Manoj Jasra is a Senior Web Analytics Analyst at Enquiro. He recently wrote a post entitled “Predicting Potential Website Traffic” where he is thinking through the variables needed to accurately predict organic web site traffic (just as a reminder—organic traffic is the non-paid part of the traffic that comes to your site).

He notes that there are a handful of different elements that can come into play, including Keyword Search Volume, Search Engine Market Share, and Competitors. It’s a good list and contains many of the elements we typically use to help clients with their keyword analysis and web reporting.

While useful, accurately predicting organic traffic would be quite difficult for a number of reasons, including the fact that some of the variables (e.g., incoming links) are very complex. An incoming link from a highly-trafficked site will yield significantly more visitors than a link from an obscure blogger. But Manoj’s point is well taken—a more formulaic approach to estimating organic traffic would be of great benefit, especially when launching a new web site.

The good news is that if you have already installed web analytics on your site and have reported on that data regularly, you’ll have more than a clear picture as to what your organic traffic should look like. And with that data, you can see what causes fluctuations in it, as well as compare it to your Pay-per-Click campaigns, affiliate advertising, and other web marketing channels to see how each of them are performing against each other.

Relevant Links: Predicting Potential Website Traffic , Enquiro