The 5 Ways to Increase Website Traffic
- 01 November 2011
- Written by Craig Wilson
A quick look at your Google Analytics stats will tell you that there are basically 3 sources of website traffic; direct traffic, referring sites and search engines. But that's a little simplistic and really these should be broken down a little more so that you can understand the 5 ways to increase your website traffic.
1. Direct traffic
These are the people who type your URL straight into their browser. They are generally the result of your traditional marketing efforts. These people either know your brand, have your card or brochure or are responding to an advertisement seen offline. Make the most of these visitors, it has probably cost you a LOT of money to get them here.
2. Paid advertising
These are the people who have clicked on a digital advertisement. If they came from a display ad on another site your Google Analytics would lump them into the "referring sites". If they came from a Search Marketing campaign you are running with one of the search engines, ie the paid listings on a Google search, then your Analytics includes them in the "search engines" results. Either way, you are paying for every click on these ads for people to visit your site. This can be a good strategy if you have effective conversion strategies in place but a very expensive one if you don't. The thing about Paid Advertising or Search Engine Marketing is that when you stop paying, the traffic dries up.
3. Unpaid referral traffic
These are visitors who have landed on your website after clicking on a link from another (referring site). Ideally these are unpaid links from trustworthy sites. They could be links in a blogroll, links from a blog post or some kind of directory. Typically if you have a regularly updated, informative and interesting website you are more likely to generate more links from referring sites. In many cases the visitors from these sites can be valuable as they are genuinely interested and most likely trust the referring site. The main cost to you in generating unpaid referral traffic is time, lots of it. Time to post good content and time to network with good sites for more links. If you are consistent you can build referral traffic over time.
4. Social network referrals
This is an extension of the above unpaid referral traffic. Social networks allow you amplify your message and reach hundreds or even thousands of potential visitors. Once again it requires regularly updated, quality information that is worth linking to and sharing. If you have social sharing buttons on you site visitors can quickly and easily share your information with their networks. If you have a strong following on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or LinkedIn you can share your content with the hope of it being viewed and shared even further. This can be very effective and the main cost to you is your time in posting content and building a popular social profile.
5. Organic search engine traffic
These are the visitors who have found your site in the unpaid listings after conducting a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo (or other smaller search engines). They are usually motivated because they have a specific need and more likely to spend more time on your website if you are answering that need. It is possible for your website to turn up in results for dozens, if not hundreds of searches depending upon how well optimized your site is for each search term. Organic search results can deliver you high quality traffic for years and steadily grow over time if you are dedicated to building your portfolio of optimized search terms. Best of all search engine optimization is now very cost-effective and time-effective when using a system like NLYZR.
Some companies use all of these 5 methods to increase their website traffic while inbound marketers rely more on organic search traffic, social networks and unpaid referral traffic. NLYZR was designed to make Organic Search Engine Traffic the fastest and most cost-effective method to generate more traffic for your website. It is economical in both time and money.
Want to increase your website traffic via organic search? Test how well your website is optimized using our Free Web NLYZR, and join NLYZR to start optimizing your website today.
