The post Is All Traffic Created Equal? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Face it, if you want your online business to succeed you’re going to need a steady stream of traffic. However, there are crucial differences in the quality of traffic across the internet that could have an even larger effect. Some people believe that driving traffic to your website is purely a numbers game. However, the quality of your traffic matters much more than the quantity. In this article we’re going to explore the differences in quality of web traffic and what it means for your business and success of your website. What Is Quality Traffic? Quality traffic is composed of visitors who are actually engaged with what you’re offering, browse multiple pages, and spend a decent amount of time on your website. Essentially, they are going to make up the backbone of your revenue, as these people are also more likely to buy what you’re offering, or at least sign up for your email list. These visitors should be the core focus of your business as your work actually resonates with them. Often, the amount of quality traffic flowing into your website will be low compared to other forms of traffic. However, if your business was built to serve everyone it would probably end up serving no one. This differentiation in your business allows you to more effectively serve a small group of people in deeper ways. To sum up, quality traffic will have qualities similar to your ideal visitor. For instance, they will be a regular visitor to your site and hopefully a champion of your work. What Is Low Quality Traffic? Low quality traffic doesn’t bring any positive advantage to your website other than increasing the amount of visitors to your website. The typical traits these visitors will embody includes only stopping by your website once, not viewing multiple pages, and barely reading the page they landed on in the first place. It’s not a good idea to focus your traffic efforts on this type of traffic, as it won’t do much to increase your bottom line. Usually, these traffic spikes come from instances when your content goes viral, or your website gets featured on a site like Reddit or Stumbleupon. The high-volume traffic you get from these sites usually won’t do much to increase your sales, or number of subscribers. Although, you don’t want to discourage traffic from these sources it doesn’t make a lot of sense to focus your traffic generation efforts on these high volume sources alone. Focusing On The Wrong Traffic Metrics When it comes to digging through your traffic metrics you’ll want to make sure you’re looking in the right place. After all, it’s easy to get caught up in vanity metrics, forgetting the real data that can actually be useful for your business. For starters, the total number of visitors you have per month isn’t crucially important. What is important is the sources where your traffic is coming from, and the bounce rates that are associated with each source. The bounce rate is the percentage of people that come to your site and leave very quickly. So, if you have a few traffic sources that have very high bounce rates you’ll want to diminish your efforts on those sources. Your best bounce rate scenario would be a high traffic source with very low bounce rates. Another metric you’ll want to keep an eye out on is the number of users that are returning to your site time and time again. Although, it’s always good sign that new visitors are coming to your site you’ll also want to take note of how many people are returning. Traffic doesn’t have to be a mystery. By focusing on the right metrics and sources of traffic you’ll be well on your way towards fine tuning a traffic strategy that works. Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/17893072@N00/4475333077/ web hosting