Referral Traffic Exposed: Unveiling Key Insights for Success

Referral traffic is one of the biggest sources of visitors that a website can generate. In this article, you’ll discover the best strategies for getting more referral traffic and the top things to avoid. Therefore, you’ll have actionable insights into how to get organic traffic that requires no spam traffic or paid advertisements. 

Social media is one of the most cost-effective digital marketing channels if you use the right tactics. Also, read to the end to take advantage of our special offer to supercharge your Instagram marketing efforts.

What Is Referral Traffic?

Referral traffic is a specific category of traffic arriving at your website from another domain via a hyperlink. This includes social media websites like Instagram, forum posts, and much more. When viewing your Google Analytics console or other traffic tracking software, you’ll see this traffic type specified as a referral.

Therefore, referral traffic comes from many different sources, depending on how actively you spread backlinks on the internet. For instance, the more Instagram posts you add with a link back to your website, the more referral traffic you will receive.

However, you can also receive more referral traffic when other Instagram users share and post your content. Hence, social media is one of the more effective marketing channels when your content goes viral on the platform.

How To Increase Referral Traffic

Are you trying to increase your referral traffic sources but have no idea where to begin? In this section, we’ll share our top strategies for getting more traffic to your websites. These approaches work for some of the most successful websites in the world and are a great starting point for beginners wishing to improve their referral traffic report. 

Focus on Social Media Referral Traffic

Start by focusing on a single traffic source to determine the best strategies. Social media referral traffic is a good choice because there are many users on platforms like Instagram. Also, as the popularity of your Instagram account grows, so will your chances of generating referral traffic.

Here are a few tips for getting more out of your social media marketing efforts:

• Post often: Make sure to post frequently and include a link back to your website each time. This increases the number of times people see referral links to your website. Coming up with a content calendar with posts planned in advance is a good strategy. 
• Target audience: You want targeted users coming back to your website. This ensures they buy your products and services and are genuinely interested in your content. Therefore, you must target the right audience on social media websites. 
• Influencer marketing: You can receive referral traffic from other Instagram accounts by networking with the community. This includes collaborations and paid promotions—just ensure they send a link to your website. 

Monitor Referral Reports

Monitoring referral reports to figure out what strategies work is a good idea. For example, let’s say you deploy five systems to get more traffic to your website, yet only two show success. Moving forward, you can concentrate on those two strategies to capitalize on what’s already working.

Choose an analytics tool that provides informative and accurate summaries of your needed information. This ensures you can quickly find what you’re looking for and offers actionable insights.

Referral Traffic Increase With Digital Marketing Agencies

Take advantage of the services provided by digital marketing agencies. They understand how to get more referral traffic with advanced strategies that are more likely to work. However, looking for a marketing agency you can trust and have the time to work on your project is essential.

Typically, you get what you pay for with digital marketing agencies, but you can get a good deal if you shop around. Look at other customer reviews to see what they say about service quality.

This will help you determine the ones worth giving a try to receive successful marketing help from social media traffic sources.

Focus On Increasing Instagram Reach

To increase the number of unique visitors to your websites, it’s essential to pay attention to the Instagram reach metric and not the impressions. That’s because IG reach refers to the number of unique visitors that view your content. This means a small number of users cannot bloat your metrics by constantly viewing content. If your reach metric is low, the number of unique users contributing to referral traffic is also low.

Instagram Referral Traffic From Different Content

Diverse content on Instagram can drive referral traffic. Experimenting with various styles and options can optimize the success of your brand’s traffic metrics. Here is a list of the different Instagram content types you should consider:

• Instagram Live: Do you enjoy doing live streams? Then you should use the Instagram Live feature to host live streams and interact with your audience. During the stream, you can post a link to your website, increasing the referral traffic you receive. 
• Instagram Posts: You can use Instagram posts to share news, products, ideas, and jokes with your audience. You can include links to your website for referral traffic within the posts. Posting frequently and standing out from the audience are keys to succeeding on the platform. 
• Instagram Reels: Adding Instagram Reels to your content strategy is a no-brainer. These are shot-form videos of up to 15 seconds and a popular way to consume content on social media websites. Get a few viral Instagram Reels, and your popularity on Instagram can shoot through the roof. This leads to an avalanche of referral traffic to your website of choice. 
• Instagram Stories: Use Instagram Stories to post videos or photos that stay live for only 24 hours before being deleted. However, you can pin an Instagram story to your account to share something with every viewer wanting to learn more about your IG account.

Direct vs. Referral Traffic

What is direct vs. referral traffic? Direct traffic is when visitors arrive without having clicked a link on another website, whereas referral traffic occurs when users click links on other websites.

Hence, they are opposites of each other, and in this section, we’ll share a few practical differences between them.

Here are a few ways that visitors can find your website using direct traffic:

• When visitors enter your URL directly into the browser address bar. 
• When visitors bookmark your websites and use them to return to your website. 
• When users click on email links.

Therefore, the potential to grow your website using direct traffic is much smaller than referral traffic. Hence, focusing on strategies like Instagram referrals is a much better approach.

5 Advantages Of Instagram Referral Traffic

Are you wondering why Instagram is an excellent platform for generating referral traffic? This section shares some of the top reasons why focusing on Instagram is worthwhile. You’ll see that it should be part of an overall strategy for a consistent traffic stream to your website.

Instagram Metrics Help Identify What’s Working

Make sure to take advantage of Instagram metrics data since it provides insight into your most popular content. Identify the type of content resonating with your audience and take advantage of their attention to increase referral traffic.

Every Instagram user can access the Instagram analytics console, so there’s no excuse to ignore it as part of our overall traffic generation strategy. Over the years, Instagram has done a great job of improving the analytics data quality and presentation.

Get More Traffic With Instagram’s Popularity

The volume of referral traffic you can generate from Instagram is impressive. That’s because it’s one of the biggest social media platforms in the world, with millions of daily users. Use the correct strategies to grow your follower count on Instagram, and you may possibly drive all the visitors you need to your website.

However, social media traffic is not the best for converting to sales, so you’ll need to create a funnel that nurtures the lead. This funnel can start on Instagram by educating the audience on the advantages of using your products.

Use Instagram to Increase Brand Recognition

Instagram is an excellent tool for raising brand awareness. Each post is an opportunity to show off your brand and increase your audience reach. For example, you can create Instagram Reels of customers using your products in action. This allows your product benefits to be fully displayed as Instagram users scroll through their feeds.

Once users have digested enough of your content on Instagram to be impressed by the brand, they may click on your links to visit your website. This increases your referral traffic and allows you to convert the lead to take any action you want.

Referral Traffic On Instagram Is Easy

You don’t need a degree or take advanced educational courses to begin generating referral traffic from Instagram. Therefore, any website owner can create an account and post content with links back to their website.

However, getting traction and building momentum with new accounts can take a while. You may need to buy ads or aggressively seek out cooperation with Instagram influencers in your niche.

Instagram Is Familiar

Do you use Instagram to share photos and videos with your social circle? Then, you’re already familiar with the platform and can utilize your knowledge to post content for the purpose of generating referral traffic. Therefore, you can start using the platform quicker than other marketing forms. 

In comparison, generating traffic using PPC is more difficult, so you’ll need to spend more time and resources learning the traffic acquisition strategy.

3 Referral Traffic Strategies To Avoid

There is a list of things you should avoid when trying to increase your referral traffic numbers. Steering clear of these traps helps increase your chances of getting the website traffic increase you’re looking for. 

1. Buying Instagram Followers, Likes, and Referrals

It’s tempting to buy followers, likes, and referrals, but there are multiple drawbacks you shouldn’t overlook. Here is a list of potential negatives you should keep in mind while buying user traffic and interaction:

• Fake accounts: The engagement and traffic may originate from fake or bot accounts. Automated accounts have no value since they won’t lead to sales, service use, and improving brand recognition. Hence, it’s not the best use of your money to increase your referral traffic. 
• Instagram punishment: Instagram won’t be happy if you use companies to purchase followers and likes. Your account may be banned or suspended, and IG actively polices its platform. 
• Disappointed followers: Your followers may discover you use services to boost metrics, and they’ll be disappointed. Consequently, you see your unfollow numbers drastically increase.

2. Avoid Non-Targeted Audience

You don’t want a situation where you generate large referral traffic numbers, but the visitors don’t perform the action you want on your website. This might be signing up for a newsletter, buying services or products, or reading your blogs.

This happens when the audience you target on Instagram doesn’t match the type of visitors you want arriving on your website. You should do market research and figure out the best demographic for your website. Then come up with an Instagram marketing strategy that focuses on those people.

3. Avoid Not Engaging with Your Audience

Take the time to respond to comments and interact with users on posts. Your audience will notice this and want to interact more with your content. Also, they may get curious about your website and click the link. Hence, your referral traffic numbers will improve with increased engagement from your Instagram audience. 

Get More Traffic To Your Website Today Using Plixi!

To summarize, getting more referral traffic to your website is a no-brainer–whether you want people to read more blog posts or buy products. Use each strategy in this article to grow your Instagram following, leading to more website traffic. 

However, you’ll need to focus on growing your Instagram following before you receive many visitors to your website. We can help you with that here at Plixi. The mixture of our in-house algorithm and influencer network allows you to target specific IG users. So what are you waiting for? Start growing and gaining Instagram followers today, and your referral traffic will reach new heights.