For any small business it is important to understand where your web traffic is coming from, which is why today we will discuss the various types of web traffic and how they can be valuable to your business.
Earlier this year, Google introduced their new and improved Google Analytics 4. This updated platform allows small business owners and entrepreneurs to gain a clearer understanding of their website traffic and digest the information in a way that they can use to make changes and improvements to their website and business. Google analytics is integral to any business’ success, and with these new changes it is important to understand the various types of web traffic and how these insights can be valuable to your business.
Let’s start with web traffic. Web traffic refers to the visits that your website receives. Knowing more about the different types of web traffic sources that are bringing visitors to your site will help you understand how to improve it. Now in the updated G4, you can measure specific “events” which allows you to see the specific interactions on your website. For example, you can use an event to measure when someone lands on a specific page, clicks a link or completes a contact form. With this information at your finger tips it is vital to understand where visitors are coming from so you can manage your website and customer expectations accordingly.
- Organic Traffic: Organic traffic is extremely valuable, it is considered the gold standard of web traffic as it is the number of visitors who land on your website after using a search engine like Google using a keyword. How do you increase your organic traffic? Well, your need to ensure that your website is optimized for search engines. This means not only creating great, high-quality content, but also ensuring that target keywords, accurate URLS and reference links are added throughout your website. Organic traffic is valuable because it shows that people are interested in your product, so it should be a source that you pay extra attention to.
- Direct Traffic: Direct traffic refers to visitors who are typing in your website’s URL directly into their browser, or they are landing on your website via a bookmark. If you are looking to increase your direct traffic, the easiest way to do so is to create clean and memorable URL’s for your website.
- Email Marketing: Email marketing is a great solution in driving more traffic to your website, and through Google Analytics, you can measure your success. Many email management platforms like HubSpot offer email marketing best practices to help you improve your web traffic.
- Social Media: This might be a bit self explanatory, but social media traffic refers to the number of visitors who land on your website via a social media post. Google Analytics list each active social media platform specifically, so you can dive a bit deeper into each platform to understand which platform is working for your business in driving traffic to your website.
- Referral Traffic: Referral traffic is web traffic where visitors are landing on your website by clicking on a link from another website, blog, forum or even social media. Increasing your referral traffic can be easy, when you are actively posting content on other websites, blogging, or using directories or partner sites to advertise your business.
- Paid Search: Paid search refers to website traffic that is coming to your website via Google Ads or other pay-per click ad platforms. Paid ads, if set up correctly, can be a very effective way in getting short term traffic to your website, and when used alongside the other methods we have already discussed, you can see great results.
As with most marketing tactics, understanding your web traffic sources is integral to your business’ success. Once you have a deeper understanding of the types of web traffic, you can access each source and make the necessary adjustments to increase traffic to your website. A successful website takes dedicated time and energy, and should never be a “set it and forget it” strategy. If you are looking for more ways to improve your website performance, connect with us.
