Social Traffic Vs Search Traffic: Which One is Good for Your Blog/Site?

The rise of digital space in the past decade has proven to be remarkable. People are so much consumed with the internet and what it offers.

But, most of the millennials believe that the internet is not just the space to find answers to their queries or socialize through social media networks.

It provides them with a sense of empowerment.

It is believed that the internet empowers them by letting their voices heard over different corners of the world. This has led to the increasing trends of knowledge transfer.

In simpler terms, we are talking about various blogs and posts which are floating around the internet.

So, you have a blog or a website but so does many.

You might be a great writer or a storyteller but your talent is unexpressed unless it is traced in the vicious web of the internet.

Eventually, if you are emphasizing on converting to a professional blogger, you need to understand the intricate details of how the things work.

There is search engine optimization, writing style, keywords, ranking, and the marketing strategy to place your product to the targeted audience or produce an effect among the mass.

In this article, we will be discussing the facets of marketing channels and distribution of your blog and which option is better: Social traffic or Search Traffic?

The marketing channel

It is quite evident since the conventional marketing age where the initial steps of releasing a product are to develop a consistent decision-tree which entails the initial steps even before producing a product.

The process starts with identifying your audience or consumers, segment them so that you understand which product appeal to which consumer segment and who will actually buy your product followed by targeting and positioning the goods or service to convert prospects into repeat consumers.

The conventional marketing procedure is still prevalent and through blogs are different businesses yet they follow the similar pattern of laying your product into your market among the audience.

The only change in the process is the place of availability and the marketing channel that you would be using.

Consider this, your marketing and distribution channel when you are launching a physical product are the wholesalers and retailers.

Hence, they form the marketing channel.

But on digital space, your retailers are the content media apps and wholesaler is the search engine.

Now, coming to the search engine and social media which are considered to be the marketing channels, the use of these tools in an optimum way can yield you great traffic.

Search traffic or the organic traffic refers to the people who land on your page through a search engine.

It comprises of direct traffic who have visited your website on their own while searching for a keyword on the search engine and referrals that were redirected to your website through other links.

The next is social traffic which is the traffic that your page or website receives from social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.

Both are quite effective when it comes to marketing your content through the internet but each strategy is different and caters to particular needs of the society.

Which is better?

Now, we will be discussing which platform would be effective for you. However, we will enlighten you with two simple examples from the real world scenario.

Let us see if you can figure it yourself.

Backlinko, a popular SEO blog on the internet generates about 45% of the total traffic through search engine whereas social traffic accounts for only 4%. 35% of direct traffic and 9% of referrals vouch for its brand and suggest that it is very much popular in its niche.

Now, Backlinko is a technical blog and the owner of the blog, Brian Dean doesn’t even write many articles.

He just writes a few quality contents and the search engine offer him the highest amount of traffic.

Another blog, “Wait but why” is an interesting blog which has a tremendous fan base and is also popular.

The blog has a casual and free writing format which has small graphics amidst each paragraph which aids to readability.

The sentences are short and the topics usually relate to fun times or casual facts. It also has 35% of the direct traffic which makes it on par with Backlinko.

However, it generates only 14% of the total traffic through a search engine. On the other hand, the social traffic peaks at 40%.

So, did you figure it out?

Did you figure the difference?

Well, it is not that difficult. Consider yourself as a reader and position yourself at two different scenarios.

When you have logged into Facebook or any other social media platform, you are having a relaxing time.

So, you become more prone to contents which are off the edge and helps you relax.

Your intention of reading becomes casual.

That’s why “Wait but why” is so much popular across the social media whereas search engine mode is more of a hunting mode.

Here, you are trying to extract information from the internet about a particular product or service or even a technical term.

Hence, Backlinko generates more search traffic. Thus, you have to find a niche for your blog and decide on which subject you would like to read.

If the blog is technical and informative, then you should opt for search traffic strategy while social traffic strategy is better for casual blogs.

However, technology is changing and so is the mindset of people.

Most people consider social media as an effective channel of distribution as it helps the users to directly connect with their friends.

So, it is advisable that the bloggers should have an equitable investment for both search and social traffic to increase visibility among internet users all over the world.

So, none of them is better than other but are different for different blogs.

You need to learn your niche and recognize your target audience which helps you to build a marketing strategy and positioning of your blog.