The following scenarios are examples of when driving more traffic is not better for a business
Driving traffic to a site is a fundamental SEO goal, but getting more website traffic may not always be good for the business. Here are some reasons why.
Generating more traffic to a website is one of the important aspects of organic search optimization.
After all, it’s our job as SEO professionals to do this.
It’s our role to
get more eyeballs on a client’s website by implementing various technical
optimizations, strategic content plans, off-page recommendations, and so on.
Every SEO report
highlights organic traffic. This metric is one of the pillar key performance
indicators, right?
While driving
increased traffic to a website is foundational as part of a solidified organic
strategy, it’s also important to remember that increased organic traffic does
not necessarily translate into a net positive.
The following
scenarios are examples of when driving more traffic is not better for a
business.
1.
Users Are Not Finding What They Are After & There Is an Intent Mismatch
This one is
straightforward.
Let’s say a visitor
is searching for a specific query; your site is ranking highly for that query
and they click on a result that leads to a page on your website.
However, the page
they reach does not match the intent of what they were looking for and they
quickly leave.
This is not a
positive experience for the searcher, as the result does not match the user’s intent.
We know that
Google’s algorithm is constantly improving to show the results that best match
a user’s query, but it’s not 100% perfect.
If a searcher is
looking for something, comes to your website, generates more traffic, but then
quickly leaves because the content of your site is not what they were after,
this can contribute to higher bounce rate
metrics, lower time-on-site metrics, etc.
These things can
send negative signals back to Google’s algorithm, indicating that your website
result is not the ideal one for that query or intent.
2.
Your Content Strategy Is Non-Existent or Poorly Executed
Would you host a
dinner party if every room in your house was a mess?
Or if you didn’t
have food and drinks ready to serve in time for the event?
If your guests
showed up when your house was in this state, they probably wouldn’t be writing
home about your get-together, unfortunately.
Similarly, if you
try to attract traffic to a website without having foundational optimizations
in place, people are not going to stick around.
If you don’t have a
thorough content strategy in
place or are publishing poorly written content, users are not going to stick
around.
If you have a site
that loads at the rate of a tortoise or is not mobile-friendly, users will not
stick around.
This is so
important to Google that they’re launching the Page Experience
update to better measure how well each webpage serves the needs
of organic search visitors.
It needs to be that
important to you, too.
Your SEO house
should be in order, as much as it possibly can be, before you invite people
over.
3.
More Traffic Is Not More Valuable Than Conversions
The above two
points go into a bit of a classic debate between which is more important – more
organic traffic or more organic conversions?
There are many different
points that can be made on both sides of this question.
However, if you ask
me, I’d rather attract 100,000 visitors to a site and have 50% of them convert
(what a conversion rate, right?), than 200,000 visitors and 25% of them
convert.
The goal of an SEO strategy is
not merely to garner more traffic.
If we stopped
there, we would be eliminating one of the (if not the single) most important
aspects of the role of an SEO:
to drive more ROI for businesses.
If you are seeing
traffic increases but that traffic is not also improving conversion rate, you
are not truly achieving the best organic results.
4.
The Site Is Receiving Negative Press
Traffic gains can
happen for reasons you would probably rather avoid.
If your business is
under scrutiny or receiving negative press, going back to your client and
reporting that you saw an 80% increase in organic traffic MoM is not exactly
positive.
If a recent scandal
drew in a surge of visitors, you wouldn’t want to highlight that as a positive
gain to a client, and also try to claim that it was due to a solidified organic
strategy either.
Situational
awareness of what is going on from a more holistic standpoint is key.
5.
More Traffic Across All Channels Is Backfiring
If we look outside
of the organic channel, we can easily identify other situations in which it’s
not ideal to drive more traffic.
If you’re driving
website traffic through other channels, such as paid, to a site that is not
optimized – content, technical, or user experience – this can backfire.
Our counterparts in
PPC could be paying a higher cost-per-acquisition and driving more traffic to a
page that is quickly encouraging users to leave.
6.
Traffic Is Not Human or Desirable Bot Traffic
Paying close attention
to traffic sources and channels in Google Analytics is crucial.
If this traffic is
not from humans but spambots instead,
an increase in traffic would not be a positive movement in this case.
It’s estimated
that 37% of website activity is created by bots, and less than
half of this bot activity is legit.
Spambot traffic is
a type of traffic that is generally illegitimate traffic sent to a site that
skews and inflates traffic data.
See How to Filter Out
Referral Spam in Google Analytics to learn more.
7.
You’re Wasting Valuable Resources
Sometimes,
increased site traffic can strain your resources. You might have a really solid
informational piece of content driving a ton of traffic, but if it’s not
relevant to your audience you can end up with unintended consequences.
This goes beyond
server issues to very real cost of frontline staff and customer service agents
having to field calls, emails, chats, and in-person inquiries from people who
aren’t likely to become customers.
Ensuring that the
leads you’re driving from search are relevant and high intent is important,
too.
Drive
Value, Not Just Traffic
Not all traffic is
the same. Not all traffic is meaningful.
While driving
traffic to a website is a fundamental aspect for search engine optimization,
that should come with a caveat.
Driving quality
traffic to a site is a fundamental aspect of search engine optimization.
Reporting on
traffic increases that ultimately contributed no value – no engaging content
piece that attracted more users, no optimization improvement that leads to more
conversions, etc. – is not a value-add.
The quality of your
traffic and the actions they take need to be top of mind in every optimization
you make.
Written by Natalie Hoben