5 Main Sources of Web Traffic

When you create a website and populate it with various content, one of your main goals is to increase the number of views and actions. But how do you get your audience to go to your website? This is where web traffic comes in.

Web traffic basically means people that go to your website. These are measured in visits or sessions (which last around 30 minutes). You can get analytics platforms like Google Analytics to check how people go to your website and how long they stay there.

There are 5 main sources of web traffic, and each of them are unique and equally important. Here’s what you need to know about each type.

1. Organic traffic – this comes from a search engine results page (SERP). If you have the information your potential reader needs, your website will appear on their SERPs. This web traffic source takes time to build – other websites have already built their domain authority, for example; so if you’re a new website, just be patient and keep publishing content.
2. Direct traffic – readers go directly to your website. Readers find your website through offline means, for example, and type your website on the search bar. This is done through consistent brand building and using different types of content on other platforms. Put your website name on images, infographics and videos, and watch the traffic come in.
3. Referral traffic – this type of traffic comes from external links. For example, when you add a landing page URL on a YouTube video description and someone clicks it, that’s considered a referral link. Other businesses use influencer marketing to promote their products or services, so for this to be really effective, you need to be consistent in building great relationships with other decision-makers and thinkers in your industry.
4. Social traffic – when you post your blog link on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media platforms, this is considered social traffic. While social media has been extremely helpful in driving traffic to websites, social media managers experiment on various factors like posting on different times of the day, creating various CTAs and recycling blogs into social media posts. Try different strategies and see which works best for you.
5. Paid traffic – whether you prefer Google ads, Facebook ads or LinkedIn ads, paid traffic is a sure way to bring traffic to your website. Facebook ads are my preferred type of paid traffic simply because it’s easier for me to find my audience on social media over other methods and platforms.

Which type of web traffic will you focus on for your website? If you still need more ideas on how web traffic works, I invite you to read more about it.