600+ Visitors a day after 6 months, can you do it?

[Kinsel]

So since the Penguin update the clients of the company I work for have gradually been losing traffic and money. Noone (except for me) has noticed this yet and connected the dots.

Yesterday we all get called in to have a bollocking and the manager asks the head of our department if he would be confident of being able to get 600+ visitors a day to an 'average website' that has just started up, to which he replied 'yes'.

Since I started here back in February there has not been a single new client that has been able to gain that many visitors (many have not gained even 25% of that figure), which in the post-panda and post-pegnuin world, I find completely understandable.

When I first started here they were using SEO 'tactics' which people used to employ 5+ years ago and didn't even use exact match keyword data.I have had a few talks with them about how SEO has changed over the last few years and they still don't seem to understand that it is now significantly more difficult to gain traffic using SEO than it once was.

If you were asked about the same question, thinking about the 'average' client you might get, would you be confident enough to guarantee that at the 6 month mark they would be getting 600+ visitors a day?

[Debdulal]

_I can understand your pain. It seems most of the online marketers are oblivious of the fact that the traditional link building things do not work anymore. Now, as they do not know anything other than spammy link building, they are adamant on following those cliché techniques even at the expense of losing visitors and courting penalty.

Yes, it is almost next to impossible for a website to get as many as +600 visitors per day unless the website is producing share worthy content or have some great tools under its sleeves. Now, this will take really long time and the client needs to spend money to build a great website._

You need to talk to the clients. Make him see how things have changed and why it is impossible for you reach that target. Tough call indeed.

[activitysuper]

Doesn't this totally depend on the industry the client is in? 600+ visitors a day is a lot of visitors and some areas may not even get 600 'Relevant' searches a day.

[EGOL]

If you were asked about the same question, thinking about the 'average' client you might get, would you be confident enough to guarantee that at the 6 month mark they would be getting 600+ visitors a day?

If I was allowed to "pick" the topic of the site and worked on that site full time, I am pretty confident I could do it.

However, if the client was a plumber or dentist in Bugtussle, WV then I don't think that there are 600 relevant queries in a month so the answer to your question in that case is "it's impossible".  Now, we could slap up content to deliver lots of irrelevant, low-quality traffic, but for genuine traffic that is relevant to the business owner, it just isn't there.

If I was working at this place I would be looking for another job.  They don't understand the core of their business.  They are going to crash and burn.  They don't know what they don't know.  Bail out!

[DougRoberts]

You really can't commit to raw numbers like that. (Even if "visitors" was a good way to measure success on its own!)

People forget that the pool of real prospects out there is not "the entire internet!" Not everyone is looking for your offerings and things like geography, seasonality etc get in the way...

Even once you've narrowed down your range of realistic prospects, you need to factor in the competition!

But - does the client really need 600+ visits a day? I've worked with some who will tell you that a few extra relevant visitors a month is all it takes to drive through another sale - and that more than justifies the creation of a new piece of content or outreach activity.

Without understanding the cost of acquisition, the conversion rates and the conversion/goal value how can the customer know that they're getting value for money...

Does your head of department have 600+ friends he can call on?

[DukeTanson]

The simple answer to this question is yes you can get 600+ visitors to your site. The real issue is the type of traffic and the method you employ getting that traffic. You need to look at your industry, level of competition, your current etc, more like a SWOT analysis.

If you fly blind then you might attract traffic that is not related to your product of service, get high bounce rate and zero benefit to the business.

Its all about having a plan and executing it very well.

[waynekolenchuk]

Visitors is an SEO stat that your company can show to the client as proof of effort, but doesn't necessarily mean much in terms of the customer's business. Fewer highly targeted visitors can provide a better return than a large number of poorly targeted visitors. I'm working with a company now that had fairly high site traffic as a result of a PPC campaign, but almost none of these converted into customers. Their traffic is now about half of what it was, but consistently generates leads for them.

[Webrevolve]

Egol is correct. This doesn't sound like a company i'd want to be working for yet alone paying money to look after my online interests. One good point of this company is you, in that you are wise enough to instantly spot the flaws in what was asked by the manager and in what was promised by your head of dept - no doubt in a panic.

This not only puts unrealistic pressure on him/herself but also on the employees reporting to the manager. All in all i'd take Egols advice and bail.

It sounds like its all too desperate based on lack of knowledge. Things arn't going right, so they pluck a figure out of the air and promise to hit it - they should be asking the guys for a brainstorming session to pool ideas and generate some realistic goals to acheive.

Hitting 600+ could be possible, as mentioned if the search volume is there then why not? But how will it be achieved, where will the visits be from and will they add value to the business(s)?

This could be an opportunity for you within the company to demonstrate your understanding of the situation and current landscape and prove your worth. Or seriously consider moving on.