Digital PR for Referral Traffic

By: Colin Cather | Creative Director

Or; building links like Google doesn’t exist

The problem with SEO services is that they’re obsessed with search (duh). It means that SEO agencies, who layer-on a bit of what they think of as digital PR, are still solving for Google. They can’t help it. It’s in their DNA.

And search-engineers, like other engineers, can lose sight of the human when their head is under the bonnet, tuning-away. Wonderful technicians, but you probably wouldn’t want them talking to the customer.

We see Google, and search, for what it is. It’s a pathway - one of the pathways - connecting audiences to your brand and product. And its insights offer a fantastic glimpse (just a glimpse, but in marketing a glimpse is valuable) into the minds - and intentions - of audiences. 

Oh, and we also Google things A LOT, ourselves. It really is like magic for finding stuff. But we’re not normal. If you want more about keeping search in perspective, read this.

Take link building. 

Seen through the eyes of SEO - links bring a host of benefits to search ranking and visibility. Links send signals to the mysterious algorithm - and in turn cause angst when the algorithm changes and the signal-strength gets altered. 

All true, but those popularity-votes are a kind of an unintended consequence. Google is using them to imply the worth, credibility, and relevance of a site. 

E-A-T. Expertise - Authority - Trustworthiness.

But imagine - as Jesse Stoler once suggested - that Google doesn’t exist.

The real job of a link is to be a link. A helpful, clickable, connection to take a reader or viewer somewhere else. Somewhere where there’s more. More value, more depth, more breadth, more information, if that’s what the reader wants. 

As a brand owner you usually want that place to be your own online hub of content. You see those clicks as referral traffic, in GA. 

Let’s start with the basics, what is referral traffic?

Referral traffic describes users who visit your website by clicking on a link from a page that sits on a different domain. Users who click on links to your site from social networks will also count as referral traffic. Google uses tracking systems to group these website visits as referral in analytics reports.

Rules of thumb about referral traffic

1. It’s usually ‘richer’ - people spend longer with your site, and usually visit more other pages, than with other sources of traffic. It’s the traffic of the purposeful and the curious, so it makes sense. The example here shows the lowest bounce-rate and the highest session duration, and second-highest pages-per-session.

2. In our experience, it also converts well, sometimes the best, as a first-click in an attribution journey.

3. It should represent a healthy chunk of your total traffic - 20% as a guide. If search traffic (split between paid and organic) is about 50% of your total traffic, then healthy referral traffic will be almost as big as your organic search traffic. The example here has it down at less than 5%. You can read that as an overdependence on (and overexposure to) paid and organic search - as well as an underdeveloped level of links worth clicking on.

4. Only a small proportion of your links will be actually clicked-on. Maybe between 1% and 5%. This is life. Like the rest of life, though, there’s a lot you can do to make things better.

5. Referral traffic is a natural outcome, and a very relevant KPI, for digital PR. It’s the equivalent of someone hearing a story and going “tell me more.”

This graph shows the growth in referral traffic over two years of building links and adding URDs for a client. It’s a long-term - but valuable - metric.

Some places for referral traffic

In some ways, there’s no magic well of referring links. But since we are less concerned about follow links, then some of the sites that other linkbuilding strategies might disregard are very useful for referrals. Publishers with high traffic themselves will be good - ie. news and other high authority sites. High viewership + nofollow link + evergreen content = referral traffic volume.

• News aggregators who might only carry a synopsis of the story you’ve created. News sites often give nofollow links, but that’s fine if we want that click.

• Social Influencer campaigns with linkin.bio and swipe-up stories

• Pinterest infographics (and other visual content) live on this platform, and after facebook it’s the social platform that does the most referring

As Jesse Stoler (an SEO guy, so sorry for bad-mouthing SEOs earlier) says - ‘Google didn’t make links: if anything, links made Google.’ 

So think about (and empathise with) your audience; living their lives, curious about things. Energetic in their passions (passions which are only rarely for your brand). 

Picture them as consumers of stories, ready to read and watch and listen if something deserves their attention. (Only) occasionally searching for information - some of whom will go further if you offer greater value with onsite content that adds to the story. 

Make stories for them.

Get in contact to discover how our creative PR services can boost your brand's fame and findability.