Is Viral Traffic A Good Thing?

Hasa1015 Level 1

August 6, 2016, 11:04 am

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Is Viral Traffic A Good Thing?

I am sure you are all aware about viral posts on social media and how useful they can be for some people, but is it really a good approach? One of my websites is in a particularly viral nice and some posts on the site can fetch 30,000 views, which looking from the outside is great but personally I think there is more to it than just traffic. So we have been using Reddit to get a lot of our traffic as our site is fantastically popular in a community like that. What we have found is that our posts have gained a lot of popularity, but a lot of the Reddit community is just scanning over the article and then going back to Reddit, instead of doing what I want and clicking on other articles. This has done a lot of good in one way because the traffic has been around 80% US, however the average session time and bounce rate have been horrific. From promoting on our Facebook page we have seen a lot less traffic but they are more interested in the site. They stay for longer, go onto the next article, come back later etc. So my question to all of you is, should I stay with this viral traffic, or should I forfeit the high numbers for more high-quality, returning visitors?

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anwebservices

anwebservices

I don't think that traffic from viral posts on social media networks can do any harm to your website. I understand your concern about high bounce rates, but that's not key to loose some kind of rating. I guess most of other bloggers would LOVE to have this traffic and make their posts on social medias viral, which is not so easy nowadays. As long you have natural / organic traffic, it's good. i know you looking for better conversions, then you have to find a way to engage your visitors somehow. Test different features for engagement until you win.

9 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

I have found that my bounce rate with social media is quite high, all social media including Reddit.

The best social media traffic I receive is from Pinterest and Twitter. I don't get as much traffic as I do from Facebook but it is better quality traffic that stays on my website longer and they view more pages so my bounce rate is much lower.

I have also been worried about the quality of my social traffic. I don't think the problem is with my content though because my organic traffic is excellent for all my websites.

I guess the nature of social traffic is they see something they like and click on it. Organic traffic and paid traffic like Adwords your readers are searching for your content. Social traffic are people that are just messing around online not looking for you.

It makes to me sense that social would have a higher bounce rate and less conversions.

8 years ago

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N0VA

N0VA

If you compare viral traffic with traffic gained through seo techniques,
You can get huge amount of viral traffic within a short time period, but you'll have to wait longer if you try seo techniques....
When you come to stability, viral traffic is not much stable,that means the rate or the traffic can go down , on the other hand seo traffic is much stable..... and getting viral traffic is easier and cheaper than getting seo traffic...
But the traffic and your site rank gained by both methods are unpredictable because since seo traffic depends on the algorithms used by search engines and viral traffic uncontrollable.
So since there are both negative and positive effects, better think a bit before making a choice.

8 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

For me, traffic is traffic as long as it it legit and not done by bots. I don’t really understand why viral traffic is defined as such. But anyway, since any legit traffic cannot harm your website, I think it would be good because the number is growing and that matters most when it comes to evaluation of your website.

7 years ago

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augusta

augusta

I work with what is best for my site and financial account if the viral niche brings more money I will say stick with it for the monetary aspect because you might Change now and lose out. Concentrate and focus on that which you're sure of than testing out.

7 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

Viral traffic is very good because in short time you are able to get massive traffic. However, the main thing to consider is the conversion rate. You are getting 10K hits every day for your certain post, but if there is no engagements on your post (comments, likes, shares etc.) or conversion (ad clicks, sales, leads etc.), then the massive traffic is just a number. You should focus on getting traffic that converts.

7 years ago

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