The Five Main Types of Traffic and How to Rule Them

These days, everyone talks about website traffic.

With SEO gaining so much importance, attracting visitors to a website becomes imperative to any business’s success. This is the reason why so many SEO experts stress their ability to increase traffic and use it as their primary selling point.

Online, there is an almost endless stream of articles that claim they can teach you how to increase your traffic. However, we advise you to first understand how traffic works, before trying to make it work for you.

This is the reason why instead of passing straight to traffic increasing techniques, which is why you might be here, we decided to start with the basics.

So, let’s begin.

Defining the Main Types of Traffic

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is created when a user searches for a keyword through a search engine and is directed to your page by clicking a link that shows up as a result. This is the primary operating field of SEO.

Direct Traffic

Direct traffic is a measure of your actual popularity – it is the one that is created when an internet user searches explicitly for your page online by typing your URL into a web browser.

There is not a specific way to influence the direct traffic you get, as it can only be increased if people become aware of your brand. So, if you want to get the more direct traffic, you need to get the word about your business/page out. The easiest way to do that is to build the other types of traffic first until you create a loyal following that will know your site well enough – to directly land on it.

Email Marketing Traffic

This one has a pretty self-explanatory name, and you can already guess where it is coming from: from a user clicking on a link you have previously included in some of your emails.

Email marketing is a potent tool that you can use to drive traffic to your website when you know how to use it the right way (we will discuss this later on in the post).

Referral Traffic

Referral traffic is all about link building. It is the traffic you get when other websites mention your site and link to it, and a user lands on your page through that link.

This means that the better content you create, the more your link building opportunities expand, as websites prefer sharing and attributing well written, informative content.

One last thing you should keep in mind is not to be surprised when you do not get any traffic from clicks on links shared on social media sites, as Google does not consider them as backlinks and does not include them in calculating your SEO ranking.

Social Media Traffic

Finally, social media traffic is the one you get from social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. Social media is all about shareable content and visuals, so to get social media traffic you need to optimize your posts to what users of SNS find compelling.

Paid Traffic

Paid Traffic is the one you get from users clicking on paid advertising. Most commonly pages use Google AdWords for PPC (pay per click) campaigns, but they can also advertise on Facebook, Yahoo, Instagram, Bing, etc.

Many people mistakenly believe that this kind of traffic is the easiest to get since it is directly dependent upon your investment. However, just like with any other traffic, the ways you go about getting your paid traffic can be improved as well.

If you can’t read between the lines let us state is clear and simple: with paid traffic, you have to be smart. Instead of just blindly pouring money into pay per click campaigns, you need to do your research and target the right kind of audience.

Traffic: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Okay, you now know the main types of traffic and how you can get them. However, before continuing on to talk about the ways to increase the numbers, there is one more thing we should note: the difference between good and bad traffic, and the ugly truth behind traffic metrics.

The Bad Traffic

Bad traffic comes from two places: bots and clickfarms.

Let’s start with bots.

“Bots” stands for robotic traffic, and it comes from software that increases your traffic numbers without any interaction whatsoever. When you are a target of bots, your bounce rate increases, as bots just click links and visit multiple pages in less than a second. This traffic is the absolute worst.

Yes, you might have heard that search engines use bots too to crawl pages, but these bots announce themselves as such, and you can easily filter them.

The bad bot traffic, many times is a form of purchased traffic, that website users buy from low-quality sites.

Do not ever fall into the trap of purchasing robotic traffic – it brings you no good.

The good news? It doesn’t negatively affect you. It just spams your analyses with worthless information.

The other type of bad traffic are clickfarms, which are usually communities made of people, who spend all their days running multiple social media sites and click links.

The good news?

Two of them:

First, you will not likely encounter such traffic, unless you buy it from a shady dealer yourself.

And second, clickfarms, just like bots, bring no harm to your site.

If they are not bad for you, you might be wondering why they are considered as bad traffic?

What makes bad traffic bad?

The answer is simple: any traffic produced by a user that has no engagement (other than clicking around) with your site, is bad traffic.

You cannot make bots and clickfarms to convert. If there is not even the slightest possibility of a visitor turning into a lead, it is no use to you.

The In-Between

Let’s say your website is a target of real users who drive your traffic up. That does not mean that the traffic you get is good, per say. No, we do not say that real-user traffic is bad, as going viral and having posts with high engagement rates will definitely create leads, but some of the users that belong to the traffic numbers you are seeing do not belong in either category: good or bad. They are just there, floating in the in-between.

They are what we call disinterested users.

These users come to your page and click on its content, but something keeps them from converting.

But, if these users are real, just like the ones that create good traffic, how do you know that you have been their target?

Just look at the numbers.

Are your traffic numbers up but your engagement rates low? Is the bounce rate (people landing on the page and immediately leaving) too high? Do you not notice an increase in leads coming from referrals?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, chances are, you have some disinterested users muddying the waters.

However, disinterested users can be good for you, since they can show you that in some ways, your webpage does not have a clear target, and thus not reaching all the people you could reach, who interested in the product or service that you offer.

Trying to twist the arm of disinterested users to convert is sometimes doable, but it takes too much effort. Sure, once in a blue moon, a disinterested user might become your customer. But the much easier way to go about creating leads is following the cues that the numbers give you and finding ways to focus your content and your advertising to the right kind of users in the first place.

The Good Traffic

The source of good traffic, as you might have already guessed, are the user’s opposite of everything we mentioned above. These users will not only land on your page but stay there for a while, exploring its content and the products that you sell. Many of them will remember your page for later or repeated reading and even spread the word out to their social connections.

Good traffic is the goldmine for websites, which is why it is essential that you learn more about your users and their preferences and structure your content in a way that appeals to them. When you see which users interact with your site, you will also be able to judge better the future targets of your advertisements.

Finally, the best traffic you can get is the one coming from content creators. If you have read about SEO, you surely know that backlinks to your website from other relevant sites can do wonders. When your webpage becomes a point of interest for another content creator, do everything you can to keep the relationship going, as this kind of traffic can increase all the other types.

The Ugly Truth Behind Traffic Metrics

Now that you know that not all traffic is good, you already can sense the illusion that traffic metrics are. Your traffic numbers can be stellar, but if they are not accompanied by a high conversion rate – it means absolutely nothing.

Just think about it: what is the purpose of your website?

Of course, you want it to create money for you. And the only way you can earn is if you turn your visitors into leads.

Traffic is never a guarantee for conversion, and many people, chasing high numbers on the charts, tend to forget about that.

So, instead of focusing on creating methods and ads that will attract new visitors to your page, a better strategy would be to build customer loyalty and retention. Returning customers have a much greater impact on your profits and success in the long run than any marketing gimmick could have.

The Game Plan

So far, we discussed what traffic is, its types, and some myths surrounding it. So now that you understand the basics, and maybe even have some ideas about increasing all of these kinds of traffic yourself, let’s discuss how you can drive your numbers up.

There are basically two ways to create more traffic: free or paid. The difference is that the former costs time, and the latter money.

Utilizing SEO techniques, like finding out the specific keywords and phrases, that customers interested in products and services like the ones you offer are searching for online, and optimizing the site for the industry you are in – can be a free way to generate organic traffic. Or, you can also get a bunch of referral traffic if you spend some time posting relevant information and answers on Q&A sites and forums.

Now, although FREE might seem inviting, keep in mind that the SEO tools that go into greater detail in the analysis are paid as well. Also, a more effective way to build referral traffic than spending an eternity on Q&A sites is finding an influencer willing to work with you and share your content, which is again – paid.

The fastest way possible to get GOOD traffic is to use solo ads. Solo ads are basically: you, using another person’s e-mail list to promote your products, for a per-click price for everyone that lends on your page through that e-mail. There are a couple of solo ads platforms on the market, but the one we have found particularly useful is Udimi Solo Ads. Udimi is the market leader for a reason: it has made buying and selling solo ads unbelievably easy.

However, if you decide to go for solo ads, there are a couple of things to be extra careful about. One is finding a trustworthy vendor that has an e-mail list with users who are interested in your niche. And, another thing you have to remember is that the quality of your offering is key! Based on it the receiver will decide whether he considers the message as spam or as valuable information.

Free techniques are only useful for those that are just starting out. Developed companies have to invest some money if they want to get money in return.

Final Notes

When it comes to traffic, numbers are not everything.

We are not saying to stop looking at the charts, but to always take them with a grain of salt. If you really want to know how you are doing, you have to regularly conduct a more in-depth analysis of the traffic/conversion ratio.

There are many ways to get your site known and improve your traffic, and usually, if you are on the very start of your business venture, you can do this with a lot of effort and no money at all. However, if you have already reached a number of customers and you want to attract more new users, sticking to free tools will not cut it. That’s when freemium and paid SEO tools and Solo Ads Platforms like Udimi can help you get where you want, at a small price, compared to the results they’ll create.

Digital marketing is all about stepping up your game. It asks of you to be continually up to date with the trends in your industry, with your competitors, and with your customers’ needs.

If you came here for an advice, here it is:

In a world of endless competition, you have two choices: you either shape up or ship out.

Which one is it going to be?

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