Do You Really Know Your Website Traffic?

Written by: Gary Horsman

SEO and Website Traffic

Do you make the proper connections?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be confusing to many people. The confusion often occurs simply because a website owner or manager just does not spend enough time becoming familiar with the wealth of information available to them.

Here is a blog post on the importance of knowing more about your website traffic and how it will provide insights into your SEO and social media marketing performance as well.

“I don’t have enough traffic!” This is a statement I sometimes hear when I work with my clients. This statement is sometimes made even when the person stating it has not looked at their website traffic metrics (yes it’s true). Also, even if a client knows the overall traffic there is an inherent problem with focusing one large overall metric.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say that your organic search traffic has declined by 15% over the last two months. It may be tempting to view the current amount of organic search traffic as “not enough”. I have even seen people think that their organic SEO efforts are a failure when there is a decline. Some even want to give up and concede to the competition. This is could be a very uninformed and very short-sighted decision.

Let’s dig in a bit . . .

First, what if you look at Google Trends graphs and see that the organic traffic search volume for the phrases of concern have declined by 20%. If this were the case then your 15% decline does not look so bad at all.

Next, what if your deeper look reveals that while overall organic search traffic has decreased that the traffic levels generated by the keyword phrases that have been the focus your optimization and content marketing efforts has increased. Better yet what if the visitors who arrive at your website having used these keyword phrases and variations of these phrases are converting nicely?

With your deeper analysis which revealed the above, we could conclude that your content marketing efforts and the associated SEO are successful. We need to make observations properly and in some kind of context to fully understand and make correct business decisions.

With a proper understanding, we may even decide to replicate this success by creating even more content optimized well or by applying the same successful approach to another business category. Failure has turned to success with some straight-forward understanding.

SEO can also be used to attract search traffic to blogs and branded content on social media platforms which can then produce website and blog traffic. Use branded content on social media sites to drive traffic to your center of content (your website and blog). I now have extra positions in the organic search results based on keyword phrases set up on my branded Pinterest account. This SEO helps my brand exposure and produces “organic” search traffic.

Social media optimization goals for improving social network growth and engagement because of discovery through search should be included in SEO performance metrics.

Today, SEO is about exposure and brand awareness and this is much more than just attracting visitors. Define more precisely what it means to be successful. Conversions are key. A conversion means different things to different companies and could include:

• A purchase
• Downloading a report
• Signing up for a webinar
• Registering for a newsletter
• Requesting a demo or a free trial
• A candidate applying for an open position
• A journalist requesting information
• Another blogger asking to guest post

SEO and Website Traffic

Don’t focus only on an overall metric. Learn what your traffic really means and define success properly and measure it.

If you have invested in building your center of content (your website and/or blog) then set up the monitoring function to measure its performance and look for ways to develop it and leverage it.

Here are two related post which I also think you may like:

Setting Content Marketing Objectives – This is also related to SEO and Website Traffic

and . . .

What is Evergreen Content – Evergreen content can help produce traffic for extended time frames.

Build your center of content and look for multiple ways to gain exposure for this center and then measure the results. SEO and website traffic means to do some deeper digging to really understand your website traffic.