When we look at analytics we often wonder about Direct Traffic.
It seems that direct traffic is just a fallback category for analytics software such as Google Analytics.
The traffic could be from a referral source, like another blog, but for some reason it’s not getting caught. But it could be from a true direct source. One that analytics software just isn’t able to detect.
It can be frustrating. You have no idea where this traffic is coming from. As a result, it would be easy to want to get rid of direct traffic. And it would certainly be understandable to want to forget and even avoid direct traffic.
But some of these sources are really good for blogs. You don’t necessarily want to avoid them.
I’ve written about ways to get direct traffic to sites in general, but here are some ways to boost direct traffic to your blog and its posts…
1. Reference-Worthy Posts
By “reference” in this context I’m talking about something people want to save. They read your post and save the link somewhere. Perhaps they email it to themselves or save it to their Notes on their phone or bookmark it in their browser.
There are a number of ways people save content. Much of this traffic is repeat traffic and it registers as direct. This is a really good thing. If you’re seeing a lot of direct traffic it could be that you’re writing really great, reference-worthy posts that people want to save and come back to again and again.
2. Sharable Posts
Sharable posts are those that people share with others. They may email, text or even tell people about in person. The person receives the link and clicks. Or they type the URL directly into their browser after hearing about it and boom, you have new traffic…direct traffic.
3. Link-Worthy Posts
It seems that private browsing and secure browsing have lead to an increase in direct traffic. Many people prefer to “hide” their data while they’re browsing. They hide it from software such as analytics software. In these instances, traffic often shows up as direct even if it came from another source such as another blog post.
So you may not see the referring source, but you may still be getting a lot of referral traffic showing up as direct. And that’s totally fine. You don’t get all the data on where your traffic is coming from, but the more link-worthy content you write, the more traffic you get.
How Do You Accomplish This?
There are no specific answers or formulas you can do to create blog posts that bring in direct traffic.
But the basic goal is to create:
- Posts with new data
- Posts with unique opinions
- Posts that educate
- Posts that entertain
- etc.
I feel that committing to a consistent schedule of posts is important. I find that the more you write, the better you write. And the better you write, the more traffic you acquire through all sources of traffic. That includes SEO, referral and direct.
Conclusion
Direct traffic is often overlooked. Not just in the blogging world, but with all web traffic that we follow in our analytics. And that’s understandable. Direct traffic is kind of a black box. We have no idea what it is. So why spend time thinking about it?
I find that if you aim to increase direct traffic, your posts typically improve in quality. As a result, traffic from all sources typically increases if you focus on increasing direct traffic.
So it’s not a bad way to go about your blogging.