Getting Traffic but not exactly the right kind

[sddcouk]

I have a very specific question. My company is a provider of data destruction services. That means we go round destroying hard drives and other computer media. The typrical searches we are looking for generally tend to be hard drive shredding or data destruction. Its also the case that the data protection act is a relevant piece of legislation to what we do.

A short while ago our website was receiving significant number of visits relating to the data protection act. The reason for this is that the graphic we had on our site relating to the act came at the very top of searches for images on Google images. This meant that about 90% of the traffic or more to our site related to this one particular image. Given the fact that people searching for data protection act 1998 image would be unlikely to be interested in data destruction services we were unsure whether to take down a particular image.

The other side of the argument is that any traffic to your site, no was a greater quantity of it, could boost your rankings with regards to Alexa. However if you receiving a large number of the relevant visits is that really a good thing. Not knowing what to do, we finally took the graphic and de- optimised the page in question.

Does anyone have any opinions about what might have been done in this particular case. Thanks in anticipation

[nitro23456]

The 'irrelevant' traffic wasn't somehow preventing more targetted traffic so by removing the image youre not suddenly going to get more targetted traffic.

All you have done is decreased visits. You should have looked at how to utilise it not how to remove it.

[redalien]

By removing this image you will not increase site visits. If the site traffic was not causing any issues or problematic prospects I would have just kept it there. Of course it decreases conversion rates but thats about it.

[webgeek]

No idea why you care about Alexa. It has no bearing on actual traffic, leads or conversions. It's an ancient barometer totally unrelated to your top or bottom line.

There's lots of ways of getting high volume traffic that doesn't convert. Try pinterest, youtube and stumbleupon in addition to the image traffic you've already mentioned. Personally, I find these great for fluffing up stats, but irrelevant for revenue and profitability.

If you haven't already done so, make sure you have analytics with goals set up. You absolutely, positively, must know the source of your conversions if you are to allocate marketing resources properly. After all, there's no point chasing poor converting traffic when instead you can go after the sources which bring customers to the scene.

After you have the ability to paint an accurate picture of conversions, the next thing is to build campaigns which drive more of them.

If you don't have enough data to know, then try some paid search (free vouchers on Google and Facebook) and help figure out what keywords can bring you money. Do the ROI calculations and start paying for PPC on ones that convert and plan out an organic SEO strategy based on those successes.

Don't bother with junk traffic - instead go for the high ROI, high relevancy, highly targeted paid and organic, then move on to email (after you've started capturing leads from ppc and organic), and toss in a side order of social media for validation and exposure...

[sddcouk]

thanks for your collctive feedback. Clearly people searches for Data Protection Act images are most probably PAs or students who are not purchasing decision makers. I got rid of the image because I was fed up with them distorting my performance graphs.

[eventdomain]

Most people online are 'info seekers' eg: public looking for money saving deals consumer goods etc, so this traffic isnt for you.

Every site gets a mountain of irrelevant traffic, you cannot avoid it. There's only one reason for this - you and everyone else is reliant on and using the wrong traffic producing websites - simples! This reliance is helping drive business to Google- not YOU!

[ThinkTraffic]

As has been expressed above, you probably didn't need to remove the image.

Even if it wasn't relevant traffic, Google clearly thought a lot of your image and as such it might have been giving your other rankings a boost too.

The only good reason to remove or deoptimize the image would have been if the traffic spike was causing problems with your host, slowing down your site etc... (which I assume wasn't the case), of course even in that instance removing the image probably wouldn't have been the best solution.

Since you are fairly sure the traffic was not and would never convert I suppose it isn't a huge loss, but personally I would have gone and tweaked the content on the page where the image existed in an attempt to entice people interested in data protection to consider your services.

Even if only 1 in a thousand people stood a chance of converting, it was free traffic.

Better still, start an email list from that traffic by offering an e-course on data protection. You never know when someone on your list might have needed such services.

Anyway, I doubt it's a big loss to you, but those are some potential solutions for next time.

[sddcouk]

Hello

Thanks for your tips.

It transpires that googlebot has a thing for the images on my site. Its now starting to list other images - not to the extent before but significantly.

I am thinking about maybe putting a watermark on the images and getting users to get an un watermarked version by liking my company on Facebook, or similar. After all one of the data destruction images being lifted is a picture of our hard drive shredding equipment which are our copyright.

[bdw]

You could try changing the alt text on the images.

.

[ethanarcher012]

If you are not getting right traffic then there is problem with your targeted keywords, i would advice you search for your competitors and see the what keywords they are using. I hope this will definitely work for you.