Organic Traffic Increased, but Sales Didn't

Titans

Titans

Elite Member
Jr. VIP
Joined
Oct 20, 2013
Messages
10,069
Reaction score
1,669
Consider this hypothetical situation:

A store receives more organic visitors this month, but completed purchases remain unchanged.

Before blaming the SEO work, I'd investigate the journey:

Search query → Landing page → Product view → Add to cart → Checkout → Purchase

Where does the biggest drop occur?

I'd also verify analytics tracking, product availability, shipping costs and mobile checkout functionality.

This separates a traffic-quality issue from a website-conversion issue.

More visitors can be encouraging, but the next step is understanding whether they are reaching the right pages and completing the intended actions.
 
Advertise on BHW
Absolutely. More traffic doesn't always mean more sales. Checking each step of the conversion funnel helps identify whether we're attracting the wrong audience or losing potential customers due to website issues. SEO and conversion optimization need to work together.
 
Good point about the funnel check, Rank Master — that step usually tells you fast whether it's the traffic or the site. One thing I'd add is checking which pages the new visitors actually land on, since blog traffic and product traffic behave very differently. Do you look at the landing pages first, or the checkout steps?
 
Exactly more traffic doesn't always mean more sales. I'd compare landing pages and search intent first then check where users are dropping off. Sometimes the SEO is doing its job but the website is losing customers.
 
check if the traffic is coming through tofu keywords then the conversation might be low focus more on bofu keywords to get more sales
 
And one more thing is where the traffic comes from too. For example if the product deliverable to one country and the traffics comes from different country is also affect the sales
 
Check if the traffic is coming from TOFU keywords, as those visitors may not be ready to buy. Focus more on BOFU keywords to bring in people who are more likely to become customers.
 
Titans said:
Consider this hypothetical situation:

A store receives more organic visitors this month, but completed purchases remain unchanged.

Before blaming the SEO work, I'd investigate the journey:

Search query → Landing page → Product view → Add to cart → Checkout → Purchase

Where does the biggest drop occur?

I'd also verify analytics tracking, product availability, shipping costs and mobile checkout functionality.

This separates a traffic-quality issue from a website-conversion issue.

More visitors can be encouraging, but the next step is understanding whether they are reaching the right pages and completing the intended actions.
Click to expand...
Nobody who knows what they're doing would blame the SEO for such a situation. SEO is for visibility, discovery and reach. If it already drives customers to your site, you should figure out a way to convert them. You already listed some of the important steps to take.
 
Titans said:
Consider this hypothetical situation:

A store receives more organic visitors this month, but completed purchases remain unchanged.

Before blaming the SEO work, I'd investigate the journey:

Search query → Landing page → Product view → Add to cart → Checkout → Purchase

Where does the biggest drop occur?

I'd also verify analytics tracking, product availability, shipping costs and mobile checkout functionality.

This separates a traffic-quality issue from a website-conversion issue.

More visitors can be encouraging, but the next step is understanding whether they are reaching the right pages and completing the intended actions.
Click to expand...
I agree with Rank Master.
 
One thing nobody mentioned yet is to segment the new visitors in GA4 or whatever you use and compare them against the old ones, because a traffic bump is often just a pile of informational blog visitors who were never going to buy. I had a similar thing happen where sessions went up like 30 percent and the extra traffic was nearly all from one how to article with a 90 percent bounce, so the funnel looked broken when it was really just the wrong audience. Also worth checking if the jump is real people at all, since a weird spike with near zero time on page can be bots or some scraper and not actual shoppers. If the right pages are getting the right visitors and they still drop at checkout, then its usualy a boring thing like shipping cost shock or a payment method missing, and no amount of SEO fixes that. Celebrating the traffic graph while revenue sits flat is a classic, the graph is very pretty though.
 
Titans said:
Consider this hypothetical situation:

A store receives more organic visitors this month, but completed purchases remain unchanged.

Before blaming the SEO work, I'd investigate the journey:

Search query → Landing page → Product view → Add to cart → Checkout → Purchase

Where does the biggest drop occur?

I'd also verify analytics tracking, product availability, shipping costs and mobile checkout functionality.

This separates a traffic-quality issue from a website-conversion issue.

More visitors can be encouraging, but the next step is understanding whether they are reaching the right pages and completing the intended actions.
Click to expand...
With what you shared your targeted audience is the issue
 
The key thing to consider is whether the increase in traffic comes from people who are actually looking to buy. You also need to evaluate the quality of your products or services and whether your prices are competitive.
 
compare conversion rates by landing page and traffic source.sometimes organic traffic grows because of informational keywords that bring visitors who not ready to buy. that doesnt necessarily mean seo is failing but it does show whether the content is attracting potential customers or just increasing visits.
 
AI bots are crawling a lot for scraping product descriptions and prices. So, it could just be bot traffic. The regular users also visit multiple recommended pages to compare products for primary research. They might later purchase if you offer better value. So, we can't do a direct comparison.
 
Titans said:
Consider this hypothetical situation:

A store receives more organic visitors this month, but completed purchases remain unchanged.

Before blaming the SEO work, I'd investigate the journey:

Search query → Landing page → Product view → Add to cart → Checkout → Purchase

Where does the biggest drop occur?

I'd also verify analytics tracking, product availability, shipping costs and mobile checkout functionality.

This separates a traffic-quality issue from a website-conversion issue.

More visitors can be encouraging, but the next step is understanding whether they are reaching the right pages and completing the intended actions.
Click to expand...
I would find out what searches are driving the additional traffic to my site first because there re times when my rankings improve for information based searches but I receive no qualified traffic from my money pages.
 
There have been cases where websites have received a lot of organic traffic but failed to convert these visitors into buyers. It's often not a traffic problem but rather a case of targeting the wrong audience or failing to develop the proper conversion process. I would do this before increasing traffic further.
 
An increase in traffic does not always equate to increased sales. There are instances where the traffic may be visiting your site to acquire information but have no intention of buying at that particular moment. I would start by looking at search intent, landing pages and the purchase process.
 
You should target more buying related keywords. As it depends on quality of traffic
 
Total sales can stay flat even when organic revenue grows. For example, SEO might bring in more orders while paid traffic brings in fewer. I'd check purchases and revenue by channel before deciding whether the extra organic traffic is converting.
 
Advertise on BHW
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sign up now!

Main Menu

Home Main Forum List Black Hat SEO White Hat SEO BHW Newbie Guide Blogging Black Hat Tools Social Media Downloads

Marketplace

Account Selling Content / Copywriting EBooks / Methods Hosting Misc Proxies For Sale SEO - Link building SEO - Packages Social Media Social Media - Panels Web Design More

Making Money

Affiliate Programs Hire a Freelancer IM Journeys Making Money Pay Per Click Site Flipping Want to Buy

BlackHat World

Dispute Resolution Forum Suggestions & Feedback Introductions Lounge
Back
Top