By: Nicholas Tart Topics: Get Web Traffic More posts about: Blogging Tools, SEO
When the average person visits a website, their eyes follow an F-pattern.
The ‘F-Pattern’ is the most common user ‘eye-scanning pattern’, for blocks of content.
However, I look at websites differently.
I look for something, which only takes seconds to discover…
That allows me to calculate just how much traffic that website gets.
By knowing how much traffic a website gets I can validate the website’s content and calculate how much traffic I would need to get to similar or better results.
In my case, it also helps me decide if I should continue to read or leave the website.
So here they are… 10 little-known techniques for figuring out how much traffic someone else’s website gets.
But first, a recommendation…
The SEMRush All-in-one Marketing Toolkit is our favorite tool for checking how much traffic a website gets.
Check out their Traffic Analytics tool – This is the best market competitive research tool on the market, allowing you to get estimations of any website’s traffic.
It is also great for spotting your rivals’ strengths and weaknesses and testing a fresh market or niche. If you are ready to use SEMRush then IncomeDiary readers can take advantage of a 14-Day PRO trial. [instead of the usual 7-day trial]
World-leading businesses like eBay, PHILIPS, Booking.com, HP, Quora, and BNP PARIBAS already use SEMRush – why not you?
1. Alexa Ranking
The Alexa Ranking isn’t exactly “little-known,” but it is the best-known metric for ranking websites. This is the first thing I look at when I visit a site:
Alexa tracks stats for everyone who has the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser, which accounts for less than 1% of internet users. So it’s not very accurate, but it’ll give you a rough idea of the website’s popularity.
- If you use Chrome, install the Alexa Extension.
- If you use Firefox, get the Alexa Add-On.
Alexa’s reliability is shaky – some argue that it’s worthless – so it’s important to consider other metrics.
2. SEMRush.com
My favorite tool for website-based keyword research is SEMRush.com. Here’s a screenshot when you search IncomeDiary.com:
Semrush gives you a lot of information on a website’s search engine rankings, how much traffic they get for those rankings, competitors, paid advertising, backlinks and so much more.
As you can see, at the time of the above screenshot, IncomeDiary ranked 1st for “how to make money from a website,” 4th for “famous entrepreneurs,” and 11th for “business movies.” Those are highly competitive keywords that are collectively searched over 10,000 times per month.
As you go down the list, you can start to estimate how much traffic he gets for each keyword based on the position and search volume.
As you will see, some of the world’s leading brands trust SEMrush when it comes to digital marketing tools.
3.SimilarWeb.com
SimilarWebis a website traffic checker that’s similar to Alexa, except, it’s got a lot more detail put into it, so it’s more accurate!
The maintakeawayis that it gives you a line graph with values for the number of daily unique visitors and the sources.You can see the countries that your traffic comes from, top referring sites, the top destination sites (sites people visit after yours), display ads, audience interests, and up to 10 organic keywords with the free version.
4. Ahrefs.com
Without a doubt, Ahrefs is one of the best tracking tools I have ever used! This software provides such a wealth of website traffic information. You can find out:
- New, lost, and broken backlinks.
- Domains sending the most traffic to a site.
- Search engine rankings.
- How much traffic a search engine ranking is getting a site.
- Pages from a site getting the most traffic.
- You can compare website rankings vs competitors.
And so, so much more… (below is a screenshot from Joshua Dunlops ExpertPhotography site)
Not only is Ahrefs great for tracking competitor websites…
It’s also a huge help when it comes to figuring out how to improve your own sites!
5. SE Ranking
SE Ranking is somewhat similar to SemRush and Ahrefs. They give you a great amount of detail about your competitor’s organic and paid traffic.
They tell you how high your websites and your competitor’s websites are ranking and how many people are looking at that search term. A great tool, that seems to be growing in popularity.
6. YouTube or Vimeo Views
If a website has a YouTube or Vimeo video embedded on the homepage, click “Watch on YouTube.”
If the video is public, both YouTube and Vimeo will show the view counts. Also, check the upload date to estimate how many people view it per month.
Just because the homepage Dollar Shave Club video has almost 4 million views doesn’t mean that their site had 4 million views. But it gives you some idea of how much traffic they got in their first month.
7. Blog Post Comments
Another way to gauge the popularity of a blog is to look at how many comments it gets per post.
With my sites, I’ve found that an average of 1 out of every 200 readers leaves a comment. So a post with 20 non-Nicholas comments was viewed about 4,000 times. This changes with every post and every blog, but again, it gives you a general idea.
8. Total Comment Counts
Immediately after you comment on a WordPress blog, your browser redirects you to where your comment will show up. If you look at the URL, you’ll see something that looks like this:
The second half of the URL tells you that you left the 108,656th comment on IncomeDiary.com. This number includes spam comments. Assume that 75-90% of the comments are spam and you can get an idea of how many comments a site has had since day one.
9. Search for Interviews
A large percentage of successful website owners do interviews, talking about how they built their site and what works for them. Often, they will share not only how much traffic they get, but also where it’s coming from.
You can see some examples of bloggers talking about how much traffic they get by looking through some of the interviews we have conducted for IncomeDiary.
In my experience, a lot of people are more open about sharing traffic stats than you would think. You see this not just in interviews but if you peruse through the archived articles on a blog, there’s a good chance you’ll stumble upon a “blog in review” or “traffic report” post. With those stats, you can start to figure out how much traffic the site is getting today.
10. Check “Advertise Here” Pages
One of the most accurate ways to figure out how much traffic a website gets is to go to its Advertising page.
If a blog is trying to sell advertising space, they need to tell you exactly how many unique views and impressions your ad is going to get every month.
To Wrap Up…
Discovering the amount of traffic a website gets – or at least a good estimation of what it is getting is remarkably easy with the right tools.
If you are an advertiser or a website buyer these strategies will allow you to do your due diligence and confirm (or not confirm) what the seller is claiming.
If you have any ideas or strategies of your own for finding out how much traffic a website gets, please let us know.
Website Traffic Bonus: Free Training From The SEMrush Academy
The SEMrush Academy is perhaps the best free digital marketing training available anywhere. Learn how to boost your SEO with SEMrush tools and get tips from practicing experts in a series of free video lessons.
We especially recommend the Keyword Research Course with Greg Gifford. [The Academy is free, no opt-in required]
SEMrush allows you to compare your traffic with competitors, research keywords, and do a host of other essential digital marketing tasks using an all-in-one marketing toolkit.
The Final Word on How Much Traffic a Website Gets
Measuring or estimating how much traffic a website gets is much easier with these traffic tools.
But of course, unless the owner of the website reveals exactly how much traffic they’re getting, any figure is a best estimate.
That said, we find tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs surprisingly accurate when it comes to estimating traffic.
They are especially good (and essential) for comparing yourself with other websites.
Let us know how you get on using them and if you have some other ways to figure out how much traffic a website gets, do let us know.
FAQs
How can I see how much traffic a website gets? ›
- Google Analytics. As we previously mentioned, Google Analytics is the first place to check when it comes to tracking website visitor data. ...
- Ahrefs. There's a reason why the Ahrefs tool comes so highly recommended by most digital marketers. ...
- Moz Pro. Source: Moz.
- Optimize your content with keywords. ...
- Create targeted landing pages. ...
- Craft engaging, high-quality content. ...
- Use digital ads to promote your site. ...
- Boost your local search reputation. ...
- Send emails that link to your website.
- Perform Keyword Research. Always include relevant keywords in your content. ...
- Create Memorable Content. ...
- Write Guest Posts. ...
- Keep Active Social Media Pages. ...
- Use Advertising to Increase Website Traffic. ...
- Send Email Newsletters. ...
- Influencer Outreach. ...
- Create a Helpful Industry Tool or Content.
- On a computer, open a classic Google Sites.
- Click Settings. Manage site.
- Under "Statistics," click the Down arrow. Use Universal Analytics.
- In the text box, under "Analytics Web Property ID," enter a valid Analytics Property ID. ...
- At the top, click Save.
- Google Analytics Benchmarking. Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) benchmark report. ...
- Similarweb. Similarweb is a free tool (with an optional Chrome extension) for comparing web traffic on sites you don't have access to. ...
- Ahrefs. ...
- Alexa. ...
- Semrush.
What is website traffic analysis? Website traffic analysis is the process of collecting and interpreting key data points that describe web traffic to and from your site. (Web traffic is information about every user that visits your site.)
How can direct traffic be improved? ›- Nurture Your Social Side. You probably have a personal social media account or three. ...
- SEO and Paid Ads. ...
- Email Marketing. ...
- Meet and Greet Offline. ...
- Leverage Your Niche.
- Create great blog content and make sure it is optimized.
- Create evergreen content.
- Creating a great user experience.
- Have a sidebar that promotes related blog content.
- Promote old blog posts (and do a better job at promoting existing content)
- Conclusion.
- #1. Optimize your website for search.
- #2. Experiment with content freshness.
- #3. Submit your site to search engines.
- #4. Build out your backlinks.
- #5. Spy on your competitors.
- #6. Optimize for long tail keywords.
- #7. Add new products or content to your website daily.
- #8. Host exclusive content on your website.
Written content is the most effective type of content for attracting website traffic – with 40.4 percent of respondents saying so. 34.3 percent view video content as the most effective content form in driving traffic to their website. Visual content is the top traffic-generator for 25.3 percent of the respondents.
How do I see traffic to a website without Google Analytics? ›
- SEMRush. SEMRush is an all-in-one traffic analysis and competition research tool. ...
- SimilarWeb. ...
- Google Search Console. ...
- Ubersuggest. ...
- Serpstat. ...
- Ahrefs. ...
- MonsterInsights.
A click map (or clickmap) is a type of website heat map that displays where users click the mouse cursor on a desktop device or tap the screen on mobile. Click maps help website owners track on-page user engagement, such as clicks on buttons, links, images, etc.
Can I use Google Analytics on any website? ›Will Google Analytics work on any website? Google Analytics will work on any website as long as you install the code snippet on it. Whether your website is an old and crusty one from 2010, or whether you make it yourself using one of the most popular and new website builders.
What is a good bounce rate? ›The average bounce rate is somewhere between 26% and 70%, with the optimal range being between 26% and 40%. To land anywhere under 20% is generally unlikely, so if that's what your data is showing then you may want to double-check some things.
How do I get customers to my website? ›- Run paid social media ad campaigns. Facebook ads. ...
- Reach new audiences with influencer marketing. Send free samples to Instagram influencers. ...
- Attract customers with content marketing. Write blogs to provide information or solve problems. ...
- Use SEO to increase your store's discoverability.
- Solidify your website SEO.
- Take advantage of email marketing.
- Start a blog.
- Try guest blogging.
- Harness the power of social media.
- Submit your site to online directories.
- Post on forums.
- Reach out with outreach marketing.
There are different types of traffic: Direct, Organic, Referral, Social, Email, Display and Paid. These describe exactly how that traffic arrived at your site.
What is Internet traffic called? ›Network traffic is the amount of data which moves across a network during any given time. Network traffic may also be referred to as data traffic or just plain traffic.
What do you call someone who views your website? ›A visitor is an Internet user who comes to your website or mobile site. By comparing the number of visitors and the number of visits to your site, you can determine whether people visit your site several times throughout the day (see visitor frequency).
What causes direct traffic? ›The reason why direct traffic is so high is that it's Google's catch-all. If a session can't be attributed, then Google Analytics will add it to direct. So, anytime your tracking isn't set up correctly, you'll likely see significantly higher direct traffic.
Why is website traffic important? ›
Website traffic is important for many reasons. The more people see your site, the more potential customers you will have. The number of visitors to your website becomes the number of opportunities your business has at giving an impression, generating qualified leads, sharing your brand and building relationships.
How do you grow referral traffic? ›- 1) Publish Your Website To Online Directories.
- 2) Get Published On Review Websites.
- 4) Leverage Social Media.
- 5) Comment On Blogs.
- 6) Be Active On Industry Forums.
- 7) Publish Infographics.
Use Google Analytics.
Google Analytics has free and paid premium formats. Once you sign up for Google Analytics, you'll receive a unique tracking code. Insert that code into your pages, and Google will track when your site is visited, who visited your site, and how they found your page.
- Step 1: Create an output message. ...
- Step 2: Create a namespace and key. ...
- Step 3: Set up your API call script. ...
- Step 4: Grab the API response and display website visits. ...
- Step 5: Reset the value of the counter.
You can sign in to your Analytics account from http://www.google.com/analytics. Click Sign in (at top right), and select Analytics. If you are already signed in to Google (e.g. you are signed in to your Gmail account), you'll be taken directly to the Analytics user interface.
Is Google Analytics free to use? ›Google Analytics gives you the tools, free of charge, to understand the customer journey and improve marketing ROI.
What is a good page view number? ›An analysis of 3,698 sites found that the eCommerce metrics, average page views per session are between 1.8 and 4.4. If your score is more than 4.4, your site is doing great than most websites! But if the score is below 1.4, you should think of improving your website/E-commerce store.
How do I find out which visitors are clicking the most? ›A click map (or clickmap) is a type of website heat map that displays where users click the mouse cursor on a desktop device or tap the screen on mobile. Click maps help website owners track on-page user engagement, such as clicks on buttons, links, images, etc.
How do you make a counter? ›Steps to create HTML counter
Step 1: Create the simple structure using HTML <div> tags. Step 2: Add CSS to make the counter more attractive. Step 3: To add the small icons (like suitcase, coffee-cup, Smylie, user icon, book and more) with the counter, use the bootstrap cdn link and code.
...
Automatic Numbering With Counters
- counter-reset - Creates or resets a counter.
- counter-increment - Increments a counter value.
- content - Inserts generated content.
- counter() or counters() function - Adds the value of a counter to an element.
How do I add a visitor counter to my Google site? ›
- Open our free editor and start forming your own widget. ...
- Receive your unique code appearing in the box on Elfsight Apps. ...
- Get started with using the tool on Google Sites homepage. ...
- You're done!
View Source Code look for (UA-)
This is an evergreen method to look whether a website is making use of Google Analytics. It is quite simple, open the website and click ctrl+U it will open up the source code in the new tab. view-source:domain.com this how the website will be opened in the new tab.
Many people wonder if they see Google Analytics for any website. It is not possible to see Google Analytics for other websites unless that site owner shares reports or account access. However, there are tools that estimate a websites' traffic and search volume, but these tools are not 100% accurate.
Can you access Google Analytics without a Gmail account? ›You can use Google Analytics without a gmail account, however you must still link your current email to Google's services. Go to https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and select "use my current email address instead."
How much does it cost to set up Google Analytics? ›There are 2 GA pricing plans: a free and paid version. The free version offers features like conversion reporting, advanced segmentation, customer reporting, real time visualization, flow visualization, and others. The paid plan (GA 360) goes for $12,500 per month or $150,000 per year.
What is a good bounce rate? ›The average bounce rate is somewhere between 26% and 70%, with the optimal range being between 26% and 40%. To land anywhere under 20% is generally unlikely, so if that's what your data is showing then you may want to double-check some things.
Why is GTM important? ›GTM provides significant opportunities for improving your website by tracking PDF downloads, scrolling behavior, link clicks, form submissions, video activity, and more. The platform gives the user the ability to measure, analyze, and create actionable steps to improve your marketing and website performance!