Types of website traffic – part 2

What is referral traffic

This type of traffic comes to your site from other websites. It’s important to underline that social media platforms are not considered as these. Let’s imagine there is someone online out there reading an interesting blog article. At some point, they encounter a hyperlink within the text, redirecting to your site, which comprehensively describes the linked subject (that the blog’s author didn’t want to devote to in order to describe it well enough). It saves the author’s time and gives you extra credit of trust from his users. Isn’t it a perfect combination?

The best advantage of referral traffic is providing a constant traffic source outside search engines. And when well conducted, it may attract more targeted visitors. What’s more, putting external links leading to your site by other authors is highly beneficial in terms of SEO, as search engines (like Google) perceive referred websites as more important than those not recommended by external sources. Thus, it can boost your website position and help you rank higher in the search results. However, as with anything else, it comes with some risks, that you cannot fully control. For this method to succeed, the links must be inserted only on secure and credible websites. Otherwise, if the link is placed next to hazardous content or on insecure websites, it may endanger your reputation. Also, if links are inserted incorrectly, they will redirect to the wrong website or show an error message.

However, if you don’t want to wait till other authors mention your website on theirs, you can take matters into your own hands and take the first step by reaching out to them! Another great practice is to answer questions on platforms like Quora and put your website’s link in the replies. People who see your helpful answers gain trust in you and get an idea of what is your content about. That’s how you can easily attract quality visitors.

Social media traffic

Simply speaking, it’s traffic from visitors who come to your website when they click a social media post or message. So, this is the total traffic collected through your social media channels (of course, if you have them). The links can be placed on whatever social media platform you want. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or even WhatsApp – the results will be pretty much the same. The analytics tool will often put it in the same category and treat it like it originates from the same source. Social media traffic, among others, can result from advertisements, posts, comments, or reposts. By the way, check out which social media platform is best for making money from your digital content.

Increasing social media traffic is not that complicated. If the number of visits brought to your website is not satisfactory, you can consider applying even a simple social media strategy to change that. Doing whatever’s trendy can be helpful here – pay attention to what other creators do to grab the audience’s attention and consider doing that – but better (with your own twist)! Additionally, it’s not surprising that social traffic is directly related to the use of mobile devices. Remember, if you want to boost this traffic, it’s essential to make your website responsive. You can’t rely only on a desktop version of your website while running a social media campaign – it just doesn’t add up!

E-mail traffic

E-mail traffic represents all users who come to your website through e-mail campaigns or newsletters. It generates when they click the links to your website placed in the e-mail you sent them. This kind of traffic is precious, as it depicts the explicit interest in your e-mail content and the message you’re sending to the world through it. And similarly to social media traffic, it requires extra effort to get it. What’s more, increasing e-mail traffic requires extra tools, which often come at some additional costs. But there are other obstacles to overcome, as to get e-mails from your users and use them, you’ll need their extra permissions. And that’s not easy! Let’s be honest, online users prefer to keep their data private for fear of spam and viruses. You will need to gain users’ trust to receive them, but you will be fruitfully rewarded once you get it!

What is paid website traffic

As the name suggests, it’s the traffic you need to pay for. Whether it’s a paid campaign, sponsored posts on social media, or Google Ads, you have to invest a considerable amount into this kind of business. Sometimes, it pays off; sometimes, it doesn’t – it depends. The use of such a solution works better as a supplementary activity, rather than their basis. Knowing your users makes you target your ads to the proper audience, so you can convert successfully. However, if you just started your publishing journey and don’t even know who you write to, or if anyone is interested in your content to start with – it would be better to wait until you can stand on your own feet. You can pay for ads for ages, but if you don’t know if your content sells, you will end up being in the red. What’s more, if you don’t have natural (organic) traffic and only rely on the paid one, chances are you will lose paid visitors as soon as you run out of money. And as you can see, it’s not an optimistic scenario!

To sum up

There is no such thing as the best traffic type, as it depends on the publisher and their unique goals. The most important thing is just to have traffic – that’s the starting point for content monetization. So whatever traffic comes to you – good, it means you have something interesting to offer! It doesn’t actually matter if your traffic comes from social media or referrals – when someone wants to visit your website and stay for longer, that’s what really counts and gives you room to play with monetization methods. The number of traffic is hence substantial, but monetization strategy is the most essential for profit results.

Once you attract an audience longing for more of your content and visiting you regularly, you gain the most precious users, because they are like loyal customers who willingly interact with what you have to offer. They know exactly what they are looking for, and for this purpose – they visit your website. That’s how you generate organic traffic, which is considered the most precious by many advertisers and publishers. If you want to increase the number of users coming from organic search, you can learn how to increase organic traffic on your website.