In my last post, I went over why quality traffic is important. In part two, I am going to go over five levels of traffic quality.
Assuming you have not only read, but understand why the quality of traffic to your website is so imperative. So what do I mean by “high quality”? I will explain what the various types of traffic targeting are and how you can increase the quality of each.
The first thing to do is determine your main conversion metrics. You won’t be able to determine the quality until you have something to judge it against. For example, if your main conversion is a sale, quality of traffic is based on how likely it is that a visitor buys. If your conversion is just brand awareness, then quality is based on how well the visitor fits into the target audience (demographics, preferences, etc.).
Free-for-all general traffic – low quality traffic
General traffic is the lowest quality and the least effective. This can be compared to taking out the white or yellow pages and just calling people and hoping you find people that are interested in buying your products or using your services. Since you don’t know who is going to be going to your website, you’re essentially taking a big risk by assuming someone is actually interested in what you have to offer. Conversion rates are very low and you’d be lucky to pick up a good amount of conversions going this route. An example would be advertising on the Yahoo homepage, general directories, and general non niche-specific sites.
This reminds me of my telemarketing days when I would be calling from a dialer, and those leads were expensive if they cost the company two cents a lead. I hated cold calling.
Tip: Avoid advertising on general sites whenever possible. There are a lot of targeted options out there that will give you a bigger bang for your buck.
Geographic & demographic targeting – great for a small business that only deals locally
Most small businesses only deal with local customers. So geographic targeting will be very effective. Depending on what your website is about and what your goals are, will determine if you want to target geographically. If you are a pet groomer that does grooming from home or on location, than you only want to target to pet owners in your local area. It would do you no good to target pet owners nationally.
If you have a website that gives tips on outdoor lighting, than your target audience would be affluent homeowners over 35 in your local area. The more research you do and the more granular you can get with your target audience, the higher the quality of your traffic.
Tip: Get involved in the communities of your niche and research the demographics of your audience. Once you have your target audience down, use Facebook ads to target people who would be interested in your offer. You can segment by geographic location, age group, marital status, education, hobbies, etc. Facebook is probably the best way to target a huge pool of people solely by location and demographics (who doesn’t have Facebook these days?).
Group targeting – good quality traffic
Stepping up from demographics, a better way of targeting your audience is to see where your potential customers are actually going online. For example, in the Internet marketing niche, there are a few sites that almost every Internet marketer at least knows about and visits. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and find relevant sites that you can generate traffic from.
Group targeting is basically an upgrade from demographics targeting because you know for certain that a person is interested in your topic. When you work only with demographics, you’re making a lot of assumptions that may not necessarily be true (e.g. not all 20-30 year old males like mixed martial arts fighting).
User intent targeting – great quality traffic
What are your customers looking for when they arrive at your site. Are you able to deliver? The best way of capitalizing on user intent is through the search engines. Since users type in search queries that reveal what they’re after, you can take advantage of this by optimizing for keywords that will bring in highly qualified traffic. For example, if you have a site that sells running shoes, which keyword would bring in higher quality traffic – “running shoes” or “red mens Nike running shoes”? Since the second keyword is more specific, the user is much more likely to buy and make you money. Search is an extremely powerful marketing channel, and you should be utilizing both SEO and PPC to capitalize on user intent and bring in qualified leads.
Adding user intent leads to higher quality traffic than group targeting because you not only know what the user is interested in, but you also know what they’re looking for (e.g. “outdoor lighting” vs. “pathway lighting in springfield, mo”).
Tip: Target specific high-conversion keywords to increase the quality of traffic coming from search (both SEO and PPC).
Opt in targeting – excellent quality traffic
Finally, the best type of traffic comes from people who already know about your site and visit often. These people typically arrive at your site directly through bookmarks, opt in to your newsletters, participate in the community, and frequently buy your products. This is the best type of traffic because it’s based on trust. These visitors like and trust you and will stay with you as long as you continue to provide good value.
The key to high quality traffic is to test, test, test. Use the 5 different types of targeting I listed above as a starting point and see what works best for you. Check your analytics data frequently to assess what types of traffic convert best. Your time, attention, and resources are very limited (like the space in your stomach for food) so you want to be sure that you get the most high-impact traffic possible.
