5 Types of Website Traffic You Need to Know and Optimize

Website traffic is all information about each visitor (visitor) to a website, from the number of visitors, the duration of the visit, and all activities on the site.

Why is Traffic So Important for Websites?

Traffic is the first most important thing that must be considered, especially for e-commerce to determine the popularity of its website. 

The more visitors, the more popular the website. Popular websites are easier to reach online for people who are looking for similar products or services on the website.

However, to increase revenue, the analysis needed is not only limited to how many visitors, but also needs to pay attention to the following things:

How long do visitors spend on the website?

Visitors who only access the website for a few seconds are not good because it can increase the bounce rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who only visit a total of one website page, then leave the website without doing any activity

Percentage of users making purchases

In order for an online business to thrive, it needs a large audience that matches the target customer. Determining how many website visitors make purchases is usually measured by conversion or conversion metrics. From here it can be seen whether the marketing strategy is effective or not.

Costs required to attract visitors

Most online stores use paid traffic to grow their business, such as placing ads on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or other online advertising platforms.

To get a more detailed calculation of advertising costs, businesses can use the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and Cost of Acquiring (CAC) metrics, and calculate the average order value (average order value) and CLV (customer lifetime value) or the average amount -the average amount of money spent by users in a certain period of time.

5 Types of Website Traffic

There are various types of website traffic that marketers can learn one by one to develop personal or company websites.

Well, in practice, it turns out that there's not just one type of traffic, you know. There are other types that you can optimize well.

In order to make your website grow, here we will explain the types of website traffic for you.

1. Direct traffic

Basically, direct traffic is users who come directly to your website through their browsers.

Direct traffic can also refer to visitors who click on website links from bookmarks/favorites, or links from documents such as PDF or Word. 

You can get this type of traffic if your website is well known or your website name is easy to remember. So they can type in your website name directly.

One of the tips so that you can get direct traffic is to make sure your website name is not so difficult that it is easy to remember. You have to work hard to build brand awareness.

This can be done with online or offline advertising such as distributing pamphlets, renting billboards, and others.

2. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic comes from visitors who open websites through search engines like Google, not from paid advertisements.

So, in simple terms, people who type queries on the search page, then find a website and visit it, is called organic traffic.

One of the optimizations to reap this traffic is to maximize SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Then, how? You can do keyword research, maximize meta descriptions and also SEO titles.

Broadly speaking, organic traffic is more effective than direct traffic for the long term.

3. Paidtraffic

The opposite of organic traffic, paid traffic is a type of website traffic that is obtained by using paid advertisements. An easy way to get paid traffic is to use digital advertising services.

Paid traffic comes from users who click on advertised websites, either by Search Engine Marketing (SEM), AdSense, or from affiliate programs. 

The use of social media ads such as YouTube Ads or Facebook Ads is also included in the type of paid traffic.

Usually, people use Google Ads services to get paid traffic.

Later, he will be charged according to the number of clicks made or commonly referred to as pay per click (PPC).

4. Referral traffic

This type of website traffic is considered to be one of the most effective traffic in developing a website.

Referral traffic is visitors who come from clicking on website links embedded in other websites. If the website is used as a reference for content on other sites, this indicates that the website is of high quality. 

How to increase it is quite easy. All you have to do is focus on guest blogging and embedding links into other people's websites.

However, keep in mind that the website you are targeting must have high credibility.

5. Social traffic

Just as the name suggests, this type of website traffic comes from social media.

Marketing a website through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram can be called social traffic. 

Social traffic is almost the same as referral traffic, the difference is that visitors come after clicking on a website link displayed on social media. 

This type of traffic is very easy to get if you have a large number of followers on social media.

Apart from that, you can also create a community or fanpage on Facebook to further increase social traffic.

How to increase website traffic?

Quoted from MailChimp, here are some ways to increase website traffic that can be done:

• SEO optimization by creating content containing keywords and images that are relevant to products or services, and maintaining website security from virus or hacker attacks. This method can encourage organic traffic, and is not paid so it is suitable as a long-term strategy. 
• Create a landing page containing content recommendations according to the page visited. This makes visitors spend longer time on the website. 
• Interesting and quality content. No matter how good a marketing strategy is, it will not work without interesting and quality content. Create interesting content that can help solve visitor problems, until they finally buy the product or service. 
• Use ads to promote websites so that they attract visitors and potential buyers more quickly. 
• Do e-mail marketing. On the start page of the website, you can include an offer to subscribe to the newsletter which will later be sent via e-mail. When visitors enter their e-mail, they will get updates regarding product information, services, or educational content. If you want more complete information, there is a button in the newsletter that directs you to the website.
• Use trusted content references. Using credible website references can increase a website's ranking on search engines. 
• Interact with audiences on social media so they are interested in visiting websites and making purchases. 
• Work with influencers or open affiliate programs so that the business is known more and more.

Conclusion

Those are the five types of website traffic that you should know to optimize the website you manage.

Pay attention to each type of traffic above. Then, do the right optimization for each traffic.