Should increasing website traffic be your key SEO goal?

Here at Pumpkin Web Design we are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals. We provide a wide range of website solutions and SEO services across Preston and the North West, from Southport to Wigan, and even Manchester, and we work with a wide range of companies and  businesses, in a variety of sectors. As a result, we have produced this guide to everything you should know about website traffic and SEO goals.

What is the link between SEO and website traffic?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website for better performance on search engines. From claiming your business listing and putting your company on the local search map, to pushing your company to the top of the search results, SEO can bring a number of advantages for your company. And it is often believed that the key goal of SEO is to drive more traffic to your website.

Should increasing website traffic be your key SEO goal?

So, when it comes to SEO should the central focus be to increase traffic to your website? Well, there are advantages to this, including:

• Increasing visibility- by increasing traffic to your website you increase the company visibility and even brand recognition.
• Increasing sales and sign ups- logically, an increase in traffic will lead to an increase in sales and sign ups

But increasing traffic to your website is not always best for business. In fact, making an increase in traffic the central aim of your SEO strategy can be the wrong decision, especially if this neglect other factors.

How can increasing website traffic be bad for business?

Increasing the amount of traffic to your website with effective SEO strategies is not always good for business. In fact, in some cases this can have a negative effect, including:

• When the user intent is not considered-  driving traffic to your website is great for you, but what does the user experience? If people are landing on your website expecting to find information or details, they may not be willing to jump straight in and purchase immediately. And vice versa. And if your website does not provide the type of information, or content, that the website user is looking for, they are more than likely to leave, almost immediately. This creates a high bounce rate for your website and can mean that you miss out on the potential of the increased traffic. As a result, it’s essential that your SEO attention also take into account the user intent surrounding particular search terms, and that this works cohesively with your content marketing strategy, to meet the user intent at all stages of the process.
• Poor web design- similarly to the above scenario, a website that is poorly designed, not functional and does not look professional will also experience a high bounce rate. Driving more traffic to this website, without making any changes, is definitely not the best option for your business.

For more information about SEO, traffic, content marketing and web design, get in touch with the experts today, here at Pumpkin Web Design.