One of your biggest digital marketing goals is likely to get your website ranking as highly in the SERPs as possible. Ranking highly in the SERPs will help bring in more organic traffic to your website, but this isn’t the only form of traffic. Another way users are coming to your website is from referral websites. If you want to increase traffic and help boost your SEO, you need to pay attention to referral traffic and how to make the most of it.
What is Referral Traffic?
Referral traffic is exactly what it sounds like – traffic that gets referred to your website from somewhere besides a search engine. This means that referral traffic is made up of users from other sites who click on a link to your website. This traffic is tracked separately from users who find your website through search engines, so you can see exactly how many users your website is getting from referring sites.
Benefits of Referral Traffic
There are many benefits of referral traffic that you can’t afford to overlook. These are a few reasons referral traffic is more than worth paying attention to.
Increase Users on Your Site
Increasing organic traffic is an important goal to have, but if this is the only traffic you’re focusing on, you won’t bring in nearly as many people as you could. Users who find you on referring websites might not have made a search that led to you or maybe wouldn’t have clicked on your website if they did. However, seeing a link to your website on one they already trust can sometimes be much more compelling than seeing you in the SERPs. These are potentially qualified users you wouldn’t have gotten without the referring website.
Improve Brand Recognition
In today’s market, you likely have a long list of competitors. In most cases, users aren’t going to make their decision based on the first business they see. Instead, they’re going to take some time and research their options, and with so many, it can be difficult to remember a business. This makes brand recognition more important today than ever before. Because of this, you want to be seen in more places than just the SERPs. The more users are exposed to your business, the better the chances of them remembering you. Referring websites are one more way of getting your business’s name out there and improving brand recognition.
Build Trust and Authority
Unfortunately, many businesses give people plenty of reasons not to trust them. People can be very wary today about trusting a new business, but gaining this trust is the only way for you to grow. While ranking highly in the SERPs can help show that your business is more trustworthy than others, having other websites that have already gained someone’s trust reference your business can be even more telling. This can show that it isn’t just you recommending your business, but others as well.
How To Increase Referral Traffic
It might seem that since referral traffic is coming from other websites, you have no control or influence over it. However, this isn’t entirely the case. While it is up to other websites to decide whether or not to add a link to your website, there are ways that you can increase the number of links you’re getting.
Here are a few ways you can help increase the amount of referral traffic visiting your website.
Write Guest Blogs
You might already spend a lot of time writing blogs for your own website, but you could also benefit from publishing blogs on someone else’s website. Other websites have audiences outside of the one you currently have, which can help open you up to many more opportunities. Users are already visiting this blog and trust it, so if they’re interested in what you have to say in your guest blog post, they may be compelled to visit your website.
Get Added to Online Directories
Online directories are extremely popular for making it easy to find new businesses in specific industries. In most cases, getting listed on these directories is free. When someone is looking for a business like yours, there’s a good chance they’re going to look through an online directory first. You can also bet that a lot of your competitors are already listed on these directories, so you don’t want all of your possible referral traffic to go to them.
Post on Social Media
There are many reasons your business needs to be on social media, and none to justify not utilizing it. Social media is another great way to get more referral traffic to your website. When people share your posts, they’re expanding the number of people who see them, as well as the number of people who might click on a link back to your website.
Be Active on Industry Forums
When people look up a question, they aren’t only going to a business’s website for the answer. In many cases, they’re going to try finding the answer on a forum instead. There are many different forums across the internet today, and many different industries are bound to have forums of their own. Staying active on industry forums and contributing valuable answers to people’s questions can help you reach more people. If your response is helpful enough, they may be tempted to go to your website to get more information.
Increase Traffic Coming To Your Website with ENX2 Marketing
With so many opportunities to bring more traffic to your website, it can feel overwhelming to try and keep up. Increasing traffic is a full-time job, which you can’t do on top of everything else you already have. This is why you need ENX2 Marketing. With a digital marketing agency on your side, you can ensure every aspect of digital marketing is covered, without having to do any of the work yourself.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you increase your website traffic.
