How to leverage website referral traffic

An important way to ensure that organizations are maximizing their web analytics capabilities is by focusing on the ways that metrics can be applied to measuring the effectiveness of business objectives. The first two blog posts will feature two common web metrics and how to apply them in business scenario. The first post is on Website referral traffic.

Referred traffic describes website visits that are directed from outside web sources, basically anything that isn’t a visit where the visitor typed your URL into the browser bar. Google analytics also differentiates referral traffic that is direct and search engine-driven traffic. Examples of referred traffic might include: paid search, social media traffic, and traffic referred from outside websites.

Broadly, referred traffic tracking helps provide insight into two different things: a breakdown of where different visitors to your website are coming from and how those different audiences engage with your site. It is the second component of the referral traffic that helps provide value in understanding what referral channels provide the most engagement: are those people visiting your site from Twitter converting more than those who are referred through your direct email campaigns? Referral traffic metrics can help provide that insight, though as mentioned above…it is up to the knowledge of the marketer to interpret and act on it.

Webris blog growth

In a guest post on RobbieRichards.com, Ryan Stewart (founder of the SEO agency Webris)

wrote a blog about how he leveraged Reddit referral traffic to help invigorate a stagnant blog traffic and drive new users. Stewart leveraged a Reddit “expert” to help implement some different tactics to help generate authority on Reddit and build an audience that would become blog audiences.

Image from RobbieRichards.com

Stewart started with his channel goal: Increase blog traffic monthly. For our purposes, we can expand upon this and understand the goal as a broader business awareness and growth goal, although the specific tactic presented may be a bit more specific. Stewart attempted to drive traffic through various channels, and ended up finding success by leveraging outside Reddit knowledge. He expressed the improvement in progress toward his goal by displaying his Reddit referral traffic.

Image from RobbieRichards.com

The 1,691 sessions referred from Reddit in 27 days amounted to a significant portion of Stewart’s overall traffic to the blog, signifying a successful implementation. In the post Stewart explained that one of the best takeaways from implementing the new tactics was that “Reddit is now a platform I can rely on for quality traffic.” Stewart took a business goal, recognized when he wasn’t meeting that goal through web data, and found a way to use web referral data as a way to quantify specific success.

For businesses that look to drive new traffic and users to their website, understanding where those visitors are coming from is the first step to being able to leverage that traffic in your business objectives. Whether your goal is driving visitor growth, like Ryan Stewert at Webris, or conversions, website referral data can provide valuable insight to help achieve those goals.