If you’re in marketing or online sales, you have most likely been pressured at some point about getting website traffic up. Maybe you’ve even obsessed about that completely voluntarily. I don’t blame you. We’ve been taught over time that website traffic is one of the most important KPIs in marketing. It is not.
In the long term, quality always beats quantity
It’s pretty easy to see why it makes sense to focus more on converting existing traffic than on trying to attract more visitors. Monthly website traffic may say something about brand awareness or how many people you’re reaching with ads, but the problem is that it has a weak connection to actual results and revenue.
You can look at website traffic in two ways:
“We need a lot of traffic to make sure there’s enough people on our site who are ready to buy.”
or
“Each website visitor is already at least in the interest stage of the buyer’s journey – let’s do everything we can to help them move forward!”
There’s an important piece of news hidden in the second one: it’s a strong indicator of interest that a person came to your site. In more cases than you think, you would be able to turn that person into a lead (if not directly into a customer) with great content and optimized conversion points.
The math is simple
Website traffic is great and, from a marketer’s perspective, there’s no such thing as too much traffic. But the big question is: what does the traffic bring with it?
Of course I’m not saying that all of your 10,000 (or however many) monthly website visitors are ready to buy. But if you’re currently converting 100 of them into leads (that’s 1%), then I’m absolutely sure you’re able to increase that number with a bit of focus on your conversion tactics. A 50% increase will get you 50 more leads. Think about that for a moment.
Do a couple of simple calculations with your current traffic, number of leads, hit rate and average deal size, and you’ll quickly understand how much there is to gain from improving your conversion rate. In contrast, think about how much more traffic you would need to achieve the same increase in leads – and how much that would cost you.
Your future customers agree
I’ll throw you one more point as food for thought.
By now we know that when someone visits your site, they’re not there by accident or just for fun (yes, B2B marketer, that never happens). These people are interested in what you have to offer. They want information, answers, heck, sometimes they even want to give you their money!
A good website gives the visitor a natural opportunity to do all that. It activates existing website traffic to take the next step on their buyer’s journey. A firm that obsesses over driving more traffic to the site will miss a lot of these opportunities, and potential customers will move on to the next vendor.
Improving your conversion and lead generation strategy is ultimately a service to your prospects and customers. By enhancing the customer experience, you make buying easier. It’s hard to argue against that.
Obsess over each encounter, not over an abstract total
It’s time to start treating website traffic as individual people with real interests and questions, rather than as an accumulated monthly figure. Instead of trying to increase website traffic, what if you started obsessing over the website’s ability to convert the visitors you already have?
It’s a fact that acquiring a new customer is more expensive than keeping an existing one. Would it then also make sense to do everything in your power to convert existing traffic rather than letting it slip through and then pouring more money into attracting new people to the website?
Do you want the website to be a quick pit-stop or do you want it to spark profitable relationships? Because that’s up to you.
