by Alyssa Ast

Google’s new Panda platform now has people focused on their web traffic more than before. All website traffic is good traffic, right? Not always. Irrelevant web traffic can actually hurt your website. Basically, irrelevant web traffic is heavy or bulky traffic that goes to your site. Often, irrelevant traffic causes you to have a high bounce rate on your site. Some people actually prefer irrelevant traffic instead of relevant traffic because it means more visitors. However, in my opinion, relevant traffic is better because it means people are finding the information they want on your site and it’s of some value. Plus, you will have a lower bounce rate, which is great for search engine ranking.

Relevant vs. Irrelevant Traffic

Irrelevant traffic is often caused by keyword stuffing. The traffic that goes to your site is often accidental. People stumble onto your site when searching for other information, which causes them to instantly leave your site, in most cases. Relevant traffic are the visitors who find your site to be valuable. They find what they are looking for on your site and often return back to your site in the future. Relevant sites often have relevant traffic, such as niche sites; whereas, sites without a theme or certain topic have difficulty maintaining relevant traffic.

Decreasing your irrelevant traffic

To decrease your irrelevant traffic, the first thing you need to do is take a look at your website. Does it contain valuable information in a search engine friendly fashion? Is it easy to navigate and properly optimized? Don’t stuff your content with keywords. Make sure the keywords are applicable to the content on your site. A higher search engine ranking will increase your relevant traffic and decrease your bounce rate. Use an Analytics program to check where your traffic is coming from and which web pages your traffic is landing on.

You can also make sure your web traffic is relevant by link building and posting direct links to your site on appropriate sources. Social networking is a great way to accomplish this. Of course, you don’t just want to throw your links around everywhere you find a place to put them. But, if you’re on a site that’s similar to yours ask the owner for a link exchange. Place your links on your social networking sites, such as Facebook and Google+. By simply interacting with people who have an interest in the topic of your site you will increase your relevant traffic.

Do you know where your traffic is coming from? Which is more important to you, the amount of traffic you receive or the relevancy of your traffic?