Understanding and Improving Your Website Traffic Channels
Posted on 05/04/2022 at 10:00 AM
If you want to increase website traffic, looking at your specific traffic channels is a great place to start! Google Analytics channel groupings give you high-level insight into the sources of your website traffic. These insights are crucial to informing and improving your marketing strategy. Knowing where your website traffic comes from lets you know what’s working and what’s not.
There are a variety of different traffic channels. Below are the five best traffic channels to start with.
Watch the vlog!
Organic Traffic
What is organic website traffic? Organic traffic includes users who found your website by entering a certain search term or query in the search bar. This traffic channel is a key indicator of how well your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts are going. Strong organic traffic means that your SEO efforts, whatever they may include, are going well. A good SEO strategy leads to your website pages popping up earlier in search engine results, leading to more eyes and more clicks.
How to increase organic website traffic. The key to increasing traffic to your website organically is plenty of SEO work. This can include, but is definitely not limited to,
-
Performing keyword research
-
Optimizing existing content and writing new content to include keywords you want your business to show up for
-
-
Regularly updating content
-
Writing strong title tags and meta descriptions
-
Proper length, capitalization, and punctuation
-
Including internal linking
Increasing your organic traffic should always be in the back of your mind. Searching organically is one of the easiest ways for visitors to stumble onto your site. Plus, there are always little things you can do to improve your organic traffic!
Direct Traffic
What is direct website traffic? Direct traffic includes users who type your website directly into the search bar. These users are looking for your site specifically and don’t come from clicking on an ad, social post, general search engine results, etc.
How to increase direct website traffic. Increased brand awareness leads to increased direct traffic. The more people who know your business, the more people who search it directly. In the simplest of terms, the best way to increase your direct traffic is to increase your organic traffic. If users find your website organically and like what they see, they’re bound to come back. Customer retention and user experience are crucial factors in turning one-time visitors into repeat visitors. Check out 5 easy ways to make your website more user-friendly!
Paid Search Traffic
What is paid search website traffic? Paid search traffic includes users who came to your website after clicking on a paid search ad. Google Ads are one of the most common types of paid search ads. The appeal of paid advertising is that it can be quicker to get than organic traffic and allows you to more precisely target audiences. However, it requires ongoing work and maintenance and can get to be expensive.
How to increase paid search website traffic. Choosing the right ad strategy is key to increasing paid search. It is critical to set goals, choose an audience to target, pick a proper budget, and create ads with the right content. Continually monitoring your ads to see which ads are performing well and which ads aren’t is vital. Regularly adjusting ad content and budget can make or break a paid search traffic campaign.
Social Traffic
What is social website traffic? Social traffic includes users who came to your website from a specific social media platform. You can expand social traffic in Google Analytics to see the specific social platforms users are coming to your website from such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
How to increase social website traffic. Social media marketing is vital in today's digital marketing landscape, no matter your industry. Though your content will vary, the basic framework to drive social media traffic to your website is standard.
-
Consistent posting schedule
-
Posts contain links back to your website
-
Links to your website in your bio/about info
-
Posting varied content
-
People, graphics, testimonials, hashtags, etc
-
Check out a breakdown of how to optimize each social media platform!
Referral Traffic
What is referral website traffic? Referral traffic includes users who arrive on your website from a source not associated with your business. Examples of referral traffic sources include review sites, news outlets, and industry resource websites.
How to increase referral website traffic. There are many ways to increase your referral traffic, although some may work better for one industry than another. A few simple ways to get more referral traffic include:
-
Get listed on review websites and local directories
-
Guest blog on other websites
-
Be active on industry forums
-
Cross market with other reputable companies
What Website Traffic Channel is Most Important?
A good digital marketing strategy is comprehensive and dynamic, so if you’re wondering how to drive traffic to your website, the answer is all of them. Focusing on one traffic channel and neglecting the others is equivalent to putting all of your eggs in one basket. It is important to direct some effort into each of these traffic channels. With that being said, continual monitoring and adjustment are key. If you begin to come up on the first page of search engine results organically, you may want to cut back on paid advertising. If brand awareness campaigns aren't helping increase direct traffic, expand your social media efforts to reach a wider audience or run a few extra ads.
An important note: Not all traffic is equal. 100 visitors from one channel can be better than 1,000 visitors from another depending on the engagement rate. Though a jump in traffic is undoubtedly a positive thing, you want that traffic to actually result in something. This is why it’s important to look at engagement metrics for each traffic channel. Bounce rate, pages per session, and goal conversion rate (number of people who contacted you, bought something, made an appointment, etc.) are important to analyze. Knowing what channels and strategies are getting you the most engagement are crucial insights for informing ongoing digital marketing strategy.
The Easiest Way to Increase Your Website Traffic Channels
Professional digital marketing services are the easiest and most efficient way to increase traffic to your website. With a team of copywriters, social media experts, Google Ads certified consultants, and more, you’re in good hands. Save yourself time, hassle, and frustration by letting Global Reach increase your website traffic!
