Traffic is one of the most important factors for your website’s success. However, there are many different types of traffic that bring internet users to your site, and understanding them is key to continued success. Let’s take a look at six of the most common types of traffic, and why you should know about them.

• Organic Traffic – This type of traffic comes from people using search engines like Google or Bing, then clicking on an organic search result for your website. These organic search results will populate underneath the paid search results, which we’ll expand on more below. The key to driving more organic traffic to your site is by utilizing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and improving the rankings of your site’s content on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
• Paid Search Traffic – Paid traffic comes from users that click on the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertisements found on SERPs. If you’ve ever searched for a website and seen the ad results that populate above the regular results, those are PPC, or Paid Search results. 
• Direct Traffic – Direct traffic to your site comes from users that type your site’s URL directly into the search bar on their browser, or have clicked on a bookmarked link they made in their browser for your website.
• Referral Traffic – This type of traffic comes from users clicking on hyperlinks to your website that are posted on other websites. For example, if a user is on Yelp and your website’s URL is posted in the description on that Yelp Page, that counts as referral traffic.
• Organic Social Traffic – Organic social traffic comes from non-paid social media posts that include links to your website. Did you make a post on your Instagram for your business and include a link on it? If you didn’t make it a paid advertisement, and a user clicks on it, it counts as organic social traffic!
• Paid Social Traffic – On the opposite end, paid social traffic comes from paid ads on social media sites. If you use social media, you’ve undoubtedly seen businesses advertising their goods or services as paid or sponsored posts. These are usually denoted on social media sites with a disclaimer near the poster’s name. 

Those are six of the most common types of traffic that lead into your website. To find out more about SEO, online advertising, and what 10TH DEGREE can do for you, visit 10thdegree.com.