Inbound Traffic VS. Outbound Traffic
Enterprise networks have inbound traffic and outbound traffic. The inbound requests originate from outside parties, such as a user with a web browser, an email client, a server or application making service requests, like FTP and SSH, or API calls to web services. Outbound requests, on the other hand, originate from inside the network, destined for services on the internet or outside network. Firewalls are typically designed to prevent inbound traffic from entering a network, but they can also prevent outside connections from receiving outbound traffic.
How to Understand Inbound Traffic Goals
When implementing inbound marketing plans, one of the first goals we set is unique website visitors. After all, we need to attract more visitors to see the trickle down effect of converting more leads and closing more customers. To set these goals we look at the baseline and draw on our experience. Inbound industry data should be 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years from now. Now that we have an overall goal, how do we get there? Once your inbound program is off the ground, you should see your website traffic increase. But where are those increases coming from?
Consider What you Should be Seeing
When we look at sources of website traffic, we’re talking about what percent of your total visits are coming from channels like direct traffic, organic search, referrals from other websites, paid search, email, and social media. The percentage of traffic coming from each source may vary depending on your industry and your inbound marketing activities, but regardless, here are some things you might see and what to do with that information.
- If your content is relevant, you should see an increase in organic search. Your personas will be searching for topics that your blog answers.
- If your emails are relevant , you should see an uptick in email traffic.
- If you’re following/connecting with people who represent your personas, your social media traffic should increase.
