When I first started out in the Internet Marketing industry, I really had no idea exactly how important traffic to a website was. I figured if you built it, they would come. Such a silly girl I was. Now, knowing what I know, I thought I would dive in and try and figure out the best methods of getting people to come visit my site. Before doing this, however; it's imperative to first understand what TYPES of internet traffic there is in order to better focus and organize a strategy. Traffic is the cornerstone of any successful online business. A steady, consistent and growing stream of traffic to your website will be the foundation for growing your business.
Direct Traffic
When people come straight to your site, either by typing in your URL or having bookmarked your site, this is called direct traffic. These are the people that already have some knowledge of your brand, product or service. There’s a good chance these are repeat customers, people that know your company or organization and want to come back to your site to find out more. If you have new visitors, that is also good news: they’ve seen your URL in advertising or elsewhere and it stuck in their memory.
Organic
For Internet Marketers, this is the JACKPOT baby! Organic traffic happens when searchers type in phrases related to your company and its products or services. For example, if I was searching for “Pencil Holder” on Google and your pencil holder emporium was listed at the top of the page, to my utter excitement I would have to click on the link to your website. Because you didn’t pay to be on Google, your appearance would be natural, or "organic". Search engine optimization is the art of helping companies to be found organically on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Paid
Paid traffic is the visitors that come to your website through online advertising. The largest purveyor of this traffic is Google AdWords, an advertising avenue through Google. You might have noticed text ads when you search on Google or even appearing at the bottom of YouTube videos that you’re watching. Online advertising takes many shapes and forms and can be content-related or search-related. You might have heard someone working in Internet marketing refer to SEM, or Search Engine Marketing. That’s an acronym for someone who works with paid traffic.
Referral
Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, people used to refer to the Internet primarily as “The World Wide Web.” (If you do not remember that, then I am very old) In fact, that’s where the “www” suffix in URLs originated. While people may not call it the world wide web anymore, the Internet still functions as billions of interconnected pages. These links that we’ve become so used to are like roads to get from one destination to another. When someone finds a link to your webpage on another website, this is called referral traffic. Referral traffic is a way to cast a wider net and gain influence online. As your company appears more often and on relevant websites, potential customers will trust. A good SEO team will work to build as many inbound opportunities as possible for you, widening your reach.
When people come straight to your site, either by typing in your URL or having bookmarked your site, this is called direct traffic. These are the people that already have some knowledge of your brand, product or service. There’s a good chance these are repeat customers, people that know your company or organization and want to come back to your site to find out more. If you have new visitors, that is also good news: they’ve seen your URL in advertising or elsewhere and it stuck in their memory.
Organic
For Internet Marketers, this is the JACKPOT baby! Organic traffic happens when searchers type in phrases related to your company and its products or services. For example, if I was searching for “Pencil Holder” on Google and your pencil holder emporium was listed at the top of the page, to my utter excitement I would have to click on the link to your website. Because you didn’t pay to be on Google, your appearance would be natural, or "organic". Search engine optimization is the art of helping companies to be found organically on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Paid
Paid traffic is the visitors that come to your website through online advertising. The largest purveyor of this traffic is Google AdWords, an advertising avenue through Google. You might have noticed text ads when you search on Google or even appearing at the bottom of YouTube videos that you’re watching. Online advertising takes many shapes and forms and can be content-related or search-related. You might have heard someone working in Internet marketing refer to SEM, or Search Engine Marketing. That’s an acronym for someone who works with paid traffic.
Referral
Long, long ago, in a land far, far away, people used to refer to the Internet primarily as “The World Wide Web.” (If you do not remember that, then I am very old) In fact, that’s where the “www” suffix in URLs originated. While people may not call it the world wide web anymore, the Internet still functions as billions of interconnected pages. These links that we’ve become so used to are like roads to get from one destination to another. When someone finds a link to your webpage on another website, this is called referral traffic. Referral traffic is a way to cast a wider net and gain influence online. As your company appears more often and on relevant websites, potential customers will trust. A good SEO team will work to build as many inbound opportunities as possible for you, widening your reach.
Remember folks, It is important to understand your site’s traffic patterns, where traffic comes from and what drives it. Having a deep understanding of how visitors get to a site is critical to evaluating the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and intentional link traffic you are generating online. A service like Google Analytics can give site owners tons of very useful information, including both a high-level breakdown of your traffic sources and even can present a detailed overview of traffic sources.