Many website owners make the common mistake of viewing all traffic the same.
I’m going to highlight three key differences to help you understand traffic sources. Hopefully, you’ll use this information to cover any gaps in your current marketing plan.
You can apply this concept to foot traffic, but today we are talking digital.
Traffic can be broken up into three primary buckets consisting of Paid Traffic, Earned Traffic, and Owned Traffic.
Paid traffic consists of all traffic you have invested money or time into getting. This includes paid ads, traffic from search engine optimization, sponsored posts, etc. This is where most businesses stop, partly because this encompasses what they understand to be traffic.
Paid traffic examples;
-organic search traffic
-traffic from paid search ads
-Facebook ads traffic
-Display ads traffic
The second source is earned traffic. This is where someone visits your site because they heard about you through a secondary source, such as a podcast interview, a friend’s recommendation, a news piece, etc. Yes, there is some overlap because you can pay to get this type of coverage, but earned traffic differs in that it carries with it some element of social proof.
Earned traffic examples;
-Visitors who heard you on a podcast
-Visitors who saw a news report or press release about your company
-Visitors who asked friends for recommendations
The third source, which is by far the most valuable and powerful source of traffic, is owned traffic. This source is also often ignored. Owned traffic is traffic that comes from your owned audience. That could be an email list, YouTube or podcast subscribers, social media followers, etc. This is your list of people who already know, like, and trust you and to whom you can market at any time.
Owned traffic examples;
-Visitors who received an email and are on your list
-Visitors who follow you on social media who clicked a link you shared
-Subscribers on YouTube that watched your latest video
Owning your traffic gives you the ability to consistently do business with your audience. If you rely solely on search engine optimization, for instance, one big change to Google’s algorithm could you leave you scrambling with a sudden drop in traffic.
You, of course, don’t want to focus only on owned traffic; after all, you build your traffic through paid & earned traffic. But, owned traffic is so often overlooked and underused that it gives your business a gigantic edge in your market place.
If you’d like help looking over your traffic, lead, & sales systems, we can help you determine the best way to attract & grow your owned traffic. This can be as simple as creating a compelling offer and building a high-converting landing page.
Contact Currier Marketing for an overview & to learn how an SEO company can help your business grow.
