How to analyze traffic dynamics in the topic
In addition, you should understand what happens to the traffic not only of your web resource but also of this topic as a whole. A drop in demand for a certain car brand will also affect traffic.
For falling and rising niches, completely different approaches to promotion are needed. After reading this article, you can:
- identify the expected traffic in the topic;
- analyze the quality of traffic on the website on key points;
- assess sales seasonality and traffic trends in a niche.
How to determine the expected traffic in the topic?
If we are talking about a commercial portal, the volume of traffic in the subject directly depends on the demand for goods by customers. To understand whether the offered services or products are of interest to users, it is necessary to analyze the frequency of requests for the relevant key phrases.
For this purpose, the semantic core was originally assembled. But over time, if you did not update it, the numbers may change.
Demand is checked with the help of Google Ads.
How to find out the demand for a product in Google


If your key requests do not have traffic or it is small compared to past performance, then the overall dynamics of the niche is declining. If you see that the demand in the niche is growing, but this does not affect your traffic, there are problems on the website.
Therefore, after this analysis, proceed to the next step and evaluate the traffic quality that arrives at your web resource. It is not profitable for a commercial project to receive 100,000 non-target visitors who do not make purchases if it is not a special promotion. Therefore, the quality and quantity should be correlated in a favorable way for business.
How to check the traffic quality on the website
The traffic quality is estimated collectively. It means that you are analyzing a set of options that, in general, allow you to "make a diagnosis" regarding the traffic on your website. To start the analysis, use Google Analytics.
Next, look through the basic settings that are mentioned in the article. Your task is to compare these indicators with the previous period, to evaluate the changes for your niche.
Bounce rate
If your traffic grows in an annualized period and the bounce rate also rises, it means that people who visit the website do not receive a satisfactory answer (or it does not match the request).
To get Bounce Rate report, go to the menu on the left, in the "Behavior" section, there you find "pages attendance analysis." In the upper right corner of the report, change the date range and select "Bounce Rate" as it is shown in the screenshot below:

The average duration of visit
Long sessions are not always good for business, it all depends on the niche. If customers spend too much time on your website, they may not find what they are looking for.
If you use data from the client about the average time on the site in the tourism industry, where it is expected that potential customers will read information about the proposed travel options, then a growth rate of 10-15% will be considered as a positive trend.

Pages / Session
If the average number of pages viewed decreased in the annual period, it might mean that you have assessed the shopping algorithm or search navigation on the website and changed them for the better. It can also mean that people are not interested in landing pages. Accordingly, it is necessary to update the site content and make some changes to the navigation.
This indicator is influenced by many factors, so it is important to conduct a thorough analysis. If you have recently added a contact phone number to the website, you may find that people only need to see one page to call.
The example of tourism, an increase in the average number of pages viewed by 1% per annum will indicate an increase in the traffic quality. Visitors enjoy the content and consume it with interest.

New visits
It is always important to examine and compare these numbers with the previous ones, to make sure that your market is rising, and to determine whether you need new promotion methods to attract new customers.

Trends
To assess the dynamics of traffic, a special tool Google Trends has been developed in Google search. It is free and easy to use. Follow the link and in the active field. enter a query that matches the subject. Do not forget to set the region in the upper right corner:


What is more important: quality or quantity of traffic
Suppose you use conversion tracking, combined with traffic quality indicators. If you see additional traffic arriving on an annualized basis, and your conversion rate also increased, then you are on the right track.
If you find that you get more traffic this year, but your conversion rates are lower (or below expectations), it would be wise to delve into the quality of your traffic and analyze the main differences in the options for the year that is described above.
Conclusion
Even if you observe a positive traffic trend, spare the time to evaluate the quality of traffic. Empty traffic that doesn't bring sales to business loses its value, if you don't grow a website for sale or don't plan to monetize it otherwise.
Rising and falling niches have different strategies of SEO-promotion, so it is very important to monitor the current situation in the market.
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