Increase Website Traffic Tips

In this blog article I look at website traffic sources by comparing the results from my own website and then comparing them to some information I have found online. At the end I summarize what would appear to be the top 5 areas to focus on for building website traffic to a small business' website.

Here is a breakdown of the source of my web traffic for the last three months. All figures are the percentages of total visits.

1. Direct = 43%

2. Google = 20%

3. Feedburner = 12%

4. Random Linking Site = 4%

5. Facebook = 3%

6. Linkedin = 2%

7. ezine Articles = 2%

8. Twitter = 2%

9. Dzone = 2%

10. Ask.com = 1%

I could not find any universal averages but I was able to find two other sites that provided the same information.

Site #1 - 2004 Data

Site #2 - 2010 Data

I also found another interesting article on website traffic sources.

Based on the information from the above two sites as well as the article it looks like direct and google are usually the top two sources of traffic for most websites. This means for any website it is critical you are communicating your website's url offline and that you are up to speed on how to get your web sites pages indexed and ranked well on google. For promoting your url offline this could be including it in offline marketing materials, including it in your email signature, etc, etc.

Feedburner is great for my site but I think that is mostly because I have not put enough emphasis on some of the other easy traffic drivers like Facebook, Twitter and Stumbleupon. Based on the information from the article above and the data from site #2 it appears Stubleupon, Twitter and Facebook for most sites deliver a large portion of traffic.

I was definitely disappointed with the results from Linkedin given it is a social media platform. Going forward I will continue to use it as it is great for keeping track of contacts and making connections. I just won't be expecting much web traffic from it.

Dzone is also an interesting site. I am still not sure though if it is worth the time and effort given you need to submit every url manually. I would not recommend this as a way to build website traffic. In the same manner ezine Articles can be very time consuming. Then again if you have a team of writers or are very good at writing articles and know how to pick the right topics this site may be able to work for you.

Surprisingly Ask.com made my top ten, this is just simply because up until this point I had not focused at all on Bing. Bing did not make my list but at about 25% of all search volume it probably should be. Therefore I am definitely working on getting my site listed and indexing well on Bing. As I do this I am sure I will see Yahoo increase as well, given it now gets its search results from Bing.

At the end of the day, if you are a small business owner that is looking to send more traffic to your website it appears the key platforms to focus on are

1. Offline communication of your website's url

2. Google search engine optimization

3. Building a presence on Facebook & Twitter

4. Utilizing Stumbleupon

5. Bing search engine optimization

And if you have a blog Feedburner can also be a very useful tool.

Now I am sure just like everything with the internet things will change fast and within 6 months to a year this list will look different. I guess that is what makes the internet interesting!

My name is Chris R. Keller and I help B2B small business in Waterloo and Kitchener Ontario, Canada generate new customers. If you are interested in keep up to date on issues related to small businesses like increasing website traffic consider subscribing by email to this blog via my RSS feed.

I hope this article on tips for increasing website traffic has been thought provoking. I know it was interesting to see my website traffic sources, but then again it is my website.....