Why your web traffic might not matter.

When I help small businesses and individuals with social media, one of the first things they tell me is, “Our web traffic is horrible.”

And sometimes it is. Sometimes, something is broken and needs to be fixed. But more often than not, they’re just looking at the wrong number.

The problem is that we hear big web numbers like “Facebook has 300 million users,” and then we get depressed or overwhelmed at how small the traffic to our thing is. “I’m only having a 1,000 people visit my HVAC company website every month.” Or “I’ve only had 50 people on my personal blog this month. There are hundreds of millions of people online and I’ve got 50 visiting me each month.”

That’s depressing because in that scenario we measure our success against the rest of the Internet. That’s a huge data sample and I think it might be the wrong one. What if instead we concerned ourselves with finding the right people for our site, instead of just the right amount of people? What if we said, “There are 1,000 manufacturers that I sell my HVAC equipment to. And if I have 100 of them visiting my site each month, I’ve got 10% of the audience!”

Also, when we focus on gross traffic numbers, we sometimes get immune to the individual lives that can change from the things we share online. A single person who has his or her life rocked by what you post might be 100% of the people who needed that message.

Create your own definition of success when it comes to your blog or website. Custom design your definition based on who your audience actually is. “Everyone online” isn’t your audience. You’ve got a handful of people who need your content. Focus on that handful and the masses will come later. Focus on the right people not the right amount of people.