Hello hello and welcome back to another glorious blog post & video tutorial all about Squarespace SEO!

Today, we are specifically going to look at 4 different types of traffic that you might see on your Squarespace website.

Yes, my friend, there are in fact different types or sources of website traffic which might very well be news to many of you! Or perhaps you have a vague idea that different website traffic sources are a thing but you don’t know what they mean or how they work. Fabulous, you’re in the right place.

Imagine that you have your Squarespace website on one hand. Cute design, banging content, offerings about to pop offffffff, yay love that for us.

And on the other hand, you have your target audience or dream clients/customers - aka the people you are trying to get in front of online.

Ideally, those people are going to find their way to your website one way or another, but did you know that understanding your website’s traffic sources will tell you HOW they are actually getting there?

Today, I’ll explain what makes all of these traffic sources unique, the pros and cons of each, and why you might be focused on certain types of website traffic over others (depending on the type of website/business you have or what your SEO and online marketing strategy is).

I’ll also show you how to check this information out for yourself on the back end of your Squarespace website - remember, do not fear the Analytics tab! It’s a true goldmine of data and it will give you massive insights into who you website visitors are, where they’re coming from, how they’re finding you online, and what they’re interested in.

This is the kind of insider info that I give to my Squarespace SEO consulting clients and students in my signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO. But since I’m not one for secrets and truly want the best for anyone with a website, I’m giving you the goods here totally for free!

Oh, and I’ve even recorded a video tutorial for you to watch in case that’s more your vibe.

All set? Let’s get started!

SQUARESPACE SEO SERIES

I have so many tips to share on the subject that it would have been crazy to put it all in one article! There are many misconceptions about Squarespace SEO which is why I've dedicate so many posts to this topic. Enjoy!

Click to view all posts in the Squarespace SEO Series

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4 different types of Squarespace website traffic

1. Direct website traffic

The first source of traffic to your Squarespace website is direct traffic.

Direct traffic basically means that someone opened up their browser and typed in your website URL (e.g., charlotteohara.ca) directly into the browser’s address bar.

These website visitors already know and are familiar with you, your brand, your business, etc. - and we know that because otherwise, they wouldn’t have known to type in your site’s URL haha how would they know that otherwise, ya dig? :D

Another way that direct traffic is counted is when people come to your site from another source that Squarespace’s analytics doesn’t classify or recognize, for example via a PDF document (like if they downloaded a freebie that contained a a link back to your site or something) or they’ve bookmarked your site.

It could also also be that they came across you via traditional marketing efforts that aren’t taking place online - for example, a flyer, an ad in your local paper, a business card, a brochure or pamphlet, etc. If you put your website address on that marketing material and the person was interested enough to type that url directly into their browser to check you out, it counts as direct traffic.

One of the reasons why direct traffic is great is because it means that these site visitors have some sort of brand familiarity with you, your biz and your offerings. They are coming back time and time again, repeating their visits without bouncing through a middle man like Google. This means that maybe they found you the first time either online (e.g., via a random Google search or on social media) or offline with traditional marketing materials (examples above), but now they are visiting your site DIRECTLY.

One of the “downsides” to direct traffic, however, is that there are fewer actionable insights about those website visitors. With different types of website traffic, as we’ll see in the examples below, there are inherently more insights to be gained because we can see if these people are visiting our site from a specific online marketing strategy, campaign or ad.

Direct traffic is almost always included as a source of your website’s traffic but depending on the type of website/brand/business you have, it might make up a smaller or larger overall percentage! I’ll show you how to check this out below, so read on.

2. Organic website traffic

Next up we have organic website and shocker, as a Squarespace SEO Expert it should come as no surprise that this is my favorite type of website traffic LOLLLLL!

Organic traffic is basically anytime a visitor comes to your site after doing a Google search and then seeing your website pop up as one of the website results listed on the search results pages.

Our main goal with Squarespace SEO is to INCREASE ORGANIC TRAFFIC to our websites!!!!

We LOVE to see that people are finding our websites via a Google search! This is great news to us and something we are constantly looking to improve, for example by optimizing our website content, including target keywords, optimizing images, etc.

I always saw that content is queen/king when it comes to Squarespace SEO and we can see that in play here with regards to organic traffic. The higher quality content that a web page, blog post, product page, gallery, etc has, the more likely a search engine like Google is to return it in their search results for specific online searches and keywords.

Remember, you can make your website content more valuable to both Google the search engine and the potential visitor by thinking about and including the keywords you’re targetting, answering the searcher’s question as thoroughly as possible (long form content!), including a combo of text and other media (e.g., images), and other on-site SEO factors so that the page/post/product/whatever performs better.

One of biggest Pro’s of organic traffic is that it’s extremely scalable. You can put your head down and work really hard on SEO for a little while and it will pay off massive rewards for weeks/months/years to come! Organic traffic has great ROI

Organic traffic is also great because the numbers don’t lie and we can see that traffic is coming in to specific pages/posts/products/etc on our site which tells us how our efforts are working.

For example, let’s say you’ve done a big content marketing push and have created lots of new blog posts around specific topics related to your products/services/offerings. You can look at the data and see whether or not those blog posts are performing well and driving lots of organic traffic to your site (which, again, is the goal because more eyes on your site means more chances to make sales and grow your audience!).

Also, let’s imagine that you’ve spent a lot of time optimizing existing content on your website - you did a website audit and then worked your way through the various pages, blog posts, product descriptions one by one and made sure that they are more SEO-friendly. We can look at the organic traffic coming in and see if those pages are getting more organic traffic than before, which would indicate that our efforts are paying off and we’re doing a good job by giving a second life to content that already exists on our websites!

Personally, I LOVE that organic traffic really allows you to track the data and numbers and see what’s working…. and what’s not haha. You can drill down DEEP and see what these people typed into google (aka the keywords that they were searching) and how that translates into traffic to specific content on your website.

Another huge bonus about organic traffic is that IT’S NOT PAID TRAFFIC! I’m not going to spend lots of time on this point because it’s pretty self explanatory but basically organic traffic is awesome because there’s great ROI but it won’t cost you an arm and a leg haha. So, let’s say you aren’t interested in spending thousands of dollars on short-term ad campaigns, then perhaps SEO for your Squarespace website is a great option because it’ll drive lots of organic traffic to your site instead :)

If you’re here, trying to grow your website and are interested in Squarespace SEO, then get familiar with organic traffic because we LOVE TO SEE IT!

3. Referral traffic

Referral traffic is basically anytime a visitor comes to your site after clicking through a link somewhere else on the internet. For example, they were on another website/blog/media outlet and your website was linked, so they clicked on that link and voila, now they’re here via referral traffic. You could also be included in a directory .

If you’ve ever heard of “backlinks” or “inbound links”, then referral traffic is what’s going on.

Referral traffic comes from many different forms but let’s go through a few examples together now. First off, you might have written a guest post on another blog. That backlink in the guest blog post on the other website will send referral traffic to your Squarespace website.

Also, maybe you were featured on a website or media outlet, or took part in an interview or a Q & A session, received a media mention, an online profile, etc. These backlinks to your site will send referral traffic your way.

Referral traffic is great because it shows us two things:

People are writing about us and our brand/business/website on their own
Or, that our outreach strategy and marketing efforts to obtain backlinks is working

Let’s say that as part of your Squarespace SEO strategy, your goal is to get more backlinks to your website from other high-quality websites and blogs. You are doing this because you know that it’s important to get in front of other similar or compatible online audiences, and it will help raise your brand profile and position you as an expert at the same time.

You can look at the referral traffic coming into your website and see if your efforts are paying off (or, if they aren’t). For example, if you did a bunch of guest blog posts and they sent traffic your way, then yay it’s working! On the flip side, maybe you did a bunch of guest blog posts but most of them barely sent traffic your way, it might show you that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze if you know what I mean.

Or let’s say you pitched your local newspaper, a local blog or some sort of media outlet to feature you and they went ahead with that profile or mention, which led to an influx of referral traffic to your site - then it also shows that your hard work paid off! But if it was a big effort but barely resulted in any traffic let alone product sales or booked traffic, you might realize that you need to change up your approach or that your efforts should be spent elsewhere.

It often takes effort and outreach on your part to get these backlinks that send referral traffic back to your Squarespace website, which is why I say that backlinks should be part of your Squarespace SEO strategy only after you’ve taken care of the basic settings and content on your website - in other words, don’t jump the gun!

But yes, if you’re interested in Squarespace SEO then backlink strategy and referral traffic will definitely be important to you, but probably not at the start of your journey :)

NOTE: Avoid spam or low quality backlinks and definitely don’t pursue any backlinks from shady websites. That will NOT help you out and in Google’s eyes, it’ll actually harm your Squarespace SEO efforts! Instead, focus on getting backlinks on quality websites with high domain authority. These links should provide real value to the person reading the other website, and make them genuinely have a reason to click through the link to visit your website.

4. Social Media Traffic

Social media traffic is when anyone comes to your website from a social media site, including Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, TikTok, etc.

It includes people who clicked on a link in a social media post, your stories, an ad on social media, an organic post from another user (e.g., if someone else posts about you and includes a link to your site).

Social media traffic in similar to organic traffic in that it’s very easy to scale - which we love to see! The better you do on social media, the more traffic you’ll drive back to your site - there’s a direct benefit here. Social media traffic also has the potential to blow up if one of your posts or pieces of content goes viral - you’ll see a massive influx of traffic if this happens LOL!

For best results with social media traffic, you should consistently be posting on your platform(s) of choice and using it as an opportunity to drive those followers back to your website (where you have more control over their experience and can convert them further into an email subscriber, customer, client, etc.). Post with the goal to create an engaged community on social media but don’t forget to cycle these followers back to your site if you want to get real results.

You don’t have to be on EVERY social media platform (I know I’m not!) so pick and choose you favourites and be consistent with posting and showing up there. Leverage the following you build on these social media platforms and then make sure that you’re always sending them back to your site!

Like organic traffic, social traffic is highly scalable. Social media performance directly benefits social traffic volume, so you’ll likely see a huge influx of site visitors if one of your posts goes viral on social media. The key is to post updates consistently and to engage your followers as often as possible. Your goal should be to build and engage a community, not just to have a token social presence.

Bottom line: we love social media but for best results, ensure that you are building a following on your desired platform(s) and then leveraging that by redirecting traffic back to your website, where you have a much higher chance of converting the visitors (to make a sale, book a service, join your email list, etc.).

How to check website traffic on your Squarespace website

It’s super easy to see what type(s) of website traffic you’re getting on your own Squarespace website - what the traffic source breakdown is, how that aligns with your current efforts, and how that changes over time as you implement your Squarespace SEO strategy.

NOTE: in the video I’m showing the steps on a demo Squarespace website that isn’t live yet, which is why you won’t actually see any numbers presented. But I think there’s still huge value in showing you the steps so that you can follow along on your own Squarespace website!

First off, log into the back end of your Squarespace website
Then go to the Analytics Tab
Look under Acquisitions - traffic sources
Here, you’ll see the different traffic sources breakdown for your own site

Compare the traffic sources breakdown and let the data show you how that might guide your next steps on your Squarespace SEO journey!

Final Thoughts

And there you have it, a short but sweet breakdown of 4 different types of traffic that you might see on your Squarespace website!

All of the different traffic sources have their own pros and cons, but generally speaking you should be focusing on increasing traffic to your site across ALL traffic sources if you really want to ramp up your Squarespace SEO efforts!

I recommend that you start focusing on organic traffic by tackling the existing pages/blog posts/product descriptions/galleries on your Squarespace website FIRST. Optimize the content and make sure that they’re set up with on-site SEO factors so that they drive lots of traffic your way.

Then, move on to backlinks so that you get more referral traffic.

Direct traffic will generally carry on in the background unless you’re doing a lot of offline traditional marketing, and with social media memember that you’re actively sending traffic back to your website for best results!

last but not least, don’t fear the numbers and data! Get comfortable checking in on your Squarespace website’s Analytics because as I always say, “what gets measured gets managed”.

You’ve got this, and know that I’m cheering you on every step of the way :)

xox

Charlotte

Exciting news : my signature online course, Top Squarespace SEO, will be opening for enrollment again soon - sign up for the TSS waiting list here!

You can also sign up for my newsletter (right here or below), where I often share Squarespace SEO tips, tricks and high-quality exclusive content. I send out emails to my list every Wednesday, mostly focused on Squarespace websites and SEO, and I can guarantee that you’ll find the newsletter topics interesting, entertaining and worth your time. #humblebrag

Finally, shameless plug: hit me up with any specific questions you have about Squarespace SEO and your website because I’m your girl. You can reach out to me directly if you’re interested in working together on your website and we can talk about whether or not you would be a good fit for my consulting and ongoing services. I can’t take on every request to do Squarespace SEO consulting but I do pick a few websites and businesses to work with every month and I’d love for you to be one of them.