If you have a website for your business, you'd know that without visitors (aka traffic) your website is dead in the water. It's like a party with amazing food that no one goes to.
It's also important to know where those visitors come from and how they contribute to your bottom line, because like party guests - not all visitors are quality.
Different kinds of traffic
There are three main kinds of website traffic:
- direct traffic
- search engine traffic
- referral traffic.
All are valuable but let's focus on the most diverse kind: referral traffic.
What's the difference?
Direct (also shows as 'none' in Google Analytics) visitors are those that have come to the site via a bookmark, by typing in your URL, by clicking on a link in an email or email newsletter.
Search engine – is organic (unpaid) traffic or paid (e.g. Google Adwords). These are people who go to a search engine like Google and type in a search phrase then click on resulting links.
Referral traffic are visitors that have been sent to your site by some other site linking to yours.
At their most powerful they come with a recommendation to use your business. At worse they can be annoying spam traffic generated by sites with lists of websites scrapped together automatically.
But let's focus on the positive. Referral traffic will include people following links on:
- Directory listings such as Yellow Pages, Gopher, Finda and Zenbu
- Industry organisation listings – e.g Master Builders
- Local business listings from business groups and networks like BNI
- Social sites – e.g. links you post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as people following any links in your profile
- Links in the media on PR posts, announcements and media releases
- Partner sites recommending your services
- Testimonials on suppliers websites
- Content distribution networks, guest blogging posting and forums
Referrals can also provide a handy SEO benefit, since it involves an inbound link on another site. So lets dive in and look at a couple of these more closely...
Press Releases
Press releases can be a quick and easy way to get referral traffic - but of course you have to have something to issue a press release about. This could be an event, a company milestone, new product or acquisition of a new customer etc. Some companies will issue a press release about very little, but try and make it newsworthy if you want to attract quality traffic.
You can submit a press release for free via a distribution service like pr.co.nz - but you don't get a back-link to your site which defeats the purpose somewhat. Pay $10 and you'll get a link back to your site.
Others like Mediacom charge based on where it's distributed and how much copy you have. Also check out infonews.co.nz and www.scoop.co.nz
Guest Posting
Guest posts are when you write content for someone else to publish on their website. The idea is that you get an authors credit with a link to your website. People love what you've written so much that they follow the link to find out more about you and your business.
For this to work you have to be a keen and capable writer. You also have to get your posts on sites that are related to your business or are local to your area, because you have to get your content in front of a relevant audience.
It goes without saying that the sites you post on should be quality websites that have a good reputation in that industry, not a blog farm which churn out content automatically.
Do your research first and decide if the site will suit the topics you can write about and your style. Most quality sites will have strict guidelines for guest writers so investigate these before you start.
You don't generally have to pay to guest post as the sites are looking for quality content, but you may have to work at establishing and building a good relationship. If you have some good local networks some of these connections may be useful places for guest posting if the topics are compatible.
Don't forget media sites can be a highly valuable asset as they often have very high readership – think The NZ Herald, Stuff etc.
When planning on writing for other sites, ask yourself what challenges their audience has and create problem-solving content for them.
Blogging
We talk about blogging in our post Why Blogging is essential for getting people to visit your website.
If you publish quality content and it gets shared around, other people can talk about and reference your content with a link back to it.
One very powerful form of referral is if someone reviews your product or service (assuming it's positive of course!), or includes a link to something on your site as a reference, a resource or as recommended reading.
It doesn't even have to be about a product – it can be a resource that you have made available like the Top Tips to Get Red Wine Out Of Your Carpet. Look for sites that have these kinds of reviews and links to similar products or services and see if you can get them to do the same for yours. Offer a free trial or demo if necessary.
Partner Opportunities
If you partner with other organisations to put on events or deliver services, then this is the perfect opportunity to promote your business alongside theirs.
All it takes is your logo and a link in any content that they have on their website, back to yours.
For example, a web design company who don't have writers on the payroll may be willing to promote your fantastic copy writing skills. Of course this would require you to have a great relationship with that web design company, but if you do and your services can add value to theirs then they may be willing to include a back link to your website. Even better, write a blurb for them to put on their website that covers your core offer and skills. If you've got the odd guest post on their blog as well, that will help! So leverage those networks!
Social Media
Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ are natural sources for bringing in referral traffic – assuming you have built up an audience.
And that means potential customers or partners, so buying x number of followers is a waste of time. Just focus on the one your audience is most likely to use.
Facebook and Google+ tend to be more personal so links based on things people find relevant to themselves personally will get a better response. Especially if it's funny or clever.
LinkedIn is more professional and your link will get more traction if it's about business.
And don't forget about YouTube – if your business is suited to DIY or How To videos this could also be a useful source of traffic.
The trick to increasing social referrals is to
- post regularly
- build your audience numbers.
You can build your audience through special offers and competitions, but regular posting requires the creation of regular quality content and this can be a lot harder.
Thin content with poor grammar is surprisingly common. If you can get the attention of people known as 'influencer's' this can create a huge buzz for your business, as these people will use social media to share information about your company to their large audiences. Of course you have to be careful – you can't control what they say about you and your product so be genuine and professional.
Social platforms also offer paid advertising.
Advertising on other sites
If you have the budget to spend, display or banner advertising can be an effective way of building traffic while other long-term methods are being developed
Find sites which have the target audience that you are looking for because paid advertising can get expensive. Opt for either text links or banners, but try and get some kind of indicator of how much traffic you can expect and make sure you'll be able to opt out if the campaign isn't effective or doesn't get a good return for your money.
Less effective but worth considering
Online Directories
These are a mixed bag – I've seen Yellowpages send a lot of traffic to one client website, but the majority only send a few, even for paid listings.
Directories are an easy way to ensure people can find you but don't expect them to send a ton of traffic unless you are willing to pay A LOT of money to get your listing at the top of everyone else’s.
And therein lies the problem with directories – by their very nature they need to have a lot of paid listing to make their business work - so yours can get lost in the mix. Something local and targeted like No Cowboys may be more useful than the bigger or offshore ones.
Directories are a good way to ensure that if they Google your business name, you are all over the front page results.
Article marketing
This is where you post your articles on sites like Ezinearticles. but it is not about submitting 'spun' articles to an automated article submission service. This approach is a lot more effective if the site you are publishing on is close to your audience. the bigger global reach ones are less likely to do so than your local business networking blog. It also requires quality writing, so if you don't already write for your own blog you might struggle to get decent content together.
Blog and forum commenting
If you participate in a discussion on someone else's blog, and you have a link to your site along with your comment signature, this can generate some traffic.
Comment 'spam' has diluted the effectiveness of this method for SEO purposes, but if you post an intelligent comment that has some insight or adds value to the discussion it can generate referral traffic from people who are interested in who you are.
Forums have been around a long time and although have become less popular with the increased use of mainstream social media sites, certain industries still have thriving discussion and support forums. And some social sites like LinkedIn have their own discussions.
You can get referral traffic from links within forums and discussion comments but they can take a lot of time and energy to do. A lot of discussions are initiated by people looking for free advise and support so be careful of putting too much energy into these if you aren't getting a return.
Bookmarking sites
Sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon allow you to bookmark links to your site, but we've not seen these generate a lot of useful referral traffic.
Conclusion
Industry sources say that while search delivers more volume, referrals are better quality and lead to more conversions.
Once your site is getting some reasonable visitor numbers, you can start using your analytics software to analyse the data to see which referral source sends the most visitors and which spend the most time, looking at the most content and which ones result in a sale or enquiry.
Then you can focus on getting more of the same.
If you can get intelligence on your competitors, you may also be able to establish where they get their referral traffic from and begin building a relationship with those referrer sources.
However, like party guests - not all referral traffic is going to be the kind you want. Some will be junk, so focus on referral sources that send you relevant, qualified visits.
Images from www.freedigitalphotos.net. Handshake: adamr Meeting: Ambro
