Where Does Web Site Traffic Come From? Web site traffic can come from a number of places, but these days there are five primary sources of traffic that you can tap. In this post I’ll explain the five sources of traffic for blogs and web sites today, and explain a little about each of them.
Social Traffic
Traffic from online services such as Twitter, MyBlogLog, Digg, StumbleUpon and Entrecard can be considered social traffic. In fact, any web site where you can influence people to visit your site can be considered social traffic.
Normally, the greater number of solid relationships you have on these networks, the more traffic you can achieve from these sources. As an example, you might recall my post on ‘10 Cool Create An Avatar Sites‘. When this post was stumbled, my server was slammed with users hitting this one post. The post garnered over 8,000 impressions, and over 6,000 unique hits in one day. All thanks to StumbleUpon. It still continues to receive hits from Stumble, and many other sources, adding to my hit count daily.
Social traffic is lumped in with referral traffic in most analytics applications.
Search Traffic
Getting listed in the search engines will start the search traffic rolling. There’s Google, Yahoo, and many other search engines that will come to your site and index your pages. What each search engine does after indexing your site may be different across all the search engines, and the time it takes each one to start showing in search results will vary.
There’s a whole bunch of information on getting ranked in the search engines, but it all boils down to keywords and relevance. Does your content line up as a possible result for any search queries a user may enter? Are the search terms relevant to any of your content? The better you answer this with your content, the higher you will place in search results for various terms and phrases.
Search traffic also converts better than any other type of traffic when talking about AdSense or any other Pay Per Click program. Think about it. Sally Homemaker in Podunk Arkansas does a search in Google for ‘Weather stripping’. If you happen to have content that Google deems a good match for her query, she might just find you and click over to your site. Once she’s there, if the content isn’t what she was looking for, perhaps that little ad over there is, and she clicks through one of your ads. That click makes you a little money, and it also sends Sally Homemaker to a destination that just might be what she’s looking for.
Thinking of it that way can make you believe your doing humanity a service, rather than a disservice when you decide to place ads on your site.
Referral Traffic
Of course, referrals from other web sites can bring you traffic too. Referral traffic is best described as a link on another site that brings you traffic from that other site. When you leave a comment here, and it’s intelligent and makes some sense, people that read your comment may click through to your site to see more of what you’re about.
When you set up an account at StumbleUpon, Digg or any other site, completing your profile and including a link to your web site can help bring you referral traffic from a social site. Some may argue the point, and perhaps consider it splitting hairs, but that’s how I think of it.
The top commentators here are receiving referral traffic from me. Pretty much anywhere you have a link that points back to your site is a potential node for referral traffic. Of course, the lines between referral and social traffic get blurred a little when that link is sitting on a social site, but I think you get my drift.
Advertising Traffic
Similar to referral traffic is advertising traffic. Any time you spend money to put a link somewhere to gain traffic from it, anywhere, I call the traffic coming from that source advertising traffic. The traffic costs you money, and hopefully it converts once it gets to your site.
I don’t have much to say about traffic from these sources except that in some respects, advertising traffic is similar to search engine traffic. Especially if you’re advertising on Google or Yahoo. People search, and if you’ve bid on those keywords or similar, your ad will display and you might get a click from the user.
The click costs you money, and it’s then up to you to ensure that your money is well spent. After spending a few hundred dollars in the course of a few hours, I realized I had no business messing around with paid traffic. Not yet anyway.
Advertising traffic is my own designation, and you’ll also find this category lumped in with the referral traffic.
Direct Traffic
In the first few hours, perhaps even weeks of a new web site, the largest contributor to a web sites traffic is direct traffic. This is traffic that specifically types in the URL to your web site into the address bar of their browser. The visitor came directly to your site. And what I meant by it being the largest contributor to your traffic in the early days of your web site simply means that it’s you, checking out your site. Assuming that no one knows about your site.
That’s not to say that direct traffic doesn’t come from anyone but yourself. It comes from any print advertising, word of mouth, etc. Direct traffic is pretty golden in comparison to the other forms of traffic. It may be a large assumption on my behalf, but if someone takes the time to fat-finger your URL, they really want to be there. It’s more time consuming than just clicking a link and visiting a site. So the traffic that comes to you directly really wants to be on your site.
Wrapping it up
Understanding where traffic comes from can help you make decisions about your web site. Are you targeting a specific subset of traffic, or trying to achieve the most from each one? You should now know where web site traffic comes from. How to arrange a site to optimize for each one is a different post for another day.
Can you think of any other types of traffic that can be driven to your web site? Have any thoughts to add on anything above? Where does the majority of your traffic come from?
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Wayne John is a web developer in Southern California that shares his 25+ years of programming and web development experience freely and happily to anyone willing to learn. He also loathes speaking in the third person. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you 
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ikaran (1)
Lindsay (1)
Switcher (1)
lol.Sorry for the broken href tag:-( forgot the ‘ and bang, it showed how cheap i ws trying to get:-) Bt i guess you wouldn mind it though.Sad that i cant edit the comment
Hi
Twitter is supposedly become the
Get the Google Toolbar and all that info is right at your fingertips. But, it’s only Google, but that’s usually good enough.
I knwo the feeling, give it some time, keep on keeping on and it will happen. Did for me, and it will for you!
Thanx for checking this out Wayne.Don’t know which tool you use, but the 4 backlinks bring a smile on my face : ) Yes, think you are right, it needs some times.It just seemed not logical to me.
Thnk you for your fast reaction!
From what I can tell, you have 21 pages indexed by Google, and Google only knows of 4 back links to your site. 2 from SysMaster, 1 from BloodyComputer and the last one is an internal back link on your site.
You’ve been going since January, and these things will take some time. Give it a few months and you’ll see things improve. It took me about 6 months before I got my PR1.
Thanks for dropping by WebBanshee!
Right , in the first days the direct traffic is most likely the traffic you get.You just check out your site and at the beginning you may be the only visitor.
What i do not understand is the following:
My Blog is indexed by Google (webbanshee.blogspot.com), but when i do a check on Pagerank ,does not matter with which tool, i used to get back : there is no page indexed in Google.
Same when i perform a backlink check on tools which query Google and Yahoo.Yahoo lists over 2000 backlinks , Google shows 0.
Why is it this way ? I just don’t get this.When i show up in Google search results than i asume i am indexed.But Google seems not to see me beyond that (backlinks, pagerank etc.)
Good description of traffic sources !Thx.
Regards
I’m hit and miss still with paid advertising. When you can get the resulting traffic conversion to exceed the cost of the advertising, your set.
I tinker here and there. Not lately though.
I think my impatience was what contributed to that Facebook result. When I saw that my per click bid wasn’t high enough to get impressions, I increased it! If I was more patient, I imagine over time I could have gotten more hits off the budget. Not sure I’d try it again though. Maybe… don’t know… ha!
What I would do, if I were you, I’m not, but if I were (can I be any more convoluted?), when using your Voices link, use a name that is keyword rich.
So that when you leave a comment, your name will be ‘Voices of Them’ and the link will go to your voices site. The same with your other site, use a keyword rich name, or Etta.
The reason you should do this, not only on my blog but on others as well is that your links will then be geared and ready for Google when this site gets indexed.
I should actually formulate a post on this and tie it in with some rules on commenting here. ‘How to make the most of your comments’ or something like that.
Excellent question, I hope I explained it clear enough for ya.
If you don’t do this, there might be some confusion as to where the term ettarose links to…for visitors that is.
Plus, if you comment enough with each, you’ll end up getting two links in my top commentators list, because right now it’s really easy to leave about 5 comments and end up on there….lol.
Hi sweety, when commenting I have two blogs and most of my comments are from my humor blog. I think I need to start using my other blog, (the one I used here.) Both of my sites are my babies so I can’t make up my mind when to use which one at which time. Even humor bloggers would like my voices site. I do not get a lot of search engine traffic, actually hardly any. Is that a bad thing?
Never considered advertising on Facebook, and I’m surprised that you were not able to get more hits off your $100. But, it’s sometimes hit and miss I suspect.
Having big boys like Coke in the mix surely won’t help the little guy any, and that’s a bummer.
Another good post Wayne.
I actually check website statistics regularly – at least once a month. I like to check both traffic sources and viewed content. I agree with Demeur, in that content is important… but I also like to know where readers of that content are coming from, and so on.
I’ve tried all of the above and continue to try and grow traffic from every place possible. The shop gets most traffic from Referring Sites, followed by Search Engines and then Direct Traffic. The main URL gets 90% of traffic from Referring Sites, 1% from social bookmarks/search engines, and 9% is direct. There’s some figures to sink your teeth into. I’m not entirely sure what I can take from that though.
Before I end my say, I just want to mention that “Advertising” traffic can also be “direct” traffic… even though we are all online, let’s not forget about other places to advertise. We (GritFX) created some stickers which we’ve handed out, left on shop counters, stuck on our cars, etc… I’m sure that this contributes to our direct traffic. Well I hope so!!
And I agree with Ankit, in that Facebook can be utilised – first for social traffic, then referring traffic (from a company facebook page) and then for advertising traffic. Post an add that is billed per click and target your niche. Only problem is that the big companies (like Coke) are now using Facebook to adverise, so you’re bidding against the giants now. When I tried it out, we got approx 130 visitors on a budget of $100. That was pre-coke sign up… not sure what result you’d get now.
Kristi, thanks for putting your signature there, because each time I bump into you I want to call you Kikolani… I can imagine with the eclectic mix of stuff that you have quite a following from it. Everyone loves a good photo, and I see you’re doing some macro shots. Are you going to continue that? Hope so, thought the flowers were pretty cool.
Most of my traffic is definitely from social networking, referral links (blogrolls), and sites I comment on. Especially Lifehacker.com, I get a nice bit of traffic when I comment on their stuff.
~ Kristi
Demeur, what are your thoughts on my own homepage? Too much, or have I found a balance? I tried to keep everything eye-appealing and not too cluttered.
I agree with you 100%.
One thing I’ve noticed is how much junk people put on their sites. There is a point at which it looks like an overstuffed closet. Not only does that make it difficult to load your home page but after a while people can’t see the forest for the trees. They won’t even notice the ads you’re trying to promote. Basic rule of advertising KISS or keep it simple stupid.
My traffic seems to come from all those place, but I am always looking for ways to increase it. Social networking, while time consuming, is a great way…rewarding too.
peace,
mike
livelife365
I never really consider the traffic. My thing is content. If you build it well they will come usually by word of mouth… er make that word of link. I’d only be concerned about traffic if my blog was for the money which it isn’t. This is all just an obsessive hobby.
Ankit, is it just not working for you right now, because I’m able to see it working on my end. Either way, glad you liked it. I thought it was worth mentioning. Many of these posts I’m putting out right now will be referenced later on in my series for this year.
Yes, I’m still working that out…lol
Mae, thanks for commenting. Glad you found something to take with you. Did we have a PR update recently? Everything is still the same for me, so perhaps nothing changed, which is also OK with me. lol
thanks for this post..i learned something..and i need more traffic to my blog as they said it is one way to improve my PR…hmmm i lost my rank 2 just this week!
I have to agree Wayne that social traffic can give u those real peaks of traffic but it is not regular.Search Engine traffic is the one which gives the maximum juice and with low bounce rates if the content is sticky.
I have been focussed on my finance blog gettingmoneywise.blogspot.com till now and after around 5 months,i am getting around 35% of the traffic from google alone.An the average visit lenght of around 2:00 mins which i consider cool.
Stumbleupon and facebook are great again based on the niche.Belive it or not but facebook bought me around 60 odd visits with average of 15 mins.Whoa!!
Off late i plan to work on my Online Treasure blog and build traffic.Hence,from now on i l be commenting with that url and entrecard is switched too.Lets hope i get the same results with search engines too.
Good list though!!!Wanted to stumble but TAF aint responding well right nw.Will do it tonight for sure:-)
All traffic is good, at least, I would only say one is better than another in context to a given site. Mashable makes a killing on social traffic, and probably does really well with search traffic.
They all have their purpose and use, it just depends on the site as to which one should be pursued.
So what do you think which traffic is good … I think this one is search traffic because this one is well targeted and can result you more conversion.
But for that you will have to invest huge time and effort to get high rank in your keywords.
My second favourite is direct traffic … its just shows whether you are recognised by the people or not. But less conversion …
Am I right ? If not than kindly correct me with your valuable opinion and suggestion.
Rahul, you keep on posting and setting goals for yourself and you’ll find, through the normal course of commenting and finding new blogs will help you gain momentum. It took me what seems forever to get one comment, but it finally came one post and it just went from there. Just keep going!
Heff, nah, you can’t say that at all. You know exactly how you get hits. By staying true to yourself, and we find that rather amusing to be honest. haha Just a hoot, that’s what you are. You’re a hoot! (Tell me you recognize the Boston Legalese)
Vanea, it seems that you and many others don’t know what levels of traffic, so I guess that’s a post for another day. If you’re adventurous though, look into Google’s Analytics tool.
Tammy, if you want to know, I’ll probably be writing something on that in the coming days, months… Life gets pretty busy sometimes.
I believe that most of my traffic comes from other blogs that I visit.
My newest visitors come from Mybloglog and twitter… Probably! And, why not from sites like this one where my presence is observed… But still, i’m not having too many visitors this days… I forgot to mention Blogcatalog or Blogexplosion but there i’m new member, so, i don’t think that my traffic comes from there! Anyway i try to make more good friends every day on these social sites! And… Who knows!…
I have no idea how I get hits, lol !