W Website traffic sources and how to maximize them: discover how to optimize and leverage each channel to help you compete for targeted traffic and bring in more qualified leads, sales & customers.
The total number of visits in received in a period of time represent your Website Traffic. Any business try to create a stable pool of visitors and consistently grow. The competitors in any industry will do their best to obtain best of the targeted traffic that can bring them qualified leads and loyal customers.
You must know and understand where visits come from and how to check website traffic is an integral part of any digital marketing and SEO strategy. We’ll look at major traffic sources, how they differ from each other, and how to get the most out of each of them at any time.
Major Website Traffic Sources
Organic Traffic
Is the clicks you get from search results. Simple as that. To attract users looking for answers on Google or another search engine, you’ll have to make it to the top 10 results (the results on the second page get a CTR of less than 15%) and make your page stand out among all others. SEO should be your most consistent investment as it is responsible for more than half of all traffic .
Pros of organic search:
- This source of traffic significantly outperforms all others
- It offers durable results
- Its opportunities are endless: there’s no limit to how many pages and for
how many keywords you can get ranked in search - You can do SEO on a small budget
Cons of organic search:
- It takes a lot of time for your SEO efforts to pay off
- There are many aspects to take care of and different specialists to involve
(SEOs, developers, content marketers and copywriters, etc.)
Paid Traffic
This type of traffic refers to visitors that came from advertising like Google Ads and Social Media Ads (Facebook, Instagram, etc). Unlike other sources, paid traffic comes at a certain price and the more you pay, the more likely you are to win new customers. Naturally, you also have expenditures while working on other traffic channels, when hiring specialists, purchasing tools, etc. But with paid traffic, you’re paying exactly for publishing your content and getting it seen by your target audience.
Pros of paid traffic:
- You can reap the benefits really fast and can start getting clicks the same day you launch the ads
- It allows for precise targeting: you can set the exact demographics to get
your ad shown to and receive highly qualified traffic as a result
Cons of paid traffic:
- Its results are temporary
- It is expensive: a monthly PPC spend can exceed $10,000 even for small and medium-sized businessesSocial networks are unpredictable and content may get viral for no justifiable reason
A lot of social media traffic is left untracked: when users share links to websites using their social accounts, it comes as an undefined source of traffic
Social Media Traffic
Is represented by the traffic made by the users from social networks. Social Media helps gain prospects by engaging with the audience through the content and it’s an important part of inbound marketing. o visitors that came from advertising like Google Ads and Social Media Ads (Facebook, Instagram, etc). Unlike other sources, paid traffic comes at a certain price and the more you pay, the more likely you are to win new customers. Naturally, you also have expenditures while working on other traffic channels, when hiring specialists, purchasing tools, etc. But with paid traffic, you’re paying exactly for publishing your content and getting it seen by your target audience.
Pros of social media traffic:
- It allows for direct communication with the audience and increasing loyalty to your brand and to what you’re offering
- It helps build a website’s authority
Cons of social media traffic:
- Social networks are unpredictable and content may get viral for no justifiable reason
- A lot of social media traffic is left untracked: when users share links to websites
using their social accounts, it comes as an undefined source of traffic
Implementing SEO strategies help you to rank higher on the search engine’s results page (SERP). This means that when your target customers search for products and services that your industry offers, they are likely to find your website. When you repeatedly appear on the SERP, users become aware of your site and your business. This increases the chances of landing potential customers on your webpages.
SEO is a Cost-Effective Advertising Strategy
One SEO component called off-site SEO ensures that users of external pages or of social media can find your website. Being optimized for SEO increases the site’s potential to draw customers from other platforms other than the search engine. For instance, when you post content and links to your page on Facebook or Twitter, you are able to promote your website and attract more customers. One of the main goals of SEO is to attract the targeted audience through organic searches. The number of visitors to your site influences your sales and subscriptions. It also promotes the marketing of your products and services. Increased inbound traffic is always good for business because it equates to more conversion opportunities.
Some SEO-related tools such as the Google Keyword Planner and Google Analytics provide quantitative data to help you understand your market, analyze the trends, and know your competitors’ standings. It helps you identify popular and valuable keywords so you can decide how to structure or revise your content. It also gives you insights on your market’s behavior such as location, times of activity, frequency of searches, technologies used, product preferences, etc. All these metrics are useful in helping you get to know your audience, their needs, and their expectations.
