What are the different types of traffic and how do they help my site?

What are the different types of traffic and how do they help my site?

Website traffic clocks the number of people who visit an online platform. For example, Wikipedia’s website traffic figure weighs in at a whopping seven trillion visitors a month.

Today, to better acquaint you with the ins and outs of tracking digital visitation, we’re breaking down the three most important types for small- and medium-sized businesses.

At Think Ink Agency, our experienced SEOs work closely with traffic to make sure you are getting enough visits to your site. 

Direct Traffic

The majority of direct traffic visitors come via three avenues:

  1. Typing your domain name directly into the URL bar
  2. Bookmarking your website and returning
  3. Clicking on your link via a non-indexed source

 

Best Practices for Direct Traffic

Optimally tweaking websites and marketing plans to attract direct traffic requires two things. First, use clean URLs that are easy to remember and spell. Second, embed links in your email newsletters and promotional text messages, which are non-indexed sources.

 

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic comes through search engines. When someone enters a query into a platform like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, the resulting list of relevant links is known as the search engine result pages — aka SERPs — and when someone clicks on one of those links, it’s counted as organic website traffic.

Increasing organic traffic is arguably the most profitable, as it’s the type of traffic that brings in brand new customers and at Think Ink Agency we can help you increase your organic traffic. For example, let’s say you run a restaurant in a town called “Millstone” that serves crab. So when someone pumps “seafood restaurant in Millstone” into Google, and you show up at the top of the list, you’ll likely attract a new diner.

 

Best Practices for Organic Traffic

Ranking well in the SERPs involves search engine optimization — or SEO, a toolkit of techniques that helps web pages perform better in search engines. Content marketing and on-page metadata tweaking are common SEO skills. For optimal results, it's wise to invest in a seasoned digital marketing team.

 

Referral Traffic

Referral traffic comes from other indexed websites. For example, let’s say you run a small boutique and also maintain an Etsy account. People who click on the link to your main website from Etsy are considered referral traffic.

Referral traffic serves two purposes. Not only does it attract new business, but the backlinks can be valuable from an SEO perspective.

 

Best Practices for Referral Traffic

Building referral traffic requires link building, which is becoming more of an art with each passing algorithm update. Standard techniques include guest blogging, signing up for associations, and adding your listing to relevant directories.

Getting interviewed is also a great way to earn backlinks, but landing interviews can prove difficult without a bit of public relations know-how.

If you opt to outsource link-building efforts, be careful. All links aren’t created equal, and search algorithms now punish websites for being linked to spammy link farms. So, these days, a bad link builder can do more harm than good.

 

Increase Profits by Investing in Digital Marketing

Think Ink Agency isn’t your average digital marketing team. We do things differently — and we do more things.

If you need a wordsmith to write, edit, and publish articles on your behalf, we’ve got you covered. If you need a programmer to build websites or a promotional expert to develop effective media outreach campaigns, we can do that too.


Think Ink Agency is a full-service digital marketing team that knows how to get you where you want to be professional. And with our custom CRM, you can track our efforts and progress every step of the way. So if you’re ready to supersize your exposure and profits, let’s talk. Our people have the skills you need to exceed your profit goals.