Photo
by PhotoMIX Company from Pexels
By Jim Hingst
In
this article, Jim Hingst describes the various traffic sources that visitors
use to find your website. Hingst explains what traffic source data can tell you
about the success of your digital marketing strategy.
Web
analytics is a program that collects data tracking what happens on your
website. The most popular web analytics tool is Google Analytics. This tool not only provides comprehensive data
on web activity, its best feature is that it is FREE.
The
information, that web analytics tools display, provides you with a snapshot of
what works and does not work on your site. Some of the data that web analytics
tools collect include:
●
Overall website traffic.
●
Traffic sources (such as search engines, and links from other sites)
●
New visitors to your site.
●
Bounce rate. (This metric records the percentage of visitors that leave
after viewing only a single webpage. A low percentage indicates that visitors
view multiple pages, which increases dwell time and suggests that you are
providing content that visitors value.)
Types of Traffic Sources
Google
Analytics tracks traffic sources, which are the routes that visitors use to
find your website. Tracking the sources of your website
traffic can tell you which marketing efforts are moving the dial with your
target audience. In also provides you
with an insight on the improvements needed to make your digital strategy more
effective.
Whatever you can do to improve the volume of traffic to
your website, you will stimulate interest in your product offerings and
generate leads that turn into sales. No one single traffic source provides the
surest route to attracting new customers. The best approach is to have a
balance among these sources.
Website
traffic comes from four major sources:
●
Organic Search Traffic. This refers to how much of your website
traffic comes from search engines. Organic search traffic provides you with a
reliable barometer indicating how well your SEO strategy is working. While you
should strive for a good mixture of traffic from all search traffic sources, organic
search traffic is key in growing a broad audience of potential buyers.
Much
of the traffic resulting from searches depends on three key factors:
(a) Choosing
the right keywords that aim at a select segment of your target audience;
(b) Creating
relevant and comprehensive content that provides website visitors with
answers to their searches; and
(c) Providing internal
links and organizing your site to allow visitors to easily navigate from
one webpage to another. This reduces bounce rate and increases dwell
time, two critical factors in search engine ranking.
●
Referral Traffic. Traffic that results from backlinks,
which are external links from other websites to your site. Search engines weigh
referral traffic highly in their ranking, because it indicates that your
content is regarded as relevant and authoritative.
Referral
Traffic is not quite so easy to develop, because it relies on backlinks from
other sites. Next to keywords and content, backlinks from authoritative sites
are a sure way to dramatically grow site traffic.
Relying
on others to link to your site on their own is often a fruitless gamble. Instead,
a better approach to proactively seek links from reliable websites in your
industry. That means that you need to contact authoritative websites in your
field, that have linked to other sites, including competitors and businesses selling
to the same target audience as yours.
Keep
in mind, that if you want others to link to your site, you must publish the
most useful and thorough content in your industry. In some cases, you may also need
agree to publish on another’s site as a guest blogger.
●
Direct Traffic. Direct traffic measures visits resulting from users
typing your website address into their browser. Because most of your visitors
will land on your home page, it is critical that you provide internal links
allowing them to easily navigate your site and find the content that delivers
answers to their questions.
If
you provide users with unique content and reliable and relevant answers,
visitors will return to your site and you will develop a loyal following. All
of your printed materials, such business cards and brochures, should include
your website address.
●
Social Traffic tracks traffic from social media
platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Other important social media platforms
include Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Social
media is an important and effective source for generating website traffic. Those, who feel that this source is free, do
not factor in the time you and your employees invest in creating content for
these social media platforms. If you want to build significant social traffic, you must actively
participate by posting regular updates and engaging with followers on the
various social networks. That takes time, which you need
to account for the time in your marketing budget.
Make
sure to include links from your posts to your website. What makes social
traffic so valuable is that a high percentage of social visitors read your
content and frequently return to your site. In addition, more than 1/3 of these
people, on average, are new visitors.
In
addition to promoting your content on social media platforms, such as Facebook,
you should use email blasts to help build website traffic. Using ConstantContact I would regularly broadcast a monthly newsletter to my dbase of 13,000
contacts. Immediately following my email blast, I would notice an increase in
traffic. Also get into the habit of including a link to your website on every
email that you send.
Developing
a Content Marketing Plan
Choosing
Keywords to Improve Search Engine Results
Building
an Email Marketing List
Writing
Webpage Headlines that Improve Traffic
Incorporating
Social Media in Your Marketing Plan
