5 different types of website traffic you can't afford to not understand

 

As the name suggests, this is the most simple and direct form of website visitor. This is traffic that visits your site directly by entering your web address into the browser.  

 

It comes as a result of good brand awareness and is usually repeat traffic from existing customers. Increases in direct traffic usually come as a result of greater brand awareness including business cards, sign writing, and print, and as such it is very valuable if often low in quantity moreover, sometimes a generic domain name can also increase direct traffic. 

 

 

 

This is when people find their way to your site through external links located on other sites on the web. This could be in the form of a press release or a link in an external blog or even just times you’ve been quoted answering a question online in a forum, for example.  

 

To increase your referral traffic, you need to be producing content that other people feel comfortable quoting or mentioning on their own websites. Try and get your site mentioned on industry specific sites or partner with other relevant companies and your links will be relevant and help you in the search engines or get your site mentioned on third party review providers.  

 

However, Google can penalise low quality links which can undo all your hard work, so be careful when and where you are posting your links. One good link is worth far more than low quality links from bad sources. Learn to measure the behaviour of anyone using these links and you can gauge the quality of the referral traffic. 

 

This is when people find your site through an online web search. The best way to increase this form of traffic is through search engine optimisation (SEO), which is an online marketing strategy that aims to boost your page rankings on Google and other search engines. One of the main ways of doing this is through high quality content, which the Google bots assess and rank.  

 

Therefore, it’s well worth making sure your site is up to date, with fresh and good quality content so it is more visible. Organic traffic is the reward for doing everything else that search engines would expect a good website to have done. So don’t expect it instantly if you are the newest kid on the block! 

 

As you might expect, this is traffic driven by social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The more followers you gain, the more site visits you can expect. It’s worth spending some time trying to engage with potential customers on social media platforms. It’s an easy and cost-effective way of opening up another traffic channel. 

 

Lastly, there are options where you can pay to boost your web traffic through online tools such as Google Ads. This allows you to directly target relevant keywords and demographics and is essential in highly competitive markets.  

 

Seek appropriate advice when using pay-per-click (PPC) - the learning curve to the point of creating a campaign that generates you a strong return on investment is steep and often likely to be expensive without expert advice.