Mike's WISE-Cracks

What Kind of Traffic Converts Best?

Direct:

My take is simple, it’s the best! Either the URL has been passed by word of mouth referral which is likely to result in conversion, this is a repeat customer, or it is an evangelist showing another potential customer your product/service. Nothing comes close to the conversion value of direct traffic; the following according to Avinash Kaushik:

1. People who are your existing customers / past purchasers, they’ll type URL and come to the site or via bookmarks.

2. People familiar with your brand. They need a solution and your name pops up into their head and they type.

3. People driven by word of mouth. Someone recommends your business / solution to someone else and boom they show up at the site. Uninvited, but we love them!

4. People driven by your offline campaigns. Saw an ad on TV, heard one on radio, saw a billboard and were motivated enough to type the URL and show up.

[If you were really smart you would use campaign tagged vanity URL so you can segment them!]

5. [Remember the part below, but.] Free, non-campaign, traffic.

Read more: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/#ixzz10PwWeTQ4

Search Engine Results:

Normally highly target, depending on the search engine and how cute/tricky your content architect has decided to be. These are very good because they are free in one sense, however you really pay for them in another sense. Free because there is no charge from the search engine, expensive because this is really a long-term process with painstaking attention to detail and constant upkeep. At the end of the day, an online business [or website] with a good SEO presence (especially in Google Search) will be exponentially better off than those without one. This [search] traffic is extremely valuable in my opinion, probably second most just behind direct traffic.

Paid:

It’s always amazing to get measurable exposure for advertising, before Pay Per Click, there was no such thing. Paying thousands for a billboard off of a major highway will surely get you exposure, but what kind and how much? How many of those exposed bought from you? What was your average ROI?

All difficult questions to answer from a traditional advertising standpoint made easy.

Referral:

Referral traffic is a bit more tricky in my opinion. This is where Email, Social Media and Affiliate Marketing really kick in. I feel the spectrum is too wide here to be able to achieve a definitive answer on what is and what is not, but there are some points of discussion. It can be highly targeted as it may be coming from a like content [meaning like audience] affiliate site, it could at the same time not fit well even though it’s the same audience. For example, if I having a concrete paving product for contractors and one of my affiliates is targeting concrete paving in general, but most of their users are private consumers looking to learn more about the basics process of concrete paving, then my conversion wont be too high.

Similarly, I could be getting some hits over from Twitter or Facebook that fit well by chance or that bounce off quickly. The user could bounce after seeing that the product/service isn’t quite what they thought it would be after making a few impulse clicks from the social network over to my site, or conversely it might just convert. Either way, in my opinion and experience, something everyone should be doing, but not the most trusted type of traffic for conversion.

Conclusively, your going to need a healthy dose of each. The key to success in all of this must be versatility. having a presence among all channels of traffic is what will ultimately lead to sustained target visitors and of course, conversions! Perhaps the hierarchy which I’ve suggested in this blog will differ from vertical to vertical, but I’ve found this to be generally accurate.

Until Next Time,

Mikey

Michael Bhrad Bay Area Web Design & SEO Consultant | Internet Marketing Consultant Profile