When It Come To Traffic - Is Less Actually More?

[Lee]

I was just chatting with a friend on ICQ about traffic and specifically, how when they seem to get less traffic to their sites, they actually have much better conversion ratios and end up making more money in the long run.

Compared to when they have a huge boost of traffic, they were saying that they actually notice conversion ratios dropped and the value of each sales int he long term drop as well.

I started wondering if this was due to that increase of traffic not being 'organic' in the sense that whilst a site may have lower levels of traffic, typically those surfers will have found there own way to the site in question looking for the type of content being offered whilst to get a significant boost in traffic it typically means that those surfers are coming from general sources with no specific niche or content in mind of what they want to purchase.

Do you think in some instances that less traffic can actually work out better for a site owner, especially when the traffic they are getting is organic in nature and not gained from upping their submissions to TGPs or directories?

Regards,

Lee

[DrChango]

If it is a case of misdirects, I could totally see that happening. If someone is looking for, say 'big cock', I could see that going totally wrong for them. They could be looking for big dicks on Thai lady boys and end up getting gay big cock, conventional straight big cock, big fake cock, black on white big cock gangbang, etc etc etc (imagine that last bit as Yule Brenner from the King and I). It would totally not be what that surfer was looking for, but it would still be a 'big cock' link, in which case it was increased traffic but 'empty' traffic.

[maxx68]

I would think that if your traffic is organic and niche specific to your site then, yes...however, I would think that perhaps even someone who gets to your site by mistake, may find something they like.

[Fister]

My experience is that search engine traffic and archive traffic converts much better than "new listing" traffic.

[Teaser]

When I think traffic, I think of the adage:

Quality over Quantity

Quality niche specific traffic will convert better than tgp/mpg/etc quantity traffic.. just my 2 cents...

[Alex_Manifest_M]

When I think traffic, I think of the adage:

Quality over Quantity

Quality niche specific traffic will convert better than tgp/mpg/etc quantity traffic.. just my 2 cents...

AMEN! In the words of Edina Monsoon "I don't want more stuff, I just want nicer things!"

[DirtyNick]

I definitely think less is more.

In my experience very few people try to actually see keywords that they get sales on. Most people are looking to rank for general high traffic keywords with the assumption that just having more traffic = more sales

Instead sites should be using analytics to see what keywords they receive sales on then monitor positions for those keywords in the SERPS and optimize accordingly