Most of my traffic does NOT come from search engines. I don't know if that is a good thing, or a bad thing.
In fact, my website only gets 1.03% traffic from search engines, which I think is very low. I get most of my traffic from other websites, about 75%, and all my other hits are from direct traffic.
So should my search engine hits be higher than that, or is it normal to have most of my traffic coming in from referring website?
My search engine traffic used to be about 7%, but then I started advertising on other websites like crazy, and my referring website stats went up a good amount.
We can't calculate this in percentage. becase sites like gmail.com are getting more and more direct visitors instead of getting traffic from search engines. Some sites get visitors by placing advertisements in ppc campagin. if they spend more money they will get more traffic.
I think it is needed for fast popularity of any site.
Direct traffic is probably the best traffic because the they are visiting your site because they think it's good and will likely stay for a while. Traffic from search engines can vary a lot in quality, but it depends very much on your site. If your site doesn't have a lot of content it's not strange that you don't get many visitors from the search engines.
Of course, search engine is one of many and many way to get traffic to any website however it doesn't matter where is your traffic come from but it matter about how good quality of your traffic is... and oh!... you have got the best quality traffic, that's the great thing.
traffic that comes from people that link to your site is as important as traffic from search engines...
but you must consider the fact that traffic that comes from sites that link to you are similar to the traffic that you already have (they already know the type of site your site is)... and the traffic that comes from search engines are NEW (people looking for the kind of site you have)....
both are very important... and the more you get of BOTH the better for you!!
Hello Ghost Rider,
| Ghost Rider103 wrote: |
1. Most of my traffic does NOT come from search engines. I don't know if that is a good thing, or a bad thing.
2. In fact, my website only gets 1.03% traffic from search engines, which I think is very low. I get most of my traffic from other websites, about 75%, and all my other hits are from direct traffic.
3. So should my search engine hits be higher than that, or is it normal to have most of my traffic coming in from referring website?
4. My search engine traffic used to be about 7%, but then I started advertising on other websites like crazy, and my referring website stats went up a good amount. |
Having worked on hundreds of different sites, most get 10+% of their traffic from organic (non-paid) search engines. Some clients get over 80% of their traffic from search engines.
Not having a lot of traffic coming from search engines is not necessarily a bad thing. You want quality, targetted traffic. If you can get that from a non-se source then great.
Having said that, if you are only getting 1-7% of your traffic from search engines, then there is probably a great deal of potential traffic you could get by making your site search engine friendly. Yeah, direct means that someone has been interested enough to go straight to the website instead of searching for subjects on Google and perhaps not finding what they wanted on your site. It shows that there is genuine interest for the content on your site.
This is an entirely academic question. You might as well ask of a roadside burger bar, which is better - bikers or truckers? It really makes no difference, because what you should be interested isn't the number of visitors in itself, but the number of sales.
The best way to answer this question is to do what most companies do when it comes to promotion and marketing - and use some form of ad tracking to make sure you know where your sales have come from.
If your sales show that direct links result in very few sales, but cost you a good deal, then drop it and focus on seo, but if you're only getting a very small number of sales from your search engine listings, then you may need to think more carefully about the keywords and marketplace you're using.
The most effective seo won't just put you at the top of the search results pages, but will put you at the top of those search results pages most likely to be seen by people who are most likely to place an order.
It doesn't matter where you traffic coming from, the most important thing to bear in mind is that you only need "Targeted Traffic" and put your effort working on converting these traffic into sales, that's what really matter to me. You can have a website with thousands and thousands of traffic from social booking sites, other sites and search engine etc...but if your visitors just come and go, what's the use of it? However, i do think that search engine traffic is the best kind of FREE AND TARGETED traffic source and you just need to keep that position by keep up your link building.
yes search engine traffic is the best one. When people put their queries then they are displayed the most relevant result which they are interested. So you will get those traffic which is interested to your content. it means they might be your customer.
Again this is freeeeeeee. You don't need even a penny.
on the other hand direct or recurring visitors are also quality traffic. They are your fans, they like the content you present and they believe in you.
But ultimately, traffic is traffic, from where ever it comes from.
just keep it coming.
| Ghost Rider103 wrote: |
Most of my traffic does NOT come from search engines. I don't know if that is a good thing, or a bad thing.
In fact, my website only gets 1.03% traffic from search engines, which I think is very low. I get most of my traffic from other websites, about 75%, and all my other hits are from direct traffic.
So should my search engine hits be higher than that, or is it normal to have most of my traffic coming in from referring website?
My search engine traffic used to be about 7%, but then I started advertising on other websites like crazy, and my referring website stats went up a good amount. |
if your referer traffic (traffic from sites other than search engines) is increasing, its an indication that in near future your search engine traffic is going to increase (may be not in terms of percentage but in terms of total number of visits from search engine).
its just what i think and this is specially for your case.it looks normal i think ，the percentage is just relative…… 
I am agreing with most members above. Direct traffic on your website is nothing less than state of bliss. Cracking engines anyways is a herculean task. If given opportunity I would well stay off from SEO-ing. Them are hard nuts to crack.
So that answers your first question. The main thing to do here is to ensure more conversion of your services. If not e-commerce site you can build at a social networking (Web 2.0) platform. But aim to give visitors the web browsing experience. You got a great formula to win visitors heart. Won't matter where and/or how the traffic came in from.
If you ask me then its the search engine traffic and direct traffic that counts. I rate search engine more then direct traffic.
| metalfreek wrote: |
| If you ask me then its the search engine traffic and direct traffic that counts. I rate search engine more then direct traffic. |
I don't agree. An analogy would be the difference between people "window" shopping (search engines) and people who have gone through the yellow pages and come up with definite list of shops to check out. The latter would be the more serious minded person to do business with. I think Ghostrider is in good shape, but have to agree with jsarnold that there may be an "untapped" market as well. On the other hand, maybe the business that Ghostrider is conducting calls for more direct marketing than search engines.
