WHY INCREASING WEBSITE TRAFFIC IS SO IMPORTANT FOR SMALL BUSINESS

No matter where your business is based, consumers rely on search engine results for everything, from groceries to furniture to doctors and everything in between. That means ranking for those results and generating increased website traffic is crucial to the success of your small business enterprise. The days when a potential customer would flip through the smudgy lists of the Yellow Pages are long gone. Today, your next customer is scrolling through their phone, tablet, or other mobile devices to quickly find internet search results to help them decide where they’ll spend their money next.

What is Website Traffic?

Simply put, website traffic is the number of people who visit your website.

It includes

• The individual pages visitors click on and view, and
• The duration of time a visitor spends on each unique page.

Every time someone goes to your site, it will record

• The visit;
• Any links the visitors clicked;
• Any other activity visitors took.

All of these numbers — visits, clicks, duration of visit, purchases — are added up to provide you with an understanding of how popular your website it.

And Why is Website Traffic So Important for Small Business?

If your website isn’t attracting visitors, all of your information is ignored on the information highway, never to be found by potential customers. Every website needs traffic. You may build your site well, but if you aren’t getting new visitors, you won’t benefit from getting customers or generating sales.

Without a steady flow of steadily increasing website traffic, your business will not be able to survive.

Three Reasons Why Website Traffic is Important

1. By generating website traffic from targeted users — people interested in your service or product — you can generate more revenue;
2. Increasing website traffic from targeted users means they will stay on your website longer and will be very likely to refer your site to family and friends;
3. When a visitor spends more and more time on your website, the odds of their signing up for your newsletter or promotional emails increases, and that allows you to market your goods or services to them long-term.

How Do You Increase Website Traffic?

There are several things you can do to increase your website traffic, including

• Always have high-quality images and content on your website;
• Update your content regularly, ideally once per week;
• Connect your site to social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter;
• Optimize your content for search engines, perhaps the most significant determining factor when it comes to long-term online success.

Not All Traffic is Good Traffic

It’s a common misconception that any traffic to your site is a good thing, but that’s not entirely accurate. It’s important to understand you aren’t trying to attract just anybody to your website, you’re working to attract people to your site who are interested in what you have to offer. In other words: your ideal audience. By doing so, you’ll be increasing your conversion rate i.e., converting visitors into potential customers and potential customers into paying ones.

In the short term high traffic, from a generalized audience is fine, but if you’re looking for longer-term success, you need to increase your targeted website traffic.