A lot have been said about web traffic, every webmaster and blogger knows the important of web traffic to a website/blog. Without web traffic to your site, that site is as good as dead no matter how well designed it may look. There are different types of web traffic and also different sources, while some focus on one more than the other I will recommend otherwise in this article.
There are basically three different types of web traffic namely organic traffic (from search engines), direct traffic (when someone directly types your site address on the browser) and referral traffic (from links all over the internet). It is ideal to drive traffic to your site from all three different types/sources of web traffic because search engines see them differently and have different valuations for them as well.
Types of Web Traffic
Organic Traffic: Organic web traffic is the type of traffic that comes when your article is found on the search engines and followed to your site. This is the best form of web traffic as even Google and other search engines have confirmed. Organic web traffic is considered most important and often valued more than any other type of web traffic. It also has a higher CPC than the other types of web traffic named earlier in any PPC campaign.
How to get Organic Traffic: To get organic traffic you need to publish quality articles on your site, optimize them properly with good keyword usage. When you rank high on the search engine results then you’ll surely see a lot of organic traffic to your site. This type of web traffic requires a lot of hard work and takes time as well, but I assure you if you learn the intricacies of writing a post that will immediately appear on the first page of Google search result or any other search engine you will see how easy it is to drive traffic to your site for free.
Referral Traffic: Referral traffic is yet another type of web traffic as a result of the backlinks you have built all over the internet, when someone follows your link from another website to your website this type of traffic is termed referral traffic. This could be as a result of links you left via blog commenting, guest posting, social media sharing etc. Referral traffic constitutes the second/third source of traffic to my blog after organic traffic.
How to get Referral Traffic: Referral traffic as I explained is as a result of the links you left all over the internet as a result of blog commenting (especially on blogs with CommentLuv plugin), guest posts, social media shares etc. It could also be email signatures, forum signatures, link exchanges, content curation like from Scoop.it, from lists like List.ly etc.
Must read: Unusual Methods to increase blog traffic in 2013
So if you want to improve your referral web traffic then you have to take these things seriously, don’t concentrate only on your own site, help others promote their site by commenting, sharing and guest posting, that way you can attract same favor and the more links you have out there the better for you general site traffic. Remember not to spam as Google won’t hesitate to de-index your from their search engine. Please avoid all black hat SEO methods, concentrate on the types of link building strategies I have shared on this blog in the past.
Another type of traffic would’ve been the Social Networks traffic but most times its little and is easily parsed as referral traffic. But if you have a very active social media page, you can drive huge amount of traffic from there to your site. Do not ignore the potentials of the social media in promoting any brand or product in this case your website.
Direct Traffic: Direct traffic is yet another type of web traffic but not from search engines as organic web traffic discussed above. When someone directly types your site address on the browser address bar and hit the keyboard enter button and arrives at your site, such traffic is what is known as direct web traffic. This type of traffic is mostly associated with popular websites, when you have promoted your site very well and have built yourself a brand then people can remember the name of your site easily and visit your site even without seeing the link anywhere. This type of web traffic often constitutes the second/third largest source of traffic to my blog after organic traffic.
Must Read: Taking advantage of Search trends in driving traffic to your blog
How to get Direct Traffic: To get more direct traffic to your website you have a lot of branding and promotion to do. You have to become popular for people to remember your name. Let me let you in to a secret that works always. Print your website name on a T-shirt and share it to your friends let them wear it always and people will see it and over time will remember the name. You can also create stickers; a little charity will also be good. Create banners; use your site name as your Facebook cover image etc.
General advice: As more and more of your contents are being published, try as much as possible to adequately promote your contents, build links the genuine way and over time you will begin to reap the result of your hard work. Publish only quality articles, well optimized for search engines and engage productively on the social networks, join as much as you can handle and make new friends, join groups and help others to be helped as well.
These methods I shared here in this article have greatly improved this blog and I assure you it will also improve yours. Now you know the types of web traffic and how you can get them, take advantage of my advice and improve your site traffic. Let me hear what you think of this article, use the comment section below to share your taught and also don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed so you won’t miss interesting posts link this one.
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Hello Nwosu Mavtrevor
Great tips to get all these types of traffic and I know that getting traffic from different sources is must to stay in the marketplace.
Will you please tell me which type of traffic is must to get more and more.. Like organic traffic have the first priority. Should we also try our best to get direct traffic? How does it affects the blog ranking? I heard that direct traffic increase bounce rate if you don’t have an update on that day. What you say?
Organic traffic should constitute the highest percentage of your traffic if you are to earn more from any PPC campaign and also you need to get all types of traffic as mentioned in this article, i disagree that direct traffic increases bounce rate because if someone can remember the name of your site address and enter it directly on the browser address bar such a person must have been looking for something and could visit a couple of pages before leaving, if there is any type of traffic that can increase bounce rate then its referral traffic especially from stumbleupon or any traffic exchange sites etc.
Google and other search engines place more emphasis on organic traffic, when you get more organic traffic search engines will most likely show you more love and yes this could affect ranking. Look at this scenario lets say site A and site B are ranking 1st and 2nd respectively for keyword AB and every time people search for Keyword AB and enter site A first and without wasting time hits the back button and go to site B and end up spending more time there and maybe visit more pages in site B, what do you think Google will do after sometime? They will consider that site B is more relevant to the keyword AB than site A and then improve the ranking of site B to the top spot and site A lower.
So the amount of organic traffic you receive can affect your site search engine ranking.
I agree that the higher priority should always be on getting traffic from search engines ..but people should never forget that social media can be used to get traffic too …People should have a balanced traffic from search engines as well as from social media networks . Thanks for sharing the information .
-Pramod
Hi, Nowsu,
In the early days of our website, Referral traffic play vital role as this is the easy way of getting traffic by sharing the links on viral social network like Facebook and twitter. Isn’t it? Yes, organic traffic is most saluted by the search engines but it take some time as SEO is a slow process. Once we have developed our brand are start getting the direct traffic. Overall, your article is wonderful collecting all the information about traffic. Thank You for sharing such a nice post.
Thanks a lot for this best guide.
Sir, as you said that stumbleupon gives us bounce rate. I have personally tested it.
Sometime I receive 100% bounce rate. What we can do to overcome it? DO have any solution?
Please guide me on this issue too :)
Hi Nwosu,
Thanks for explaining everything about traffic. Both organic and inorganic traffic are needed for a website. One should develop a brand or make his blog appearing continuously on social media to increase direct traffic or create a post that worth bookmarking.
Thanks!
Thanks Pramod for your awesome contribution to the topic.
Thank you for your contribution, yes at first one needs a lot of referral traffic to stand but when you get your SEO right, then you begin to enjoy the free unlimited traffic from the search engines.
Yes there are a couple of ways you can reduce bounce rate but first you need to understand that bounce rate occurs as a result of a visitor leaving from the first page he landed on, so if you can apply any methods to make them check out other pages of your site before leaving then you can reduce the bounce rate. Check out this post i published some time ago http://netmediablog.com/reduce-bounce-rate-with-simplereach-slide
Sriram this is indeed a great addition to the discussion, keep bringing them in.
It’s tough to get search engine traffic for popular keywords. Its more tough to sustain your search engine ranking position. The only real option could be generating traffic by having a good readership through email marketing, social media platforms etc.
Awesome piece of article Nwosu.
Well written post Nwosu! All 3 forms rock but direct traffic shows you have done your homework. People remember your brand so well that they type you in, looking for you, actively! Instead of “finding” you ;)
I get a good chunk of direct so all is well, but I would like to boost all 3 forms of traffic.
Thanks for sharing!
Ryan
Hey Desmond Thanks a lot for this post as I was a bit confused with the Organic Traffic as well as Direct Traffic and my doubts got solved here.
Keep updating. :)
Thanks
Thanks Pawan for your contribution glad you liked the article.
I hope i have shared quite some good methods to boast all 3 types of web traffic in this article. Thanks for your contribution.
Nicely written article. I personally think the easiest way of getting traffic is through referral traffic. I usually aim to high page rank sites to get referral traffic from them. I will observe the other sources of traffic and will imply them on my website. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your compliment do have a great weekend.
Hey bro Nwosu,
I never even know all this scopes until now. Thanks for sharing this with us. I will try your last advice on getting direct traffics. I think is very potent and will drive more traffic to my yet to be created and existing blog. Thanks brother!
Sam hails you :)
Thanks Varun for your contribution and yes referral traffic from high PR sites is a good source of web traffic that can promote any website.
Good work Nwosu!
These were the terms that wondered me in my initial days. Knowing the kind of traffic and how to increase can help you to get desired benefits. You should target specific kind of traffic for certain purpose. For example if you aim at earning more through Adsense and the like, you must focus to organic traffic. If your wish to push your own products or affiliates, direct traffic and referral traffic are best.
Thanks for the share bro. I was looking for this type of explained post so that I can understand them properly. Thanks for such a great explanation.
Thanks Suresh for such an awesome contribution and clarifying the different needs for different types of web traffic.
Glad you found it interesting and informative.
Oh my, this is awesome! I don’t have to work on my butt just to wonder what traffic should I be aiming. Thanks a lot for sharing this one! You are the man! :)
Thanks Aris for your awesome compliment, do visit again soon.
Creating your own traffic is one of the best ways to start bringing people into your website. There are literally hundreds of ways to start creating your traffic but I’m just going to tell you about two of the most popular.
And what two methods were you talking about?
Hi Nwosu,
Thanks for explaining the ways of generating three types of traffic for your website. I do agree with you, well optimized relevant content can high generate high quality traffic for your website.
There is much work work to do if you really want to get huge traffic to your site. Writing quality content is one of them. Building relationship with fellow bloggers and with your readers is another strategy we must not neglect.
Then applying the offline publicity like leaflets, tshirts, complimentary cards, words of mouth, magazine ad, etc would help to compliment the other points listed above.
Thanks Efoghor for your awesome contribution to the discussion.
Website traffic is a well known source to promote an online business well. The shared stuff regarding website traffic types and the ways to got it, may help to get business promotion.