Optimizing for website traffic is dumb

It can be tempting to try to optimize your website to get more traffic, because with all things being the same, more traffic will lead to more sales. The problem is that all things are never the same.

We’re seeing a world lately where the best optimized website and marketing plans are seeing less traffic but more sales. If you can get things more targeted, you’re far better off focusing on that than just trying to outplay Google and steal a few more clicks.

In a recent post and video on the SparkToro blog, Rand Fishkin summed this up perfectly related to differences in marketing today. He said:

“ And so the big differences, two big differences. One, optimizing for traffic is straight up dumb. It it’s just a bad idea. It doesn’t make sense. And number two, the way to improve is not to get more visits to the website, which was the way that we sort of pounded on things in in 2012.

The way to improve is to improve your marketing and the experiences people have off of your website. “

That’s the key. Marketing today is about doing all of the right things off of your website, so that when people visit your site they’re already on your side.

Customers are increasingly doing their research on other places (social media, ChatGPT, in-person conversations, etc) and then searching for you specifically on Google and pulling up your site near the end of their research journey. Your website is still a vitally important piece of this process, but it’s not the starting point and “more traffic!” shouldn’t be your top goal.

What should the top goal be for your business? It varies for everyone, but reach out if you’d like to talk through it a bit.

Originally published at https://www.mickmel.com.