Good And Bad Traffic: What You Can Do

Let’s assume that you already have a massive volume of traffic going to your site or blog, and you’ve done everything you can to achieve such amount of visibility.

Let’s say also that you are very happy now that your site is popular, and every effort that you poured on to your site is paying back a hundredfold. With that amount of traffic, are you really getting what you should get?

Having a ton of traffic to your site has its advantages and disadvantages. Among the most probable value in relation to your traffic is that, at the cost of heavy usage of bandwidth your web hosting company has gave you, at least you get your site popular enough and going.

But the advantages of traffic to your site are far more enumerable, that is, at least you should take the study of a good and bad traffic into consideration.

What is a bad traffic (and what then is a good one)?

To give you a quick understanding of a bad traffic, it simply means that your visitors aren’t doing anything useful enough for your site’s benefits.

Good and bad traffic is largely measured by the bounce rate given on a particular page, for example. Bounce rate, just in case you missed it, is the percentage rate of your visitors who plainly visit your page without doing anything else.

Among the available actions that they can do to your post or page like subscribing, sharing, signing up, and other actions, all that they do is just drop by that site and take off with only a trace of a visitor count.

It means that you don’t get a real subscriber. You don’t get a real customer or fan. It’s like a hardware store when people just come and go without buying anything and without saying anything. Or you may put it, it is like a TV where viewers only flick through channels without staying on one channel or program and watch.

Technically, a higher bounce rate doesn’t always imply a bad result. Traffic in itself is good, and even if they only do a ‘bounce,’ they at least had a chance on your site. The question now is, what chance are you giving them?

Blogging – Again

Especially if you are a blogger, you may be sticking with the idea that more content or more posts means more and better chance of winning the competition. It means that you have more resources to offer to your visitors in need or in pursuit of something. And of course, the larger database means you get a more established website.

All those things are presumably right, but there’s something you might have missed: for every post you have, you must have a specific goal in relation to your website as a whole. Most bloggers fall on the trap of simply making articles and posting them, and leaving the value of the article on the article itself alone.

Let’s say that, yes, a visitor has finally found an item they are looking for, but is it that all? Aren’t you expecting them to sign up or continue scanning the other posts and pages of your site?

In short, aren’t you making them feel welcome and get them engaged?

Listed are some of the actions you may want or expect your visitors to go into after reading a post of yours:

1. Subscribe to newsletters
2. Sign-up for free membership (and even paid membership)
3. Check or read other related articles
4. Buy a product, or at least, take a free trial
5. Share the website or a particular post (especially via social networking plugins)
6. Link their page to your particular post or website
7. Bookmark a content
8. Send an e-mail, make a call, or simply checking your company on Google Maps

This is the measure that you must meet in order to lower down the senseless bounce rates that you are getting every time in exchange for some real benefits like more page views and of course, extra income. Again, bounce rates in general can be good or bad, but it all depends on what you offer to keep them engaged and hence not bounce to anywhere else.

Bad traffic indicators

Below listed are some of the probably hints that what you are getting in volume is not really what you are looking for:

1. Basically, you get visitors, but they don’t go to other pages or posts within the same site or page.
2. A high bounce rate
3. People read your posts, but they don’t do anything, least like sharing them on social media sites of which links you have already provided every after.
4. If you have newsletters, they don’t subscribe before, in the middle of, or after reading or scanning your post.
5. If you have an open membership database, they do not show interest even if you have a page ready to show off the benefits of being a member.
6. People who have subscribed to your posts whether via newsletter or RSS end up unsubscribing. Worse, they might even ask themselves why they subscribed at first.
7. Page views gets ‘isolated,’ meaning only specific posts get specific number of visitors. There’s not a contagion on a popular post for keeping visitors scanning other pages as well.
8. Organic/search traffic, together with referral traffics, do not convert directed visitors into regular visitors or subscribers.

Quick help tips to get more good—and proper—traffic

1. Keep them engaged. Starting with your everyday posts, your articles must keep the viewers reading them, and within that span of time or after reading, allow them to look for what else might be interesting on your site. It starts with a great website design or layout, a catchy headline and a strong introduction, or you might want to include images in between a couple or paragraphs aside from the image before the beginning of your article.
2. Quality over quantity. Do not simply aim for a large database of contents with a lot of categories, niches, or topics; aim for quality as well. The very first valid reason one would like your post is simply because you have given them value by offering valuable resources. Be sure that your articles are up to date, are easy to read, scannable, concise but rich, and of course, original.
3. Be on their benefits. Be sure that what you post is not simply narrating your errands for the day or talking too much about what you offer, but you also give them what you think may be beneficial for them. Remember that your visitors come in order to gain some amount of benefit, so you better not miss this part.

   You may also want to keep them coming back by offering them other resources related to your particular post. If you are talking about a product, you may want to provide them a trial, screenshots, a digital brochure, a free mobile app, or even other stuff like free downloadable items such as e-books. A freebie, a limited-time offer, a promo may also help.

4. Allow interaction. You may want to always make your comments section available. Other options include an on-page section for contacting you or for asking support or questions. Lastly, of course, you must always make those social media plugins working.
5. Work on funnelling visitors. Of course, if you have an article, you don’t want to stop the interaction by the ones mentioned above. How about you make sure that each and every article you post will give visitors the intense need to subscribe to your mailing list? Another great move here if you are open for memberships is that, you only offer a partial of what they can benefit, and the full benefits will only come when they sign-up.

   In short, just make sure that when your visitors crowd a post of yours, they’re going to do something else that is beneficial to the other pages of your site, or to your website as a whole. This is the action factor that you must not miss when drawing traffic.

6. Use links and anchors. As much as possible, every article you post should contain links to your other articles or contents as well. You may want to include a ‘see also:’ section right after the title of your post, just to make sure that your visitors are properly guided before they continue reading, and you can also conclude a post the same way.

   Be sure also that the links to the other related articles are not listed too far to be off-sight. Links leading to other pages should at least be opened directly on another tab or window, but not within the same page. This is to ensure that readers can compare contents without any hassle, and can continue reading while the other page is currently being loaded.

   If you are selling something or writing reviews about products, you may also want to ensure that there’s a separate page for comparing other related products. A comparison chart, a link to a separate article talking about a related or competing product can help.

Conclusion

The best way to make sure your visitors are really good visitors is to ensure they are happy with what you provide day after day. If you leave them satisfied with their query, if you have provided them answers comprehensively, and if you have offered them the ‘extra miles’ like freebies and other beneficial offers, you will surely have a lot of loyal fans to keep your site earning.