There's something that needs to be made blatantly clear regarding the internet: One million unique visitors that spend less than one minute on a website and do not return is not really "traffic."
I hear so many companies (and you know who you are) that throw out these lofty, excitable "numbers," as if they're pulling in a large, coveted audience, but that is the equivalent of a million people driving by McDonald's every thirty days, taking a look, and not one going in to order a sandwich.
Just ask about session times and repeat visitors and the tune quickly shifts. It's one of the giant fallacies of "Web 2.0." Not only is it time that executives become aware of it, but for internet business overall to do something about it.
It starts with analytics. Numerous articles have been published stating that there is no one truly accurate analytics source online, and that common tools like Alexa and Compete are widely said to be flawed. Yet, somehow, we still hear countless executives, journalists, and especially bloggers cite them when making analysis. Worse, I can not recall a single article to date that has included a site's session times and repeat visitors though it's very important. It's not just about how many users, but what the they're doing, too.
On top of this, traffic can be, and is, engineered. Things like slideshows and other "strategies" can falsely increase numbers. Want to know how a site has a million unique visitors with less than a minute session time and no repeat returns? Here's your answer.
Technologies like video, RSS and Ajax can skew numbers even further.
But, perhaps far greater of a problem are our expectations. Advertisers, M&A, investors, etc., falsely believe that all sites should perform at MySpace levels, which is ludicrous. Not just because of the numerous flaws in current site analysis, but also because it is unrealistic. In the print media world, Time Magazine may have a million subscribers per month, but the top performer in the telecom niche is just 50,000. I don't believe it'll be any different with the web.
Niches online need to have their own benchmarks and be compared to them, not the big, general appeal sites that nab larger audiences. It puts unrealistic pressure on site owners, makes it difficult to attract revenue and drives the business of faking traffic.
The sooner we, as a whole, begin to understand this, the easier it will be to make money and do business online. It's already been reported by many sources that a number one hindrance to advertising dollars online are these kinds of flaws in the system, but few seem to talk or do anything about it.
The first step to fixing the problem? Awareness.