You’ve been working hard to optimize your company website for search engines using the keyword research that your marketing specialist has done for you.
You’ve been writing blog posts on a regular basis, and you’re sending out a robust email newsletter to drive more traffic to your website.
You’re even using paid media like Google AdWords to get more website traffic.
Finally, your efforts are working, and you’re starting to get an uptick in visits to your website. But after you’ve completed all of that hard work... I’m writing today to tell you that website traffic doesn’t matter.
You Can't Get Leads From Your Website Without Qualified Visitors
Having evaluated hundreds of B2B marketing campaigns and websites, one of the largest areas of opportunity I see is getting more leads.
As a marketing leader in your company, you have lots of tools at your disposal to get more eyeballs. But what happens when they get to your website?
As I teased in the introduction, a general boost in “more” website traffic doesn’t matter; qualified website traffic matters.
As a marketer, I would much rather see 20 qualified website visitors per day than 100 unqualified website visitors per day. And to reach that goal, you can’t simply boost your marketing efforts anywhere and everywhere. You must make strategic, consistent choices that build profitable traffic and focus on metrics other than website visits.
Look For Action, Not Attention
Here are two important questions you need to answer in order to decrease your overall traffic and increase your qualified lead traffic:
- Do you know the exact number of leads you get from your website (can you measure it rather than taking a guess)?
- When your website traffic increases, does the amount of qualified leads increase as well?
The vast majority of SEO firms are focused only on rankings and website traffic volume. The problem with this model is that it totally ignores what your website visitors are doing once they’re on your website.
Your company website’s #1 ranking for a word that is not commonly searched, has little relevance, or has little commercial intent isn’t going to help your business grow. A much better situation is when your website has a decent ranking for a highly-searched word your target customer uses when he is ready to make a purchase.
While I do personally advocate measuring website traffic, what really matters is what the people that visit your website do, which is ultimately how you’ll get new sales opportunities.
Whether you decide to outsource your SEO or do it in-house, be sure that you’re measuring the number of leads and contacts that you’re getting from your website traffic. If you see more visitors and more leads, you’re getting qualified website traffic.
What To Do Next
If you are going to get more qualified buyers to your website, you have to first define who they are. Need some help with this? Try our blog on how to create buyer personas for your company. Once you have these defined, re-evaluate the information on your website. Does it focus on the needs of your buyer personas?
How closely do you follow your website traffic? Do you measure it on a regular basis? How can you tell if your website visitors are qualified to do business with you?
If you need more relevant, qualified traffic for your website in order to start realizing business opportunities, click the following graphic to download our guide to attracting the right people to your website.
