How to Diversify Your Web Traffic Sources

Have you checked your traffic sources on your website’s analytics lately? What do you see? It’s good to see that search has a big piece of the pie, but you also want to make sure that you have a healthy balance of direct and referral site traffic as well. A couple of days ago, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, posted some advice on SEO for Startups. In the post he stressed the importance of not letting search dominate your traffic sources.

Why is web traffic diversity important?

If search engines provide an extremely high percent of traffic to your site and you are not getting traffic from other sources, it tells you that people are not finding value out of your website. A valued website will have a variety of referring site traffic from sharing links, blog posts, upcoming events, news, etc. Analytics would also show a sliver of direct traffic pie from people who have bookmarked the website or typed the URL into the address bar. Referring site and direct traffic sources show that people are connecting to a site because it offers useful content.


Photo credit: net_efekt

What can you do to diversify your web traffic?

  • Provide valuable content on your website, like a blog, and keep your site up-to-date with news and events.
  • Use social media like Facebook and Twitter to share links to the content on your site.
  • Include links to your website on your press releases and traditional marketing pieces like direct mailers and posters.
  • Use links to your web content within your email marketing newsletter that your subscribers will find useful.

Value is the key to successfully diversifying your web traffic. The content on your site needs to be of value to people or else they simply will not read it nor will they share it. Plus, search engines like to see that a site receives varied types of traffic; it lets them know that the website offers relevant content that people find useful. What does your web traffic source pie look like?

See how Hall can help increase your demand.