When it comes to website traffic, it’s easy to think that more is automatically better than less. After all, the more people who see what products or services you’re selling, the better, right?
Not necessarily! Although traffic quantity is important and something to strive for, quality web traffic is much more likely to result in conversions.
Ideally, you’d like to see both quantity and quality when it comes to traffic. Higher quantities of traffic increase your company’s online visibility and help facilitate better brand awareness. Higher quality traffic means you’re finding an audience that, more often than not, is interested in what you’re selling.
So, what is quality traffic? This blog not only answers that question, but also shows you how to tell if your you’re experiencing traffic problems and how to get more quality web traffic.
What Is Quality Traffic?
High-quality website traffic is traffic that matches the persona of one of your ideal customers or clients. Any website visitors who can be considered quality traffic are likely to meet the following criteria:- They’re Interested in Your Content
Even if your website is attracting quality traffic, that doesn’t mean every visitor is ready to make a purchase; visitors can be at any stage of the flywheel. Many visitors may still be in the infancy of their search, so they’ll need more information before making any purchasing decisions.
This is why having a bevy of helpful product and service pages, as well as an informative blog, can be so beneficial. Your content will attract high-quality traffic and it will keep these visitors on your website longer. - They’re Looking for a Product or Service You Offer
Engaging content is essential for attracting quality traffic, but it isn’t a guarantee. If a business sells arborist equipment, for example, it may attract visitors who are looking to hire an arborist to cut down or trim a tree on their property. These visitors may find the website’s content interesting and useful, but they’re likely not interested the products it is selling.
So, for traffic to be high-quality, it must also mean visitors are looking for products or services you offer in order to solve an issue they are having.
If both of the above criteria are met, the traffic your website is getting is more likely to convert and can be considered high-quality traffic.
How to Tell If Your Traffic Is Quality
Now that “What is quality traffic?” has been answered, you may have another question on your mind: “How can I tell if my traffic is quality?”Before we jump into the answer to this question, it’s important to note that every website is different. There are some good general benchmarks to target for certain website stats, but it’s best to set your own benchmarks. (Not sure how to set benchmarks? We cover that in our blog: How to Run an Inbound Marketing Campaign.)
Having said that, here are the best ways to tell if your website traffic is quality:
- Pages Per Session
Pages per session is a metric that can be found under the “Audience” section of Google Analytics, and it is useful for determining if your website is generating high-quality traffic.Pages per session is an average of how many pages each visitor views while browsing your website. It’s calculated by taking the total number of pageviews and dividing it by the total number of sessions.
This metric is very useful because it shows how useful and engaging visitors find your website. If someone visits your website and it isn’t at all what they’re looking for, they will likely leave immediately. If someone visits your website and is interested in the content and your products/services, they are more likely to visit multiple pages.
So, the higher your website’s pages per session metric is, the better. Generally, you want to see a number at or above 2 pages per session, but it’s best to set your own benchmark and work on improving it from there.
If you want to take things further, you can also dig into the pages per session for different traffic channels such as email, social media, paid search, and organic search. You can review these metrics in Analytics through Acquisition à All Traffic à Channels.
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Average Session Duration
Average session duration is another metric that is useful for measuring the quality of website traffic. It can be found in Google Analytics in the same locations as described in the pages per session section above.
Ideally, visitors should not only navigate to multiple pages on your website, but they should spend at least a few minutes there as well. If someone quickly navigates to three or four pages and then leaves, it likely means they couldn’t find what they were looking for or they didn’t find your content engaging or useful.
Again, what constitutes a good average session duration will vary from website to website. Over 2 minutes is usually a good number, but you should look to establish and improve your own benchmarks.
Ultimately, you’ll want to focus on both pages per session and average session duration to help deduce the quality of your website traffic. If visitors are regularly visiting multiple pages and taking the time to engage with the content on your pages, that’s a good sign that your traffic is quality.
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Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is another useful metric for assessing the quality of your website traffic. This metric measures the percentage of users who visit your website, do absolutely nothing, and then leave. That means they don’t click on anything – not even a “read more” button or other internal page links.
Your bounce rate can be found in the same ways as the pages per session metric described above.
If your bounce rate is very high, such as over 70%, that is usually a cause for concern. That would mean that seven out of every 10 visitors are leaving without interacting with your website. On the other hand, a bounce rate that is very low, such as below 10%, that is also a cause for concern. That could mean there is a tracking issue that is causing inaccurate results.
Generally, a good bounce rate is somewhere between 40% and 60%.
If your bounce rate is too high, it could mean that your content is not engaging or that you’re not attracting the right audience. However, it could also mean that visitors are immediately finding what they are looking for and then leaving.
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Conversion Rate
This last metric may seem obvious, but it’s the ultimate way to tell if your website traffic is quality. What constitutes a “conversion” may differ from website to website, but this generally refers to purchases, signups, completed forms, or a similar desired action.A conversion is whenever your website visitors take the desired action. Your conversion rate tells you what percentage of your visitors are taking the desired action when they navigate to your website.
You can manually tack this by comparing the number of visitors to the number of purchases or completed forms in a certain time period. However, you can also set up goals in Google Analytics to track your website’s conversion rate automatically.
If you’re not familiar with setting up goals in Analytics, watch this video: How to Set Up Goals in Analytics.
Once you have goals set up, you can review their conversion rates in Analytics by going to Conversions à Goals à Overview. Create your own benchmarks to track your performance over time. You should strive to see conversion rates of 2% or higher.
How to Get More Quality Website Traffic
If you know your business well and the metrics discussed above look good, then your traffic is likely high quality. However, if you’re not happy with the quality of your traffic, there must be a disconnect you’re overlooking:
- You Haven’t Properly Identified Your Customers
If your traffic isn’t high quality, then you need to take a closer look at your products or services and your ideal customers. If the metrics show that visitors aren’t interested in your content or your products and services, then you’re marketing to the wrong people.Take a step back and look at your customer base. What problems are your products or services solving for them? What are some pain points they’re frequently experiencing? Think about what your customers are searching for and turn your website into an oasis for them.
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Your Content Needs Work
If your website traffic is not quality, that could also mean your content isn’t as good as you think. Even if you get the perfect customer to visit your website, they could leave without converting if your content and messaging aren’t up to snuff.
If your bounce rate is high and your average session duration and pages per session metrics are disappointing, you could have a content problem on your hands. You can also get more specific by reviewing the “Behavior” tab in Google Analytics to assess how visitors are interacting with individual pages.
By navigating to Behavior à Site Content à All Pages, you can see how visitors are interacting with different pages on your website. If visitors are spending 30 seconds on your blogs, for example, that means they’re not reading or engaging with the content you’re producing.
Every page on your website should serve a purpose. Your content needs to answer questions visitors have and show how your products/services resolve pain points. If your content is sparse, unpolished, and unfocused, how can you expect it to drive conversions?
If you’re struggling to attract more quality traffic to your website – or if you’re still asking, “What is quality traffic?” – you can always ask PIC for help. PIC is a full-service Internet marketing agency with over 20 years of SEO expertise as well as content development and website design and development services.
Relying on our proven Walk With You Marketing strategy, we will work with you to identify your traffic quality issues and create a solution that drives results. Contact us today to learn more.
