Where is most of your site’s traffic coming from and why?

Mostly Direct Traffic: This means that your traffic is coming from your print advertising, word of mouth, and existing customers.

Direct Traffic is the one kind of traffic that refers to real-world sources. Potential customers who get your web address from your brochures/signage or heard of you from other people/businesses are typing your address in their browser to directly access your site. Depending on the percentage of your marketing you have reserved for print advertising or how long you company has been using print advertising, this number may overshadow other traffic sources. If your company has a website that isn’t very popular, but your company has been around for a while (including pre-internet), you may have a very large base of print advertising patrons and a lot of word of mouth. Including your web address on this print media and mentioning that you have a website causes more customers to actually go directly to your site for more information.

Existing customers can be tricky. Depending on your site’s setup, tools, and deployment on the web, your existing customers may be coming to your site to get information like a phone number, product pictures and data, or get caught up on your business’s up-to-date company info. The distinction between existing customers is whether they are coming again and again or just once to get contact information. Either way, they know your web address and do a b-line to your site. 

Mostly Referring Sites: This means that links to your site from other sites (whether you know about them or not) are directing customers to your site.

Referring sites are actually one of the main ranking philosophies behind search engines today. The more links on other sites to your site can help boost your rankings on search engines. However, if this is your biggest source for customers, you should be looking into where those links are coming from. Links to your site from sites that are part of your industry, refer to news about your company, or are on very trusted/popular sites, will provide you with customers and better search engine optimization. If links to your site are on spammer sites, unrelated industry sites, or use misleading text to link, the wrong customers are coming to your site and jumping back out (bounce rate) and your search engine optimization based on linking from other sites can sag.

Referring sites leave a lot out of your hands. The buying potential for anybody who comes to your site this way can vary greatly. Be sure to see where your links end up and what you can do to get your link on good sites and avoid linking with bad sites. Analyzing your bounce rate compared to your referring site percentage can help you understand who ended up at your site by accident and who is actually looking for your business.

Mostly Search Engines: This means that customers are coming to your site by search engine ranked links. This usually denotes good standing in search engines.

Most customers (approximately 84%) start their browsing at a search engine. Customers who have never heard of your business can find you based on keyword searching. New customers from around the world and regionally can find you through this traffic source. However, search engines hold all of the cards here and can change their search algorithms overnight, destroying your rankings.

To understand customers coming from search engines to your site, you must be aware of the keyword phrases they are using that lead them to your site. If they are using your company’s name to find you, then that search engine traffic is no different than direct traffic. If they are using keywords and find you, this is true search engine traffic.

Where should your site’s traffic be coming from and why?

Older (well-known) businesses: Usually, your business will have a strong base of print media from the pre-internet period. Adding your web address to that print media connects your print media customers to your website through direct traffic.

Newer (unknown) businesses: Newer businesses need all the exposure they can get. Using business connections, practical industry information, and popular social aspects of the web, your business should rack up referring site links – which will subsequently increase your site’s search engine rankings.

Service-based (regional) businesses: This type of business usually requires that its customers remain relatively local or regional. Using local business connections to create word of mouth and possibly links from their local sites can create direct and referral traffic.

Product-based (worldwide) businesses: As shipping has become easier and cheaper, products can effortlessly be shipped around the world. Getting more traffic from worldwide search engines is your best bet to get your business’s products out to your neighbor or a customer in Asia.

Information-based (n/a location) businesses: Information is only as good as its source. To become the best source for information, you need to be seen as reliable. The best way to do this is getting articles and information out into the web creating referral traffic. More referral traffic means that more people trust your information and that can build upon itself.

Can people move around your site and get the information they need? Or do they get lost and leave as quickly as they arrived?

Everyone knows they need a navigation bar on their web site. They know it forms a structure that allows visitors to move around the site and find that important piece of information they’ve been looking for. But what many people don’t know is that a lot of visitors may be getting lost on their site. The links are not clearly identified, are somewhat hidden, or simply don’t go where the visitor wants to go!

So how do you go about keeping visitors on your site? How can you be assured they are finding the information they need? When do you start to think about your site’s navigation - which comes first - design or the site’s navigation structure?

A common misconception about the website design process is that the starting point for any web project is how the site will look. What colors are going to be used, what typography will be used, what photos and illustrations will be used etc. But any experienced designer will tell you — it’s not.

The real starting point in the overall design process is outlining how visitors are going to move through your website.

The way information is presented, especially in larger sites, must be carefully planned. Anyone coming to your site from a link found in a search engine, a link a friend sent in an email, or a link found in a trade directory must understand where they land on your site and how they can move easily from that point.

We designers who approach design projects from the perspective of the visitor will work with you to help determine your primary navigation’s links and categories. From there, you can determine your secondary navigation’s links and subcategories. Keep your navigation simple and make all information accessible within one or two clicks. This helps ensure that visitors find information quickly without getting frustrated and deciding to search elsewhere for information or products.

Does all web navigation have to look the same?

Another misconception is that all navigation links must be positioned on the left hand side of the web page and no where else.

The real rule is that all navigation must be obvious - all primary navigation must be easy to locate. That doesn’t mean it must be on the left hand side and it must be in 12 point Arial, it must be underlined, and it must be blue.

Your site navigation must be highly visible and accessible. It should not be hidden in confusing graphics or appear in different places on different pages. You want visitors to find information quickly and clicking through as many pages as possible because they are finding the information they need – not lost and looking for a way out!

Linking within your content is also highly recommended and should be utilized not only for visitors but for search engine web crawlers as well. Nevertheless, you need to use these links with care and help visitors find answers to the questions they came to your site asking. Don’t randomly link from the body of your text; use discipline in your selections so you are sure users will know where they are, how they got there, and how to get back to where they were.

Can your site navigation benefit from a web designer’s point of view?

One final misconception is that only sales managers or marketing personnel are able to outline your website’s navigation because they know the product/service and how to best present the information.

From the perspective of your overall business, this is true. Your sales and marketing teams are saturated in your company philosophy, products/services; they live and breath it day in and day out. However, this may work against them when it comes to designing your site’s navigation. They may have a tendency to organize information the way they understand it, not the way customers need to learn it.

An experienced designer can help you understand how visitors will move through your site by offering a “fresh” perspective. From the outside looking in, designers can look at all the information you need to present. They can work with you to be sure that the information people are looking for on your site is well represented and presented in your website’s navigational structure.

Does all this time spent on navigation pay off?

In closing, creating your website’s navigation is the most important first step in the overall design of your site. The process of establishing primary and secondary categories and subcategories can be difficult and time consuming, it can be directly related to the amount of time visitors spend on your site. Once the navigation is set up, then its time to play…I mean work… with your designer on color, typography and don’t forget the amazing pictures that will truly let visitors know who you are!