Are you looking to drive more traffic to your website? There are many options but only some are relevant to your business and can bring you high-quality traffic.
So, which traffic channel is best for your business and what are those traffic channels that you should be focusing on?
An actual answer to this question requires some more information. First, you need to know your audience — who they are, what are their interests and, finally, what social media channels and other online places they use. The more you know about who they are, you better you’ll know what traffic channels you should focus on.
For starters, make plans to combine organic with paid methods to get relevant and high-quality traffic. This means you should be prepared to invest in SEO and PPC.
Keep reading this post to learn what are the most lucrative web traffic channels to focus on and boost your business. Our experts will also discover the most effective tactics to drive high-quality and relevant traffic to your website for more conversions.
Should I Focus On One or More Traffic Channels?
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One thing is sure — you don’t want to focus only on one traffic channel. Start with organic traffic, then add paid traffic, social media, and email marketing, for example. Test and see what works for you. Social media will support your SEO efforts, while PPC can put you in front of the right people and get you highly targeted traffic.
Build content, relationships with your prospects, converting funnels, and continually work on these. Content (articles, videos, infographics, etc.) is something you need to start with in order to get traffic from any channel.
Building relationships ensures more reach for your content.
Creating conversion funnels for your customers helps you with planning the right content for each step of their journey and entices them to convert.
Make sure to understand the difference between paid, organic, and all other traffic sources to be able to classify them and use each accordingly to your needs and results achieved.
The Most Effective Digital Marketing Traffic Channels
According to Ascend2 research conducted among the highest level marketing professionals about the most effective channels for a digital marketing plan, websites rank as the most important traffic channel, then come email, social media, organic search, paid search, mobile, and display ads.
The chances are, these are the channels every business should consider.
Let’s break down each of these traffic channels and point out the benefits they provide.
Website
Focus on your website. Make sure it features cutting-edge design, that it’s intuitive, full of relevant and useful content, and optimized for search engines, as well as for mobile devices.
This is the place where your customers will come to convert, so ensure a flawless and enjoyable experience. It is a great idea to conduct a website audit, just to make sure everything works perfectly. If there are any cracks prospects are slipping through, make sure to identify them and take action to turn them into places where prospects turn into customers.
Make sure your website provides a seamless and pleasing journey.
Email
People who sign up to receive your newsletter genuinely are interested in your product or services and actually want to hear from you. Your priority should be consistency in providing valuable information, and even beyond that — delighting them. Use emails and newsletters to make people excited about your product or a service.
Let your subscribers know you value and respect their personal information and privacy. Don’t forget to give them more control of their information and let them opt-out from receiving emails if they wish.
If someone writes to you, make sure to respond as soon as possible.
Email is a channel that can help you build a solid customer base. Use emails and newsletters to direct your prospects and customers to your opt-in forms and landing pages. Make sure to put your email lists to a good use.
Social Media
Traffic channels of social media complete every strategy.
When thinking about using social media to get more traffic, answer these two questions:
- Is content in my industry shareable on social media?
- What social media networks are the most popular?
With Facebook having over 2 billion daily users, it probably means you can reach almost anyone there. However, some social media channels are more convenient for some businesses than for the other. You can learn more about How to Choose Best Social Media Platform and Generate Highest ROI.
For some niches, LinkedIn will be the dominant source of traffic, while for other niches Instagram will take over the lead. For example, based on our experience, Instagram and Pinterest are best for kitchen & bath and interior design businesses, while Facebook worked wonderfully for a coworking start-up.
Choose the most popular social media channels to start with, but also don’t forget to test, measure, and try different approaches and different social media as well.
Use social media to connect with people in a genuine and personable way, create long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationships or even a community. Think about social media as a customer retention strategy, not a sales strategy.
Organic Search
Earned, not paid traffic from search engine results is organic.
Regardless of the industry and niche you’re in, your target customers will use search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo to find you. Organic traffic is something that you should start with and continue building along with other channels. Search Engine Optimization is critical and of the utmost importance for the long-lasting success of any website as well as any marketing strategy.
Great SEO presents the base that you want everything else to build on.
But don’t focus solely on organic traffic. It is a base, but it’s a foundation that needs an upgrade.
Paid Search
Opposed from the traffic that comes through organic search is the traffic that comes in from paid search. Paid search can be conducted using Google AdWords or another platform with the same purpose, like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, for example.
This is a fast and reliable way to get more relevant traffic. Target your audience by search keywords, language, interests, visits, time of day, location, device type, and more.
How to determine which paid channel is best for you?
If you see traffic coming from search, try Google.
In case you see results from social media, you can start advertising there.
If you have a budget for ongoing promotions, consider Pay-per-Click (PPC).
Optimize and test different paid traffic channels and see which bring in the greatest return on investment.
Referral Traffic
This is traffic that comes in when users find you through a website or a platform that’s not a major search engine like Google. These websites can be online magazines, blog posts, or websites where you run your ads, for example.
Direct Traffic
This is a type of traffic that can come from an unknown user, from typing in a URL, clicking a shortened link, or accessing a website from a bookmark. It represents visits with no referring website — when Google cannot identify a source of traffic. Although direct traffic can make a significant part of your website traffic, the bad part is you cannot figure out where does it come from. If you’d like to identify direct traffic sources, you can use some social media monitoring tools for this purpose.
Mobile
In 2019, you simply cannot underestimate the value of mobile traffic. Just in January 2019, 3.5 billion people were active on social media, while 4.4 billion people were using the Internet actively on mobile. To open and respond to emails, 76% of the U.S. citizens use their mobile devices. Mobile devices play more than half of video streamings.
To catch on the trend that is here to stay, make sure to optimize your website for people who browse the Internet on mobile devices. Highly responsive design is an absolute priority — smooth journey and experience on all devices, quick loading times, and easy and intuitive navigation.
Which Traffic Channels Will You Focus On Today?
To improve your website traffic, get more leads and conversions, you can try any of the options above. To make sure you’re doing the right thing and secure high ROI, test and vet different channels.
Don’t rely on a single traffic channel, test both organic and paid sources, and create the combination that works best for you.
See where your audience is, test, and double down on traffic channels that work for you. Validating, testing, improving, tweaking — these processes are essential if you want to create a strategy that will bring actual results for your business and keep you ahead of your competitors.
Have you used any of the traffic channels mentioned above? What results did you get and which ones worked best for you? Let us know in the comments below.
If you need help with organic or paid advertising, let us know. The Persist Digital team of experts will be happy to help you. See in our Case Studies how we helped other businesses excel and reach their goals.