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- Nov 14, 2011
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I thought it would be a really interesting thread to share and discuss our traffic sources as a percentage of total inbound traffic (e.g % from Google, other search engines, social, PPC, direct type-ins, external links, referrals etc).
I have to admit that I'm trying desperately hard to shift my business and diversify traffic and reliance away from Google. There's always if's and but's (e.g. Google has 90+% market share in UK and SEO traffic in affiliate marketing can have a much higher conversion rate).
Details for a UK education/careers site:
52% from Search (99% Google, 1% other)
25% from Media search
22% Direct Type-ins
1.5% Referrals
<1% social
I started another global site 6-7 months ago which I'm aiming to turn into an authority with more direct type-ins, referral and social media traffic:
53% from Search (91% Google, 9% other)
42% Direct Type-ins
3% Referrals
<1% social
<1% email
One of the problems with these stats is that I do get brand navigation searches which I've lumped in under search but which I really think should be considered direct type-ins. I think this is going to be a big issue for marketeers in the future because with "search not provided" it's going to be harder to track navigational searches and brand traffic.
Does any want to share additional ways of diversifying traffic? I'm interested in PPC in the future although from a newbie perspective it appears to be a break-even marketing channel with a low profit margin.
I also think it's interesting that while people argue about guest posts being devalued or penalised, the links themselves are a great way of bringing additional traffic so I don't think this is ever going to stop. I did one guest post recently which helped break my monthly traffic records and continues to bring me small streams of what I consider valuable traffic I can convert. This also leads me to point out I think building referral links and guest posts could be my easiest way to diversify my traffic sources. Regardless of SEO, if you build say 10 links per month that can bring you 5 visits per day each then that's an extra 1500 referral visitors per month!
I started hiring a social media manager a couple of months ago who has helped me grow my followers and likes into the 100s although it is creating very little actual traffic. I also read Facebook pages have an average of 0.5-2% engagement level which seems very low, I'd be interested to hear if anyone here has success with traffic from social media and what sort of industry they're involved in.
Finally, I'm guessing that if you're aiming to build a big authority/information/news portal with lots of content then Search traffic is always going to be the biggest traffic driver in the beginning (purely because of the content to traffic ratio) but the % of total traffic from Search will decrease as you get natural links, return visitors, social media followers and referrals as the brand grows.
I guess my realistic aim for my bigger sites in 6-12 months time would be something like this:
33% from Search (90% Google, 10% other - so only 30% of my total traffic is from google, including navigational searches)
25% Direct Type-ins
25% Referrals
10% Social
7% other (including email, forums, word of mouth)
I have to admit that I'm trying desperately hard to shift my business and diversify traffic and reliance away from Google. There's always if's and but's (e.g. Google has 90+% market share in UK and SEO traffic in affiliate marketing can have a much higher conversion rate).
Details for a UK education/careers site:
52% from Search (99% Google, 1% other)
25% from Media search
22% Direct Type-ins
1.5% Referrals
<1% social
I started another global site 6-7 months ago which I'm aiming to turn into an authority with more direct type-ins, referral and social media traffic:
53% from Search (91% Google, 9% other)
42% Direct Type-ins
3% Referrals
<1% social
<1% email
One of the problems with these stats is that I do get brand navigation searches which I've lumped in under search but which I really think should be considered direct type-ins. I think this is going to be a big issue for marketeers in the future because with "search not provided" it's going to be harder to track navigational searches and brand traffic.
Does any want to share additional ways of diversifying traffic? I'm interested in PPC in the future although from a newbie perspective it appears to be a break-even marketing channel with a low profit margin.
I also think it's interesting that while people argue about guest posts being devalued or penalised, the links themselves are a great way of bringing additional traffic so I don't think this is ever going to stop. I did one guest post recently which helped break my monthly traffic records and continues to bring me small streams of what I consider valuable traffic I can convert. This also leads me to point out I think building referral links and guest posts could be my easiest way to diversify my traffic sources. Regardless of SEO, if you build say 10 links per month that can bring you 5 visits per day each then that's an extra 1500 referral visitors per month!
I started hiring a social media manager a couple of months ago who has helped me grow my followers and likes into the 100s although it is creating very little actual traffic. I also read Facebook pages have an average of 0.5-2% engagement level which seems very low, I'd be interested to hear if anyone here has success with traffic from social media and what sort of industry they're involved in.
Finally, I'm guessing that if you're aiming to build a big authority/information/news portal with lots of content then Search traffic is always going to be the biggest traffic driver in the beginning (purely because of the content to traffic ratio) but the % of total traffic from Search will decrease as you get natural links, return visitors, social media followers and referrals as the brand grows.
I guess my realistic aim for my bigger sites in 6-12 months time would be something like this:
33% from Search (90% Google, 10% other - so only 30% of my total traffic is from google, including navigational searches)
25% Direct Type-ins
25% Referrals
10% Social
7% other (including email, forums, word of mouth)
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