In the world of blogging, some sites can send you big bursts of traffic—but how much does that traffic help your business? The truth is, not all traffic is valuable traffic, and the key to building your blog is cultivating the right kind. So instead of focusing on sheer numbers, focus on cultivating sources of qualified traffic, the kind that does matter.
Let’s take a look at ways to evaluate your traffic sources, as well as tips for using that information to shape your blog marketing plan!
Types of Traffic Sources
Peeking inside your Google analytics account will give you details about your traffic sources—but first, here’s a look at how to understand what they are.
1. Direct Traffic
Direct traffic is the traffic that comes to your site directly, with a user typing your url into their Web browser.
How helpful is it? Generally speaking, direct traffic is reliable traffic—people who come to your site directly already know something about your blog and what it offers, or they’ve been told about it via word-of-mouth or email by someone else who does. They come bringing at least some level of interest and knowledge in what you do.
2. Search
When a user types terms into a search engine and clicks your blog in the search results, that’s what’s called search traffic.
How helpful is it? Most search traffic is targeted, as users are finding your blog by typing in specific keywords that connect to your blog’s content. The thing to look at here is what keywords are leading to your site—are they the most relevant ones possible? This information can help inform your search marketing campaigns.
3. Referral
When another website, blog or social media outlet links to your blog, the traffic that link brings to your site is called referral traffic—since someone else is referring users to your blog.
How helpful is it? The value of referral traffic depends, in large part, on the source. Relevant sites will bring traffic more likely to convert and/or stay long-term; unrelated sites may send bursts of traffic, but they won’t mean as much.
4. Campaign
Campaign traffic is traffic brought about through your own marketing efforts, whether email marketing, Feedburner or something else.
How helpful is it? Because your campaign is by nature targeted, the traffic that comes through this source is beneficial.
Strategic Marketing Techniques
Once you have an understanding of the different traffic sources, what can you do to cultivate the best quality? Here are a few tips:
Optimize Your Blog for Search
The majority of website traffic comes from big search engines—that means high ranks in search engines for targeted keywords will bring in the best quality traffic. There are many ways to boost your search engine optimization (SEO), but here are a few keys.
- Links from related sites: Look for ways to cultivate relationships with other bloggers in order to draw their interest and get them reading/linking to your site. Once you have a decent number of links from related blogs or websites, you’ll start getting decent traffic.
- Create strong blog posts and pages: The more valuable content you post, the more opportunities there are for your content to come up in search results. Likewise, blogs with over 1,000 pages attract more traffic than blogs with 20. Keep adding new content and you’ll see your search results improve.
- PPC: Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of search marketing that relies on paid ads that come up on search results pages, relevant to users’ queries. While this approach can be very effective, it’s crucial that you monitor the progress of your ads in order to avoid overspending.
Work Social Media to Your Advantage
The reason so many bloggers and businesses are active on social media is simple: it works. Building community on these networks can be an excellent way to generate traffic and word-of-mouth publicity for your site.
- Be active: Consistently engage with your audience in social media to reap the greatest benefits. Also, be active on the networks where your target audience already gathers.
- Promote others: Blog readers like generosity—promote other sites and their posts to prove yourself interesting and worthy of following.
- Promote your posts: Don’t overdo it, but highlighting your own content, news, updates, etc., can be very effective at drawing readers to your blog. Tweet and update your Facebook page status when a new post publishes. Tell readers about changes happening at your site. As an added bonus, the viral nature of these networks makes it easy for followers to promote your content, too.
- Create Shareable Content: Certain types of content lend themselves more easily towards sharing—work to make your content the kind that visitors will pass along. Whether it’s stories that strike a chord, photos that are crisp and beautiful, infographics that clarify stats or something else, target your content towards those readers who will want to share it.
Encourage Subscriptions
Make it very easy for visitors to opt in for your blog posts, whether through an RSS subscription, an email subscription or signing up for your newsletter. Have this call-to-action front and center, prominent, so it’s easy for readers to respond. Increased subscribers means increased quality traffic, as they return again and again when new posts publish.
Using the information above should give you a powerful jumpstart in solidifying your marketing plan as it relates to traffic—but what other advice have you seen to be helpful? How do you go about finding quality traffic?
About Kiesha Easley
Hi Shanna,
Interesting post. Traffic from search engines would most likely bring in the money. I found out that organic traffic earns more for me than those coming from social sites.
Making your post SEO friendly could also help a lot.
You may want to read what I have written about my personal experience regarding this.
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Jena Isle recently posted…By: JenaIsle
Yep!
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I like that quotes to be active not only to have a desire.I think having desire without passion not works.
I agreed that Promotion gives referral traffic with search traffic but all depend on promotion that how much qualitative is this.
Thanks
Bhushan recently posted…Computer Inventory Software
You are completely right, that the source of traffic does matter – a lot. But i thinks it is interesting that the four sources you then describe you all rate as good sources.
Search traffic for instance is not necessarily good traffic. A lot of the search traffic comes from the wrong keywords and those users would leave your blog or webshop immediately again. It is crucial that you target the right keywords.
And you don’t mention newsletters at all… they are a really good source of traffic. Make it easy for people to sign up for a newsletter.
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Mikkel recently posted…Har du husket at forsikre dine kæledyr?
Hi Mikkel, Right, as mentioned above, the thing you have to look at with search traffic is what keywords are bringing in traffic and if they’re the most relevant. Thanks for the note about newsletters, too — that’s a helpful addition!
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Shanna Mallon recently posted…Add Images to LinkedIn and Twitter Profiles
It looks as if Twitter have now started to address this issue and that we may now get a clearer picture:
Hi Shanna,
Before reading your article, something I previously knew was that the traffic only comes from two sources in SEO i-e, from Do-follow links and the other is from no-follow links. The article really helped me in increasing my knowledge of bringing traffic to my website. I definitely follow the points you have raised.
Regards,
Timothy Dietrich
I’ll definitely echo the importance of social media. Getting viewers to your site is worthless if they do nothing when they get there, and simply move on. You need to find the right kind of visitor who will subscribe, read, share, or take part in discussions on your page. The best way to find those kinds of people are through social media avenues.
“The truth is, not all traffic is valuable traffic.”
This is a 100% true thing. what i think is traffic is a must needed thing for any blog or web site, But some traffic is actually does not any work.
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Raplus recently posted…5 Things You Should Care before Comment in other Blogs
I am agree on this point.
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But Is this Possible that all traffic will be original and valuable??
I think search traffic are good and can many money.
Thanks for that comment.
Bhushan recently posted…College Management Software Noida
Hi Bhushan, All traffic is valuable in the sense that it’s readers coming to your site, but not all traffic is valuable in the sense that it brings targeted users who would be interested in your products or services. That’s why you want to focus on finding ways to increase the traffic that is most relevant and useful. Thanks for your comment!
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Shanna Mallon recently posted…Add Images to LinkedIn and Twitter Profiles
Hello again,
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I am on that way to make something good and having more traffic but I think we should focus on that type of traffic which should be useful and worth for us not which are worthless.
Bhushan recently posted…Travel Web Portal Software Delhi Noida
What a great post of yours about traffic ! Also I like your various type of tips about traffic is so important to me I think also people too. Moreover your suggestion about blog related tips are useful to me. Thanks for your helpful post.
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Kole Kingkober recently posted…kimkardashian24h.com
Search engines I believe generate a major part of traffic for a website. Promotional advertisements work if they’ve been designed appropriately. Internet users are no fools to click on an advertisement with a greater amount of veiled content. And social media has wonderfully prospered over the past few years. The potential of social media websites for marketing has not yet been wholly tapped. A comprehensive article on quality traffic generation. Thanks for the share.
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Jack recently posted…Our blog
Create Shareable Content: Certain types of content lend themselves more
easily towards sharing—work to
make your content the kind that
visitors will pass along. Whether it’s
stories that strike a chord, photos that
are crisp and beautiful, infographics that clarify stats or something else,
target your content towards those
readers who will want to share it.
I like that line, but to be sincere, that is the hardest part of blogging.
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ZaccshegzyBlog recently posted…If You Want To Succeed Prepare Well!
Nice points, and I personally think that Search Traffic is the most important among all these, as it’s a huge source of traffic and also targeted traffic to your blog.
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Rahul Chowdhury recently posted…Win a CommentLuv Premium Single Site and Multi Site License worth about $154 – Giveaway of October
thanks for information , it’s a nice tips , great tips .
succes and god bless you .
At the moment i think search is still the best traffic source. Although i believe things are changing, search engine optimization will always be playing a role one way or the other.
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bert recently posted…Eigen bedrijf starten? MKB Marketing geheimen voor de startende ondernemer
Hi Shanna
At this moment in time. I am getting a nice balance of my traffic sources. Just over 45% comes from Google, and my campaign traffic has increased by almost 10%
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Paul Profitt recently posted…How To Get Targeted Traffic From Linkedin
Hi Sir, I really admire your knowledge in the SEO profession. Could you please tell me how we, the juniors, can avoid our comments being approved rather than being moderated by some monopoly sites: Sites with high PR.
A complete guide about traffic on a blog. The sentence ” All traffic is not same valuable” is keep my attention. and I read the full article by word. An awesome composition
Traffic is everything for a site but the important thing is what one gets out of that traffic his site is getting.To know what factors are going to make profit should be taken care of.
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And you have provided a detailed overview about the traffic sources.Great job Shannon.
Aditya recently posted…MLM Software in Delhi
Great topic on Traffic but the question when you have such a young site like my car valeting site is driving traffic to your site with the use of SEO and getting Google to rank your site on Page 1 to get traffic
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Richard recently posted…Removing Coffee Stains from Upholstery (Car Valeting)
Hey Shanna,
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Agreed, that usually the traffic which gets diverted towards a website is not much of its use. In such circumstances, it becomes crucial to evaluate the sources of traffic. The four pointers mentioned in this post regarding the evaluation of a source are very apt. Thanks for highlighting this aspect.
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this is a great layout and when you really dig deep through all the traffic sources and so on, I think the best thing to do to try and grab all of it is to make your blog easy to convert to subscribers which seems most people keep missing, by not building a list from the beginning.
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Brankica recently posted…How to Send an Autoresponder That Your Subscribers Will Love
Very very interesting post, congrats
In other words, you are talking about window shoppers and actual target customers. Informative post. So many small points to take into account! SEO and social media do help a lot in acquiring substantial amount of traffic don’t they? Good post. Thanks
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Thank You for this post.From this, i understood deeply about traffic sources and its advantages.Thanks for sharing this article with us.
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Among-est of the every traffic sources Search traffic matters a lot to get more genuine visitors and it even decreases bounce rate of the site.
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Thanks for your post. Actually, traffic is the life of a blog. Now I’m trying to build member loyalty, return visitor rate and bounce rate will be lower.
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Mr. Anh recently posted…Some changed for Tin Toi Blog at Christmas
navi traffic is important , thanks for your post, it useful for me .
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Thank you very much for the sharing. This post make me understand more about the traffic source.
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Now i am particularly shocked jointly with your content and articles. I think it’s which means partaking because of your particular tips and fascinating phrasing. Appreciate penning illuminating article content
I feel like the referral traffic is one of the best, because not only are you getting boosts to your own traffic, there is usually a dofollow link that sent people there giving you some link juice love as well. food for thought =)
Yeah agree!that all traffic is not valuable traffic,and the key to building your blog is cultivating the right kind so,instead of focusing on sheer members . focus on cultivating source of qualified traffic,the kind that does matter.
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Thanks you lot.
Manisha Singh recently posted…SEO: URL Optimization
I want get traffic by human, not machine
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