Good Morning my internet friends! It’s time to stop and talk about the importance of growing your website traffic versus the importance of improving your site content to increase conversions (Yet Again).
If you are the proud owner of a new website – and by new I mean less than 18 months old – then I hope you are working on improving your website and listening to what it’s telling you. This is an area of internet I am very passionate about, and also very frustrated with why people don’t get it!
During the infancy of your new website – you should be watching your top landing pages and their bounce rates. You should also be looking for ways to grow your conversions. Depending on your website, a conversion may either be an online sale, or an online quote requested, or even just a contact form or survey submission. Every online business varies in what they are trying to accomplish. While your website is ‘young’ the traffic will be less, so you’ll want to work on converting more… then as your traffic grows – your conversions should increase accordingly.
Google Analytics does a fantastic job of letting know how people are finding you, where they are entering your site and where they are exiting your site. Your bounce rate can tell you a lot about why people are not buying or converting on your web site. If your top performing keyword and it’s related landing pages have a bounce rate or 90% – you have to take action. This means that 90% of the users visiting under that search term are NOT converting! Why would not want to try to grab a hold of some of that traffic.
I find that people get wrapped around the axle about meta tags and “SEO”. Let me again reiterate – search engine optimization is only a SMALL part of effectively marketing your website. STOP! Furthermore the common theme I get from customers is “I just need more traffic”. NO! You need to work on improving your site so you convert your existing traffic – as you make these improvements, your traffic will naturally increase.
You can have all the traffic in the world, if it’s not converting and your web site is not an effective sales toolfor your organization – your traffic is useless.
You gotta work your web site people! You have to listen to it, and be willing to constantly improve it. If you do that – you can reach markets that you might have never otherwise enjoyed.
The internet can and will help you grow your business, if you are willing to grow with your website. This post may sound like a rant, and it is. I just want you to get it! Stop focusing on traffic and seo, and start worrying about what matters!
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It’s never ending – improving the site to increase traffic and increase conversions. I am now categorizing activities for my new clients on whether the activity primarily increases traffic, conversions, or both. Want more traffic? – look at the plan for increasing traffic. Love that.