How to Increase Traffic to Your Site Using Social Media

In this post, we’ll discuss the ways social media may contribute to increased traffic on your website. We’ll share our own data on the topic with a particular focus on organic traffic. This will give you greater insight into how to drive traffic to your website using social media.

How Does Social Media Help Drive Traffic?

Social media is an important piece of any digital marketing puzzle.

A brand’s presence on social media is almost a requirement in this day and age. When up to 50% of social media users use social networks to research a brand’s products and services, you can’t afford not to have a presence.

Beyond that, a prese

nce on social media can increase backlinks to your website. It can also spark interaction with your customer base – on social media and off. This engagement is critical for driving traffic to your website in the long run.

What Our Data Shows About Driving Traffic to Your Site Through Social Media

Our data consists of the 10 top-ranking pages on Search Engine Journal (SEJ).

Search Engine Journal (SEJ) is a digital publication “dedicated to producing the latest search news, the best guides and how-tos for the SEO and marketer community.”

It is a website that sees millions of visitors every month and, as such, was an excellent platform for our research.

In analyzing our data, we used two digital marketing tools: Semrush and BuzzSumo.

With Semrush, we were able to collect basic web page analytics like organic traffic visits and keyword universe. With BuzzSumo, we collected the engagement values (i.e., shares, comments, interactions) for each page across various social media platforms.

The goal: To determine if there is a correlation between organic traffic and the number of social engagements a page had.

If you want to see a breakdown of each of the different sites, keep reading on. If you want to skip right to what we learned about social media and traffic, skip to the insights at this link.

Google Local Guides Program: How To Earn Points & Badges

This post was originally published on June 14, 2017.

This article is a solid resource for those looking to join the Google Local Guides program, including an in-depth look at how to earn points and badges.

According to BuzzSumo, this post earned the following social media engagements:

209 Facebook engagements

246 Twitter shares

2 Reddit engagements

10 Pinterest shares

7 linking domains

This post has a total of 467 social media engagements.

According to Semrush, this page saw 555,984 for total organic traffic in December 2022.

This post ranked for a total of 225 keywords with 37 of those keywords being in positions one through three on SERPs in December of 2022.

Mobile Web & Search from Google and Opera

This article offers a historical look at the initial relationship between Google and Opera Web Browser, one of the oldest desktop web browsers that is still actively being developed.

According to BuzzSumo, this post earned the following social media engagements:

7.4K Facebook engagements

437 Twitter shares

2 Reddit engagements

121 Pinterest shares

199 Linking domains

This post has a total of 8K social media engagements.

According to SEMRush, this page had 53,421 organic traffic visits in December of 2022.

This page ranked for a total of 2.7K keywords with 647 of those keywords in positions one through three on SERPs in December of 2022.

What We Learned From Our Data

When we look at the traffic and social metrics, there doesn’t appear to be a correlation between the total number of social media engagements a Search Engine Journal article got and the organic traffic metrics. This goes to show that while social media is a crucial tool to help raise brand awareness, it does not directly impact organic traffic numbers, at least in this case.

Without access to SEJ analytics, we can’t say for sure that social media engagements don’t impact other traffic metrics, such as direct traffic. This includes users that found and engaged with SEJ on social media who then went to their site directly either then or at a later point.

Going further, there is also no correlation between engagement on one platform and organic traffic metrics overall. This means that no one platform – e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest – is more valuable for organic traffic than another.

That makes sense, considering each channel serves its own purpose when it comes to creating a holistic marketing campaign. So, while these social platforms may not drive organic traffic, we do know they contribute to your brand’s overall presence and help you to compete within the competitive SERP landscape.

Can Social Media Support Other Traffic Growth?

As our data above clearly shows, there is no direct correlation between the total number of social media engagements and organic traffic visits on a website. This indicates that social media may not be a good route if your only goal is to increase organic traffic.

That is not to say that social media doesn’t have an impact on website metrics, including traffic.

A strong social media presence will increase brand awareness and boost your overall digital brand presence. While this may not lead to organic traffic hits in the moment, it can increase the odds of direct traffic to your website in the future.

Just think about the websites you’re more likely to hit up when you’re in the market for a product or service. I’d wager that you’re more likely to visit those websites you’ve seen previously, whether on social media or sponsored advertisements.

The statistics seem to back that up, too, considering 90% of people buy from brands they follow on social media.