In today’s post, we look at what referral traffic is and how you can increase your referral traffic.
WHAT IS REFERRAL TRAFFIC?
At its most basic level, referral traffic is any traffic that comes from somewhere other than a major search engine.
When someone clicks your link from a social media website, email, or another website, tracking software like Google Analytics will count that as referral traffic.
The website that the traffic comes from is called the referrer.
HOW CAN YOU INCREASE YOUR REFERRAL TRAFFIC?
SCHEDULE SOCIAL POSTS APPROPRIATELY
You need to schedule your social media post to go out at times when your leads are engaging.
Think about what times of day your audience might log onto social media and time your posts to publish then. Then look at the analytics of your post and determine if those times are working.
Figure out what works by seeing what gives you the most clicks on your links. Don’t go off vanity metrics like “likes.”
Then tweak your scheduling to match. These times of day will likely vary according to platform, which brings us to the next factor.
SEND OUT POSTS ON THE RIGHT CHANNELS
Figure out which channels bring you the most traffic.
For HIPB2B, we’ve noticed that LinkedIn is always and forever the source of the majority of our referral traffic.
Each channel has an ideal frequency for how often you should be posting on it. Figure out what the best practices are and then apply them to your audience.
You might notice that you get away with an extra post per day on Instagram because not all of your followers will see the posts so that it won’t feel like a duplicate.
USE A SOCIAL SCHEDULER
We prefer to use Buffer here, but there are lots of options for social scheduling, and many of them have expansive free offerings.
Here are some other social scheduling options:
Social scheduling tools can help you track referral traffic and also ensure that your brand is consistently posting across platforms.
MAKE CONTENT VISUAL
These days, content needs to be visual to get noticed.
The absolute minimum is making images that have freestanding value. Then have them tease more information on your website.
That will help get leads from whatever website they started on to your website.
Once they arrive, give them more digestible visual content in the form of infographics and more.
You can also post all that visual content to social networks like Instagram and Pinterest.
GET PUBLISHED ON REVIEW WEBSITES
Getting your brand published on review websites not only makes it easier for potential customers to hear what other customers have to say, but also gets your website more referral traffic.
This is part of the reason that HIPB2B is listed on Clutch.co.
WRITE GUEST BLOG POSTS
Writing guest blog posts for relevant blogs is a great way to get more referral traffic. There are several ways you can link your guest post back to your website.
They include:
- External links (to your website) that provide relevant information
- Author bios linking back to your brand’s website
- Calls-to-action — every blog post should have an end goal. Make guest posts point to your site.
Make sure that your guest posts are placed on the website where your customers are. You won’t get to write guest posts on the blogs of your competitors. You’ll have to find companies that share a similar audience without being direct competitors. Think brands that might sell complementary offerings to what you sell.
BE AN ACTIVE COMMUNITY MEMBER
Participating in your local or industry-based digital communities is a great way to garner more referral traffic.
There are several ways you can do this:
- Host social communities — HIPB2B has been doing this for years, check out our LinkedIn Group.
- Participating in online forums — don’t just share your content, participate and start meaningful discussions. Make sure the communities you participate in are active.
- Comment on blogs — use your blog to comment on others. That will link your blog to the blog you comment on.
There are a handful of ways you can track your referral traffic. We recommend checking on your referral traffic to figure out which of your tactics are working and which aren’t.
Figure out what channels are doing well on their own and which ones you might want to invest a little more into. As your referral traffic increases, so will your overall website traffic, and you’ll likely see more sales as a result.
