The topic of website traffic is quite popular in conversations about website growth. It’s not hard to see why. Numbers are clear to understand, easy to compare, and can instantly show whether there is an increase of people visiting your website. However, you can get more traffic while failing to build a stronger presence on the Internet. On the contrary, another website can develop rather slowly but manage to build a better recognition and establish more connections in the online world.
When you start looking beyond the analytics dashboard, it becomes evident how traffic isn’t capable of describing how a website grows beyond its immediate audience. References from other sites become part of that process, especially if you take into account website authority and connections between websites. BacklinkSense describes this relationship from an SEO perspective, but it also helps emphasize an important distinction between traffic growth and a growing presence on the Internet.
Different Sources Produce Different Traffic
Ten thousand visitors don’t mean the same thing in all cases. For instance, a random mention on a popular social media account can give a significant boost of traffic for just one or two days, while search visitors may gradually increase during several months.
Referral traffic is another example of the situation when the source of visitors gives additional information. Referral visitors have found something that led them to the website, direct visitors can be familiar with it, and newsletter subscribers have decided to stay connected with it.
All of these visitors become visible in the analytics, but their stories are different. Analyzing traffic sources can say more about website development than the growing number of total visits.
Recognition May Happen Gradually
Not every change brings more visitors right away. For instance, a good article may become a subject of discussions and references from other websites. Search visitors may gradually become direct visitors because of the growing familiarity. And the website may begin associating with a particular topic due to new content being published.
This process may go unnoticed, and there might be no spikes in traffic. However, after several months, the website becomes different from what it used to be.
This can be especially true for niche websites. They may never need a huge audience like big news publishers. Being known to a smaller group of people interested in the subject can be a growth in itself.
Visibility of the Website in Searches Also Develops
Searches are another example of why measuring only traffic can be misleading. A website may begin to appear for more search terms without increasing number of visits because of them.
Individual pages may become visible for more terms, new content can become visible in searches, and existing pages may become visible for topics that they cover.
It will be difficult to notice such changes if you focus only on the number of visits. Impressions, visible pages, referrals, returning visitors – each of them can give a different angle at what happens while website develops.
Connections Formed Around the Growing Website
As the website is building itself up, it also begins to connect to more places. The articles may be referred by other publications, discussed in communities, shared through social media, or recommended directly by other readers.
Not every connection will lead to the traffic. Some connections may send only a few visitors. The importance of them may consist of placing the website into the environment where the relevant people discuss the same things.
That’s why website growth is rarely a perfectly straight line. Your website can become visible in one area and stay almost unchanged in another.
Growth Is Better Visible as a Whole
Traffic is still an important metric. Websites created for readers, customers, or communities need to have people visiting them. The problem with traffic is in using it as the indicator of other aspects of website development.
A bigger picture becomes visible when the traffic is analyzed together with the discoveries, returning visitors, search visibility, references from other places, and connections that form around the website.
The traffic shows how many visitors came. Website growth shows the long-term story of how your website becomes easier to discover and becomes more established in its place of the web.
