Companies spend a lot of time, effort and money creating and developing their web sites. They also spend additional time, effort and money promoting their sites so that people visit them. When it comes time to look at analytics, seeing positive page view metrics can be affirming. All the work put into the site or campaign seemingly paid off.
The important question is, what happened during those page views?
Encouraging people to click a link to something they’re already interested in can be easy, but what happens once they get to that page? Do they engage further with the brand? Do they become customers? Or do they feel like Ralphie from The Christmas Story as he deciphers Little Orphan Annie’s secret code?
When companies began focusing primarily on getting people to click, page view metrics lost their value. In most cases, visitors would arrive and then leave, because there was no reason for them to stay. Or, as this recent article in Wired states, “Quality became less important than provocation; the curiosity gap supplanted craft…the page view itself has been corrupted.”
As a metric, page views might be dead. However, they do represent the opportunity to connect people with quality content. Each page view signifies someone asking, “What’s this about?” Ultimately, it’s how the content they discover on that page answers that question that’s important. Good content can change the perspective on visitor metrics from page views to conversions, as it encourages visitors to dig deeper, to feel a connection to the company and to want more.
Of course, creating quality content requires work. Here’s a basic guide to follow for your site:
- Do an analysis of the pages you feel are the most important on your site.
- Does the content on those pages serve the visitor or simply your company’s interest?
- Rewrite them with empathy.
- Use stories.
- Make it easy to take a next step (ex. learn more, contact, sign up, buy)
Integrating SEO best practices with this content refresh not only helps in making your site favorable to search engines but also improves user engagement and satisfaction.
Regardless of how quality your content is, occasional updates are important. Refreshing your content is not only good practice for thinking and talking about your company, it also communicates to Google that your site is alive and growing (and Google favors those that are).
If you find that creating quality content is challenging (don’t feel bad, it can be), Rocket Clicks is always here to help.
Don’t let your page view number signify how many visitors you attracted and then lost. Use that metric to improve your content. For example, if you have one hundred page views and only one conversion, your visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for. If your content satisfies the need visitors have when they click, you’ll be rewarded in more ways than simply the satisfaction of your page view number.
