if say…six months in to the site launch, the business receives a report stating that they have had 5,000 visitors in the last month and this is up over 1000 on the month before, should they really be celebrating?
As a business owner, the real question you have to ask yourself is how much of the web traffic is actually turning into leads or sales? If out of those 5000 visitors, only a handful of sales are being made then do you blame the marketing? In effect the marketing may be doing its job in that it is driving traffic to your site (and plenty of it), but it may well not be ‘quality’ traffic… and herein lies the difference. So the issue is, how do you turn quantity into quality?
The problem is that all Web traffic by its very nature just isn’t created equally. Some people will be generally looking to make a purchase, whilst others might be surfing the net on a cold and miserable Sunday afternoon and are simply browsing. In all probability the latter have no intention of buying, but the million dollar question is…how do you attract real buyers to your website instead of people who are only browsing?
A good way to do this might be to look at your keyword research. These are the key phrases that are being used to find you in Google and other search engines. Let me give an example to demonstrate.
Example of Web Traffic Quality based on keyword focus
Company A is on the first page of Google and in fact are ranked number one for the very popular search phrase of ‘digital cameras’. In fact in Ireland alone there are over 10,000 searches for this key phrase per month and because they are ranked number one, the company is getting a boat load of web traffic for that phrase(around 3500 visits). However for some reason the conversion rates just aren’t there and in fact are only achieving around 10 sales per month (around one quarter of a percent).
Company B on the other hand doesn’t rank at all for the phrase ‘digital cameras’ but it does rank for the keyword phrase ‘Nikon D500′ of which they hold the top organic search position. Although the searches are generating significantly lower web traffic (only around 720), their conversion rate is much higher at around 4% giving them close on 30 sales per month.
Assuming that both of these sites are equally as good as each other and the pricing is similarly competitive, the difference is where the particular keyword phrase fits in to the buying cycle. In the example of company A, the web traffic they are receiving is in the main by people who are looking to buy a digital camera but are yet to make a decision as to which one – they are in a research mode. However, visitors to company B already know that they are going to buy a Nikon D500 and are searching for the best deal – they are ready to buy. This is because that keyword phrase (stating the make and model of camera) has attracted the attention of people who are further along the buying cycle and are therefore more likely to make a purchase.
So to sum up, if you are looking for quality web traffic over quantity, then take a look at keywords that are further along the buying cycle (low volume/high conversion) and try to rank for these. The use of Web Analytics and ongoing testing to find and improve on these is a must.
If you are struggling with keyword analysis or generating web traffic that delivers results, contact us and we’ll see what ideas we can provide.
