Not knowing what to expect, in some cases can be really exciting, like river rafting or hiking or exploring a reef while snorkeling, however, when it comes to your website it can be more important to have a better perspective on what to look forward to and what to look out for especially when your livelihood is on the line.
Most of the pitfalls of SEO and online marketing in general come from experience, one of the biggest reasons to hire an agency or or build a team to support your online marketing efforts. One of the reasons I started this blog was to identify some of these pitfalls that can broadside you on your way up the SERPs. So, with that being said, I wanted to cover one of the most overlooked and extremely important aspects of SEO:
Traffic
Wait, I know what you are saying… of course traffic is important, it’s the reason for undergoing the efforts that are needed to compete and perform in search engine results, right?
- Strategy Development
- Keyword Research
- Website Development
- Technical Concerns
- Content Development
- Link Building
All of this for rankings and traffic, right? Oh, and I have the audacity to say that traffic is being overlooked? You have analytics, right? So, you really know where your traffic is coming from and what they are doing on your site, right?
Well, well, well… so what channels are your users converting from? More importantly, what channel is your most important introducer and what channel(s) is/are your most important influencer?
Most analytics software is built upon one principle, the last click before conversion. The problem with this is that it doesn’t give you the whole picture of what is actually working towards the end conversion.
Typically, organic or natural search is typically an introducer and a brand building channel, because users aren’t associating what they are looking for with your website. This usually means that they don’t know or realize that you offer something they are looking for. Organic search is also typically an introducer because a user may not be sure what they are looking for, that is why they are searching. Paid search is typically a closer because they are looking for something specific and are ready to complete the purchase. Direct traffic are your regular visitors, or at least people that already associate what they are looking for with what you have to offer.
With your website, you have the opportunity to take care of your customers online, existing customers go directly to your site (direct traffic). Online advertising gives you the opportunity to find new customers, as with organic search, but paying for your traffic gives you more control and ease of entry.
So, with the economic conditions being the way they are, you need to be aware that your organic and paid search efforts might cost you more if you cut your budget to save a few bucks today because it might just take out future wind in your online sails.
There are a number of tools that can help you understand your attribution model, so you aren’t over-estimating or under-estimating the value of your online marketing channels!
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Good entry. The thing that we struggle with isn’t just about getting traffic, but getting the right traffic! One you can accomplish this task then you are ahead of the game!
Great post! Any tips how to track what is your most converting type of visitors? And if you find out wich type is converting the most would you advise to focus on that type or would you focus on the underachieving types off visitors?
Matthijs,
Thanks for the comment. It all comes down to the data. You should be able to find out what channel or source of traffic that is converting well and then reinforce activities which should support additional traffic from these sources, it might also give you the insight you need to determine if a certain channel will be profitable enough to expand into or further in advertising.
Hi Stephen! With regards to traffic, what do you think is an acceptable bounce rate percentage? I have been noticing lately that my bounce rates have gone up by 1% per month for the last 3 months.
The biggest challenge I’ve had are clients who need SEO for competitive keywords and they’re website is brand new. Its hard to explain to these clients that results will take longer than they expect. I mean, you can do all the market research, keyword analysis, on page optimization, link building, ect, and still find yourself waiting to get on the 10th page of Google for months.
Very well written article. Traffic is a very important concept regarding SEO. Getting the right traffic (i.e) visibility of the site to potential customers is even more important. That can help a lot in accomplishing SEO.
Thanks for the post.
John,
Thanks for the comment. As far as acceptable bounce rates, they vary based upon your vertical. In my opinion, if you don’t have access to other sites’ bounce rate, I feel that if you are working on reducing the bounce rate on your site is more important than comparing to others.
Nice read, I’ve done a number of small SEO projects but have never truely quantified or measured the benefits of achieving top spot.
Many just assume that achieving top rankings at any cost is still cost effective, I would have to disagree to be honest and wouldnt recommend SEO if it isn’t cost effective.
Insightful post. Yes, indeed, there is more to traffic than traffic
Like what the traffic numbers actually mean and what context the data needs to be placed in. And how these numbers support then underlying goals of your site/project.
Ref comment above, SEO for my sites have occurred naturally, I publish fishing articles people naturally read them and occassionaly link to them. Consequently receive targeted trafiic from like minded people who want to read about the subject. Pretty much the same way I find the article above very interesting.
I wouldn’t even mind if some of the ‘do follow’ list users took the time to properly read the post and comment with their name or like you request ‘name | sitename’ I’d approve them!
I’m curious if other folks have clients who want PPC but have no pages set-up to collect leads – thus no real conversion. If so, how do you handle it?
I currently have a client who has a fairly large monthly PPC budget but is only looking at traffic – despite trying to lead her to calculate ROI thru conversion.