Traffic sources
When you think about it, there is virtually an unlimited number of traffic sources. Basically, every online document (including non-HTML ones, such as PDF files), every chat message, every post on Facebook, every tweet, every game, can contain a website link.
Furthermore, a website address can be typed into any online browser on any Internet-enabled device.
In order to make some sense of this, it is useful to think of website traffic in terms of marketing channels according to its origin.
1. Organic Search traffic
This is traffic that comes from the search engines’ organic results. When people search for something in Google, for example, and then click on a result that is not a paid ad, they are referred to as organic traffic.
2. Paid Search traffic
The opposite of organic search is paid search. Paid Search traffic occurs when somebody clicks on an advertisement inside the search results. You need to pay for this traffic, usually on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. It means you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.
3. Display traffic
This traffic is from display advertising, such as Google AdWords remarketing campaigns, banner advertising, and contextual ads.
4. Referral traffic
Whenever users’ click on a link from another website (other than major search engines), they are categorized as referral traffic.
5. Affiliate traffic
Any traffic resulting from affiliate marketing efforts, namely visitors arriving at your website via affiliate links, is called affiliate traffic.
6. Direct traffic
Strictly speaking, direct traffic originates when someone navigates to your website by typing its address into their browser. However, in Google Analytics, direct traffic numbers can sometimes be inflated because traffic from unrecognized sources is also accounted for as direct traffic.
7. Social traffic
Visits from social media sites that are not ads, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are called social traffic.
8. Email traffic
This category includes traffic from clicks on links in email messages, whether mass email marketing or individual messages.
9. Other
Anything else that doesn’t fit one of the above categories.
Measuring website traffic
You want to keep track of who is visiting your website, what pages they visit, how long they stay, and where they have come from.
One of the best tools for measuring and analyzing website traffic is Google Analytics. It is extremely powerful and if you don’t already have it installed, it is highly recommended you do so as soon as possible.
At the same time, it is important to note that Google Analytics bundles traffic into channels based on the source and/or medium parameters, passed by the links themselves.
This means that the quality of the data depends on how good a job you do at tagging your campaigns. If done incorrectly (or not done at all), traffic can end up being miscategorized and your data will not show the real picture.
Different types of media
Before we get to discuss the actual process of building website traffic, there is one more concept I want you to understand. It is the concept of owned media.
You see, when you look at the different sources of traffic, you will realize that it is possible to distinguish between three types of media:
1. Earned media – media you have no control over; these are usually other peoples’ websites, social media channels, etc.
2. Paid media – media you pay to get mentioned on or linked to; these are places you can get to via advertising, most frequently through the big advertising programs, such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads.
3. Owned media – media you have full control over; these are all your different websites, social media accounts, etc.
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