Website traffic is an important metric to consider when you are looking at the effectiveness of your website and marketing efforts.
The question of how much website traffic someone should get is one we hear often, but it is important to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all answer for that. Every business is different and there are lots of varying factors that need to be looked at to work out what good website traffic looks like.
These are some of the factors that can affect how much traffic you can expect:
- The industry you’re in
- Seasonality
- Uploading new content
- Current trends
- Marketing efforts
As you can see from this list, there are a lot of varying factors that can impact your site traffic and make it impossible to accurately suggest a blanket number of website visitors that you should be getting.
What is more important to look at is the quality of the traffic that you receive, rather than just the amount. So, let’s explore some things you can look at to determine if you have high-quality traffic.
1. Bounce Rate:
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors that go on your website, but leave without actually doing anything, such as loading a secondary page. Typically a high bounce rate is bad and a low bounce rate is good, however this does depend on the purpose of your page. For example, a blog page is more likely to have a high bounce rate because people leave once they have the information they need. If you are trying to get conversions, such as having people buy a product from you, then having a high bounce rate isn’t ideal because you want people to explore your website more. Work out what your goals are for your website, then check your bounce rate. Once you know what you want from your site visitors, you can work out what your bounce rate needs to be. Read this article If you want to know more about what bounce rate is.
2. Returning Visitors:
The average percentage of returning visitors is about 30%. That means that anything less than this isn’t good. It is true that the majority of websites will have more new visitors than returning, and this is good because you always need to bring in new customers. However, having returning visitors means a more engaged audience. If someone has been on your website before, and they come back, it means that they like what your offer.
3. Average Engagement Time:
This is the average time that users spend engaging with the content on your site. The longer someone spends on your website, the more interested they are in what they’re viewing. Ideally, you want someone to spend at least a couple of minutes looking at your content. If you notice that your site visitors aren;t engaging for long, then try adding some visuals such as videos, infographics and images etc. The more engaged someone is, the higher quality the traffic.
4. Conversion Rates:
Arguably, one of the most obvious and important indicators of traffic quality is the number of conversions you get. The average conversion rate is just above 2%. So, if your traffic seems on the low side, but your conversion rate is 2% or higher, then you are getting high-quality traffic to your website. There are some things you can do to increase your website traffic, and these will hopefully increase your conversion rates too if you are struggling.
As you can see, it is less about the amount of website traffic you get, and more about the quality of traffic. Understanding what your audience wants is key in drawing in high-quality traffic and boosting your website’s effectiveness.