Every webmasters and bloggers are asking one question these days – Which form of traffic is best for their websites or biogs? Search Engine Traffic or
Social Media Traffic?
Search engine traffic, also known as Organic traffic can be generated by proper SEO of your website by making the site search engine friendly, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. Social media traffic, on the other hand, can be generated by networking with other social media users and promoting your site and content on various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon etc.
Search Engine Traffic
Why Organic Traffic is considered as high quality? Because :
1. Informational query: they come from search engines with an intention to gain knowledge about the subject matter or, gather information about something.
2. Highly targeted: As, they come from search engines with a specific search query/search word or phrase, they are more specific or goal oriented.
3. High conversion: The conversion rate (sales) is very high with search engine traffic, whether informational query (less) or transactional query (more).
4. Constant source of traffic: If you have unique posts with proper SEO, and offer your visitors great value, then it can be a permanent source of traffic for your blog in long term. You can update your older posts with fresh information and news to rank higher in Google SERPs and to maintain the higher ranks.
5. Trustworthy: Web-surfers consider a post or content trustworthy, when they come from search engines via searching for a term or phrase.
6. Always unique: Visitors from search engines are almost always unique in nature or first time visitors. So, every visit serves as a mini advertisement of your site with an opportunity to acquire a new fan and follower.
Social Media Traffic
Also known as ” Hot Traffic ” or ” Crazy Traffic ” is gaining popularity among webmasters and bloggers in recent years.
1. Incidental visitors: They come to your site because they are in your networking list or social networking friends. If that is not, they may not visit your site.
2. Repeat visitors: They are usually frequent visitors of your site, not unique in nature. Except visits by your new friends. Less scope of getting fans and followers compared to search engine visitors.
3. Less targeted with low conversion rate: As they are frequent and old visitors, they are considered as less targeted traffic with very less chance of sales conversion.
4. Temporary in nature: If tomorrow, he or she un-follow you or un-friend you, the he may not visit your site. Even though they are your social networking friends, they may not be interested in your stuff or content in future due to change of hobby.
Final words: As a professional webmaster or blogger, your maximum efforts should be to drive traffic from search engines by proper SEO for long term sustainability. Social media traffic is just a bonus in addition to search engine traffic.