What type of traffic are you driving to your website?
A single snapshot of your traffic numbers rarely provides a complete picture. There are key differences between traffic that converts and visitors that fail to take the desired action.
So what considerations and tactics are involved in attracting traffic that generates revenue?
This post will examine the significance of defining your target audience, the difference between information keywords and buy-in keywords and customizing the visitor experience to enhance results.
As we delve into the topic of web traffic, we need to know our customers. We need to understand:
– What an ideal customer looks like
– What our target market consists of
– Where our customers come from
– A view of the entire picture
If you’re looking at your marketplace then you need to know who your ideal customers are. This has to go deeper than just focusing on gender or age. It’s much more specific than that.
We want to make sure that we understand who is coming to our business to make the purchase and where they are coming from. There are a lot of different ways that people are finding and connecting with you. Some examples include:
– Digital Marketing
– Print Marketing
– Traditional Media
– Promotional Product
– Trade Shows
– Word of Mouth
The most effective way of establishing contact with customers will be dependent on the type of business that you own and whether it is based online or has a storefront. Once you determine who belongs in your specific target audience, then decide if you want to focus on bringing in new consumers or established customers that are looking for new products or upgrades.
As we delve into the topic of new online traffic coming in to your website, it is important to differentiate between keywords that are used for research and keywords aimed at making a purchase.
These keywords will come into play when you’re trying to get traffic to your website. Let’s say that you have a site that sells dog accessories geared toward the “luxurious” canine lifestyle. Think little dog purses and tiaras and the like.
So you have different types of people that are looking for your website. These people might be searching for “dog products” but that type of broad term is not likely to convert. When someone initializes a search, they tend to start with a more general keyword or phrase and then narrow it down from there.
Although it’s great to be able to show up for those broad terms, most of the time the people behind the search are only in the information gathering phase and do not intend to buy.
They are trying to figure out exactly what they want before they commit to anything.
For example, someone might begin the search process with the term “dog purse” and after some research and poking around they begin to search for a “pink Pomeranian dog purse with silver studs.” This process may begin to wrap up over the course of an hour or the course of a week but this is where we get into buy-in keyword search.
This is the type of traffic that converts and this is the traffic that you want to show up for in organic search, paid search, social media, etc. All traffic is not equal and we need to get in front of the traffic that is going to generate revenue.
Where are you getting the bulk of your website traffic?
Whether it is through organic search, direct navigation, social media or paid ads it is something that should be taken into consideration. Once you get people onto your site, you want to be able to give them what they are looking for at the start of their time there. You only have a few seconds to capture their attention and begin to build engagement so it’s critical to present the goods up front.
Trust is a large factor here. When they get to the website, they should immediately be seeing what led them to click through to the page. So if they are doing a search for a “Pink Pomeranian Dog Purse with Studs” then we should be taking them directly to the page that displays this rather disturbing item.
Customization involves considering where your traffic is coming in from and tailoring the page to appeal to that specific type of visitor. For example, someone that has clicked through to your site from a Facebook post will likely be interested in different content than a visitor that found you through organic search. This also applies to referral sites and various types of paid traffic.
So for instance, let’s go back to the luxury dog product website where we determine that the traffic consists of several different types of dog owners, which include:
– Sporting Dogs
– Sheepdog and Cattle Dogs
– Hunting Dogs
– Terriers
– And owners of toy breeds
While these groups are all interested in luxury dog products, their specific needs will vary according to their style and the type of dog they own.
If you have a visitor that clicks on an ad for designer clothes for pugs and found this ad on a site about pirate culture then you have a couple options. You could direct them to a page for general designer dog clothing, a page displaying accessories made for pugs or a landing page that features designer pirate pug clothing.
By catering the content to specific segments, the likelihood of converting traffic into a sale is increased significantly. Answering your visitors’ questions and delivering content that meshes with their interests is critical to get that traffic to convert into revenue.
