Positive percentages in web traffic may seem like SEO success on the surface. But there is so much more to consider when it comes to website analytics, search results, keywords, and how website visitors are interacting with a website. To get the true picture of what is happening, dig deeper. After all, what good are website visitors who view one page and then bounce?

Dig deep. Numbers don’t lie.

Example: Recently, a client was showcasing how much growth and traffic that their website had done and it was quite amazing. It was 70%, which sounds great! But when digging deeper to see the next important number, more is revealed. The numbers actually showed that they also had a 70% bounce rate.  Taking it even further, website visitors were viewing fewer pages and spending less time on pages. Therefore, they were not getting many conversions in the way of forms filled out or phone calls resulting from this website traffic (which is what really matters!). Ultimately the traffic only amounted to 0.07% growth.

It’s not good traffic when visitors aren’t spending time on a website in a meaningful way. Good traffic data would show that users are clicking through to other pages on the website. Visitors who spend a little time clicking through a website are more educated about products and services. Good traffic leads to interactions. Visitors who view one page on a site for a short amount of time and leave with no interaction can’t be considered potential future customers or clients. Attributing an increase in website traffic to better SEO is not a good way to view the data.

Correspondingly, it’s not a good idea for marketing teams to solely use individual keywords as a metric to rank SEO success. Regardless of the keyword, you want to see it improve, however, there are many other factors. From the perspective of the search console, one key word’s ranking is not a direct source of SEO health. Google has changing algorithms that track how individuals search the web and interact with content. People have different search behavior and search history.  A more accurate way to view search data is to look for improvement in a group of subject-related or service-related keywords. What really matters is driving traffic to complete the goal of your website: form fills, phone calls, and sales.

Relevant, website traffic leads to conversions. Conversions are what really matters because that’s what will start a conversation and gain business.