Specialists in Internet Web Sites Since 1995
Online Marketing for Book and Publishing Web Sites:
Step 6, Referrers
© 2001 Virginia Lawrence, Ph.D.
In Step 4, I discussed tracking Web site traffic
so that we can evaluate the results of our marketing efforts. That column
mentioned referrers briefly. This month we'll go into greater depth on
referrers.
The goal of online marketing is to generate targeted traffic. We want to
attract many visitors who may be interested in whatever our site offers.
Tracking our site referrers is a vital part of our traffic generation plan and
our evaluation of the results of that plan.
What is a Referrer?
A referrer is any site displaying a link which leads a visitor to our site.
A search engine can be a referrer, and a private site can be a referrer. The
important statistic is the number of visitors who arrive at our site from each
referring site.
What Makes the Difference in Number of Visitors from a Referrer?
Our site will receive more visitors from a high-traffic referring site than
from a low-traffic referring site. Also, the way the referring site displays
the link to our site affects the number of people being referred from the site
to ours. We know that when a search engine displays SPAWN.org in the top three
sites in a search on small publisher sites, our site will receive more visitors
than if we came up number 684 in that search.
Why Do We Care about which Sites Send Us the Most Traffic?
Having our site listed on another site is a form of advertising, and we
always want to measure the results of our advertising so that we can maximize
the results. If we see that a search engine is sending us a lot of visitors, we
may want to start placing a paid ad on that search engine. In contrast, if we
see that a search engine never sends us visitors, we will want to find a way to
improve our standing in that search engine. And if we are already paying for a
listing on a search engine or specialized site, we want to confirm that we are
receiving the number of referred visitors we expect to receive. If the number
of visitors is not high enough, we should cancel the ad.
Every month we review the list of referring sites in the logs for our site.
We evaluate the efficacy of each referrer and update our marketing plan
accordingly.
~ Virginia Lawrence, Ph.D. is an Information
Architect who publishes both in print and online. Contact her at
virginia@cognitext.com.
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