A Guide on Website Traffic Sources for 2021

Rhy Bezuidenhout
7 min readMar 1, 2021

Website traffic is the digital equivalent to an infinity of opportunities, it means that visitors are interested in the service your company provides, which leads to acknowledgment and possible clients. Therefore, being able to measure your website’s traffic increase progress regularly can help you to find ways to increase your traffic through different forms. Thus, knowing exactly how to improve these traffic sources can lead your company to success. With that being said, the topic we are exploring today is how to understand website traffic sources as a marketing strategy and how to boost growth opportunities.

Before we get into how to properly use this tool, it is important to understand what it is and how it works. Website analytics is crucial in today’s competitive environment, as its principal function is to metrically measure which traffic sources are leading the public to your website and gives a general view for comparing the different sources and study which is getting more interaction, whether it is by ads, organic search, or by social media.

There are a considerable number of performance monitoring tools on the internet, some examples are Google Analytics, SE Ranking, or Fintenza. They can provide you insightful data, such as the pages your visitors visited before landing on your page and what exactly they looked at in the time they are browsing your website.

Website Traffic Sources

Sources can be divided according to the method used to acquire the traffic.

  • Campaign traffic — visitors clicking on specific campaigns such as advertisements (ads) or clicking from a specific paid search.
  • Organic search traffic — visitors that discover your company’s website when visiting a business listing directory page like Ashrays, Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. This one can be analyzed according to the landing page and associated keyword ranking.
  • Referral traffic — visitors clicking your link from third-party websites or social media profiles, can be broken down into categories such as social referrals, blog mentions, or service listings.
  • Social media traffic — visitors clicking on your link by seeing it on social media.
  • E-mail traffic — visitor clicking on a link that was on an e-mail; usually, from newsletters.
  • Direct traffic — a visitor directly typing your URL website into their browser.

Each traffic source mentioned might be analyzed and evaluated to give more information about your web traffic on a deeper level to determine different indicators of improvement in the website flow. For example, a high volume of referral traffic shows that your company is being talked about frequently by 3rd party websites or on social media sites.

Website Traffic Source — Indicators and General Advice

The most direct indicator on web traffic is to measure the growth in traffic after each campaign. In this sense, success will be determined by a considerable increase in traffic coming from specific traffic sources and campaigns. At the same time, it shows if this growth is traffic consistent and maintained over time.

The main strategy to improve your website’s traffic flow is to always have a variety of sources, this will minimize the damage if a traffic source goes down, also, experts do recommend to review Google Analytics in order to find search words your visitors have been looking for. If you are looking for quick and effective movements for your page to have more traffic flow, these are some crucial steps to guide you.

Paid Advertising

It is a very fast way for getting traffic to your page as it generates an almost immediate effect. All you have to do is pick the advertising platform, create the advertisements and setup a budget or in some instances pay upfront.

The most well-known type of advertisement you can find on the internet if paid search, also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC), which puts your advertisements on the first row of search results. When potential visitors browse the search engine results page (SERP) and one of the keywords you picked on the associated advertising platform come up then your chances of getting traffic will be significantly increased.

There are also competing advertising products to PPC which aims to create an ecosystem of cross advertising websites. One such an example is http://adcardz.com which can help you get the website traffic flow that you need. With a really simple process, which consists of creating a profile, submitting your banners, an activation process, and in very few steps, it leads to traffic to your page.

Social media platforms are also big competitors in the advertising industry. Ads are displayed as “sponsored” on most social media platforms. Platforms use consumer’s information to show advertisements related to their interests and, consequently, increasing sales and traffic flow. It is important to take into consideration that most social media are especially helpful for targeted campaigns as the ads are shown to people that are more likely to be interested in your website.

Although user data is known as a digital currency and is subject to some ethical discussion, digital advertising makes a huge statement between marketers and helps them to reach a higher audience.

It is mandatory to study and properly analyze which strategy is more optimum for the public you want to target, whether it is by social media or search engines. You have to choose what information is more valuable for potential customers, as well as offering something relevant enough to call their attention.

So PPC is a very fast way to start getting more visitors to your website, the other side of the balance is the fact that advertising will cost you money and will disappear as quickly as it started if you stop paying for the service. It is therefore important to keep in mind that you also have to build other types of advertising to backfill for when you stop with direct advertising.

Organic Traffic through Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search traffic is durable; it relies on the webpage’s reputation. There are infinite possibilities for generating keywords for your page, but something to keep up in mind is that the competition between web pages is huge, so, quality is necessary. It is not the easiest form of generating traffic, but, once it is achieved, it’s something that stays on for a long time, even if you stop marketing through PPC advertising. One way to keep your site growing with fresh information is by writing a FAQ related to the topic you treat on your webpage and would over time also help on increasing your traffic.

Social Media

Social media activity is a good way to gain recognition in a community, however, social media content must be consistent to get a tangible increase in traffic. But its benefits do not include only a possibility of improving traffic, it implies networking and customer service, too. Sometimes being consistent is not enough and it may be necessary to implement special strategies to grow your audience so that your social profile can become more viral. Sharing content more often than before could boost the algorithm, and create videos and posts promoting your services are a bonus, as well.

Tip: The Premium subscription from Ashrays will help to build your social profile so that it will reach 500+ users on a monthly basis.

Email Strategies

Unlike social media, on e-mail, you have total control. Therefore, consistency is key for seeing results; to gain visitors, you must gain your audience’s trust by having good content on your website, then build a good reputation on the mail inbox for them to click on your links. Results are visible way faster than social media, a technique that always works is to segment email lists, then send specific emails for different client groups.

Offline Advertising

The most successful way to increase direct traffic is by doing anything that generates brand awareness, such as offline advertising (TV, newspapers, event sponsorships, etc.) or do more live events, road shows, interviews, and promoting your company’s services in person. Then republish the generated content on your website, social channels and email newsletters to further extend its milage.

Referral Sources

Also, to increase traffic from referral sources, guest posting is the best option to be acknowledged by other audiences. We went into a lot more detail in the post Guest Posting 101: The Benefits and How To Get Started Right! where we looked at the benefits and brand value given by being sponsored and referred to by a subject expert.

We can also not put enough emphasis on a well created business listing profile as it is a low/no cost advertising method with a long shelf life. Our post on How To Word Business Listings For The Best Local SEO will give some insight on why a little bit of extra time should be taken to complete your business listing; to get a lot of extra value. If you don’t have time to complete the listing yourself then you can always get a low cost paid business listing subscription and leave the heavy work to the Ashrays Administrators who will take your listing to the next level.

Another powerful tool available is to have referral programs for your product or service and have it advertised through affiliate programs such as ClickBank. This marketing method encourages others who may be more expert than you in advertising to advertise your product or service as they also benefit financially through your business.

In conclusion, every traffic source has a cost to it; even the “free” versions as it would cost you time to develop those. I can however say that working simultaneously on each one of the different website traffic sources is the best choice to improve your online performance and increase your company’s growth possibilities. So, keep my recommendations in this article in mind, and contact us if you have questions.

We will guide you on your journey.

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Original article published by Jorland Guilarte on: https://www.ashrays.com/a-guide-on-website-traffic-sources-for-2021/

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