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First of all, thanks for subscribing to my email list.

I gave a presentation on search engine optimization and afterward, I was asked if I had an email newsletter. As it turns out, I had been collecting emails for the newsletter but hadn't sent anything yet! So here we are with the first edition!

It feels like nowadays everyone needs to be an expert at digital marketing to succeed online. These emails are designed specifically so that those who need help don't get left behind.

These emails will come every few weeks and will cover a range of digital marketing topics. Enjoy!

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Types of Web Traffic

What's the purpose of your website? Is it to get people to purchase a product? Get them to call and schedule a service? Or maybe inform people about a particular subject?

The shared commonality is people. You need people visiting your website and viewing your pages to succeed. We call these visits traffic.

In future emails, I'll share strategies to increase traffic to your site. But first, let's categorize the various ways people are coming to your site. Each type of traffic has its own nuances. For any given site, some traffic might be better than others.

The five main types of web traffic are Direct, Paid, Referral, Social, and Organic. Let's take a look at each type.

Direct Traffic

This type of traffic is from people typing in your site's domain name (URL) directing into their browser. How do they know to type in your URL in the first place? This is a result of brand awareness, or past visitors remembering your website and visiting this way.

Or perhaps you've included your website name on a printed brochure or a billboard. People remember the URL and then plug it into their phone or computer. But the vast majority of direct traffic comes from past visitors revisiting your site.

Paid Traffic

This is traffic you pay directly for through direct advertising. Facebook ads and Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) are the most well-known forms of paid traffic for most sites.

For a price per impression, click, or view, Facebook or Google will put your marketing message in front of your desired audience. The ad networks give you a wealth of options to target your ad to the specific demographic you are trying to reach. The amount of traffic you can get from an advertisement is dependent on how good your marketing strategy, ad copy, and value proposition is.

Referral Traffic

Referral traffic comes from people clicking links on other websites. Perhaps a blogger wrote a review of one of your products, or your business was featured in the newspaper.

This type of traffic can be increased by having the kind of helpful content on your site that other website owners will want to link to. Generally, this is added bonus traffic and not one that is specifically sought out.

Social Traffic

This is traffic from people that found your site from social media. A shared post on Facebook or a clicked pin from Pinterest can result in your target audience clicking through to your website.

Depending on your business and customer base, some social media sites will be better suited to your goals than others. A good piece of advice is to focus on creating content and interacting on one social media network, at least at first. You'll be able to grow your audience there and create posts that resonate better than spreading yourself too thin by trying to keep up with the myriad of social media sites.

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic refers to people finding your website organically through a search engine like Google or Bing. They have a problem, or are looking for information, and turn to their search engine of choice to help them solve it.

For any search, millions of pages will be returned, but realistically, the results on the first page will be the only ones to get traffic. That's why SEO (search engine optimization) is so important.

Optimizing your website around the search terms (also known as keywords) your target audience is using can help you increase your organic search traffic.

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That's great, but how do I track the traffic to my site?

Most websites use Google Analytics to track visitors. This free software from Google is easy to install on most websites and gives website owners so much information about not only where web visitors are coming from, but also what they do on the website.

For instance, if you run an ecommerce site, you can track conversions (sales) using Google Analytics and find out which type of traffic is driving most of your sales. The Pareto Principle is real. Knowing which 20% is driving your 80% can help not only your website grow but also your bottom line.

​Send me a message if you need help setting up Google Analytics on your site. I can show you the best way to set it up depending on how the site is built.

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In the next email...

Now you should have a better understanding of the different ways people are coming to your site. In the next email, I'll share some strategies about how to increase the traffic to your site.

If this has been helpful, let me know!

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