So, Just Where Does Website Traffic Come from?

What is website traffic and where does it come from? To know how people get to your site, you have to know what site traffic is. Site traffic is the flow of people who come to your website. Visitors may come to your site for any number of reasons, but there are five main avenues that they get there: Direct, Referred, Organic, Paid, and Social. Let’s take a look at how each of these works.

Direct:

Direct traffic is when someone opens a web browser and directly types your URL in the address bar. This kind of traffic is dependent on a person already knowing your URL, and will often comprise mostly of return clients. For example, when Bobby Businessowner wants to know what services his friend is getting with IDM, he types: www.idm-pros.com into the address bar and lands directly on the IDM page.

Referred:

Referred traffic is when someone arrives at your page by clicking a link on another page. These may include traffic from news sites, reviews, or other blogs. Not all referral links are the same. Links from higher-ranking pages will create better SEO than links coming from Aunt Susie’s rarely updated recipe blog. Shoot to get links from major news aggregators and resource lists when possible.

Organic:

Organic traffic happens when a person searches for something in a search engine, your site is listed, and they click on your link. For example, your company sells pet supplies, and a Pat Petowner does a Google search for “Gluten-Free Dog Treats”, and your site pops up in the results. When Pat Petowner clicks on your link, that’s organic traffic.

Paid:

Paid traffic is simple. Paid traffic consists of all traffic that comes to your site as a direct result of clicking on a paid advertisement. When you buy an ad on a page such as a local news channel or a search engine, you are buying traffic to your site. Be sure to track this kind of traffic so you know how to best tweak it to get the biggest bang for your buck.

Social:

Social traffic comes from great social media. Great social media often comes from publishing great content on your site. Don’t be afraid to push out the same piece of content several times over social, especially on fast-paced sites like Twitter. Visual content always gains better engagement rates than text, so be sure to use pictures. Using good hashtags makes your content visible to a larger audience, and great conversion keywords like “Share Now!”, “ReTweet”, “Subscribe” and “Follow me!” call leads to taking action.

As always, great content is the best way to draw visitors to your site. Great content creates better traffic, which means more subscribers, which turn into better leads. Stronger leads become marketing-qualified leads, and those qualified leads become customers. Cover every angle, and bring visitors home through every door!