The literal translation of the term “traffic” from English is “transport flow”. The concept of traffic has many meanings, but most often we are talking about Internet traffic. In simple words, Internet traffic is the amount of information flow received and transmitted by a personal computer or server.

Also, traffic on the Internet is traffic, the totality of clicks and clicks on links carried out by real users. To take into account the number of visitors to an Internet resource, we use tools such as “Yandex-metrics”, “google.analitics” and the like.

The main goal of any website is to attract users and increase traffic, as well as the reasonable management of this resource and competent monetization. However, first, let's look at the concept of traffic in its simplest representation.

How it works?

When a user loads any page on the Internet, all the information contained on it, which has a certain volume, is stored in the computer’s RAM and displayed in.

When playing audio recordings and videos, the situation is as follows - when a media file is loaded on the service, it is automatically downloaded to the PC, being saved in cache memory.

The loading time of web pages, messages and media files depends only on the speed. The higher the speed, the faster information is transferred from servers to a personal computer. And the faster the user’s computer transmits response information packets. The faster the home Internet, the faster the user can upload files from his computer to the network.

Types of Internet traffic

If we consider traffic specifically from the point of view of information, then we can distinguish two main types:

• Incoming information. This type includes all data received by a computer when working with Internet resources.
• Outgoing information. These are the data packets that the computer transmits to various sites.

When a computer is connected to the Internet, it constantly receives or sends data, while consuming both incoming and outgoing traffic.

Previously, there were such types of traffic: external and internal. Internal traffic was data that was transmitted within local networks of different sizes (home, city), and external traffic was information that circulated throughout the rest of the network. With the development of Internet technologies The boundaries between the two types of Internet gradually blurred.

Traffic in Internet Marketing

From the point of view of assessing traffic, traffic is the number of site users and their activity.

Stand out target And non-target types of traffic. If a user enters a query he is interested in into a search engine and gets to your site via a direct link, it generates target stream. This concept also includes regular account subscribers or site users. Visitors to an Internet resource who generate targeted traffic are interested in what the owner of the resource offers them. Target traffic closely intersects with search engines, more precisely, expands this concept, which defines users who simply came to the site via links given to them by the search engine.

TO untargeted traffic These include random visitors to the site who did not purposefully look for the information contained on it and who came from other resources. The predominance of untargeted traffic over targeted traffic is one of the main problems for Internet marketers.

Advertising traffic the easiest to obtain and time-efficient. But it requires an investment of money. To obtain it, it is enough to place advertising banners and links on various sites and wait for the influx of users. This method of increasing traffic is considered the most popular today.

You can name many more types of user traffic, but most of them overlap. Different types of traffic are monetized in different ways, of course, not only through the sale of goods if the site is, for example, an online store. An entire science is being built around this topic, taking doing business on the Internet to a new level.

Any administrator sooner or later receives instructions from management: “count who goes online and how much they download.” For providers, it is complemented by the tasks of “letting whoever needs it in, taking payment, limiting access.” What to count? How? Where? There is a lot of fragmentary information, it is not structured. We will save the novice admin from tedious searches by providing him with general knowledge and useful links to hardware.
In this article I will try to describe the principles of organizing the collection, accounting and control of traffic on the network. We will look at the issue and list possible ways to retrieve information from network devices.

This is the first theoretical article in a series of articles devoted to the collection, accounting, management and billing of traffic and IT resources.

Internet access structure

In general, the network access structure looks like this:

• External resources - the Internet, with all sites, servers, addresses and other things that do not belong to the network that you control.
• Access device – router (hardware or PC-based), switch, VPN server or concentrator.
• Internal resources are a set of computers, subnets, subscribers whose operation on the network must be taken into account or controlled.
• A management or accounting server is a device on which specialized software runs. Can be functionally combined with a software router.

In this structure, network traffic passes from external resources to internal ones, and back, through the access device. It transmits traffic information to the management server. The control server processes this information, stores it in the database, displays it, and issues blocking commands. However, not all combinations of access devices (methods) and collection and control methods are compatible. The various options will be discussed below.

Network traffic

First, you need to define what is meant by “network traffic” and what useful statistical information can be extracted from the stream of user data.
The dominant internetworking protocol is still IP version 4. The IP protocol corresponds to layer 3 of the OSI model (L3). Information (data) between the sender and the recipient is packaged into packets - having a header and a “payload”. The header determines where the packet is coming from and to (sender and destination IP addresses), packet size, and payload type. The bulk of network traffic consists of packets with UDP and TCP payloads - these are Layer 4 (L4) protocols. In addition to addresses, the header of these two protocols contains port numbers, which determine the type of service (application) transmitting data.

To transmit an IP packet over wires (or radio), network devices are forced to “wrap” (encapsulate) it in a Layer 2 (L2) protocol packet. The most common protocol of this type is Ethernet. The actual transmission “to the wire” occurs at the 1st level. Typically, the access device (router) does not analyze packet headers at levels higher than level 4 (with the exception of intelligent firewalls).
Information from the fields of addresses, ports, protocols and length counters from the L3 and L4 headers of data packets constitutes the “raw material” that is used in traffic accounting and management. The actual amount of information transmitted is found in the Length field of the IP header (including the length of the header itself). By the way, due to packet fragmentation due to the MTU mechanism, the total volume of transmitted data is always greater than the payload size.

The total length of the IP and TCP/UDP fields of the packet that are interesting to us in this context is 2...10% of the total length of the packet. If you process and store all this information batch by batch, there will not be enough resources. Fortunately, the vast majority of traffic is structured to consist of a series of “conversations” between external and internal network devices, called “flows.” For example, as part of one operation of sending an email (SMTP protocol), a TCP session is opened between the client and the server. It is characterized by a constant set of parameters (source IP address, source TCP port, destination IP address, destination TCP port). Instead of processing and storing information packet by packet, it is much more convenient to store flow parameters (addresses and ports), as well as additional information - the number and sum of lengths of packets transmitted in each direction, optionally session duration, router interface indexes, ToS field value, etc. This approach is beneficial for connection-oriented protocols (TCP), where it is possible to explicitly intercept the termination of a session. However, even for non-session-oriented protocols, it is possible to perform aggregation and logical completion of a flow record based on, for example, a timeout. Below is an excerpt from the SQL database of our own billing system, which logs information about traffic flows:

It is necessary to note the case when the access device performs address translation (NAT, masquerading) to organize Internet access for local network computers using one, external, public IP address. In this case, a special mechanism replaces IP addresses and TCP/UDP ports of traffic packets, replacing internal (not routable on the Internet) addresses according to its dynamic translation table. In this configuration, it is necessary to remember that in order to correctly record data on internal network hosts, statistics must be collected in a way and in a place where the translation result does not yet “anonymize” internal addresses.

Methods for collecting traffic/statistics information

You can capture and process information about passing traffic directly on the access device itself (PC router, VPN server), transferring it from this device to a separate server (NetFlow, SNMP), or “from the wire” (tap, SPAN). Let's look at all the options in order.

PC router

Let's consider the simplest case - an access device (router) based on a PC running Linux.

How to set up such a server, address translation and routing, a lot has been written. We are interested in the next logical step - information on how to obtain information about the traffic passing through such a server. There are three common methods:

• intercepting (copying) packets passing through the server’s network card using the libpcap library
• intercepting packets passing through the built-in firewall
• using third-party tools for converting packet-by-packet statistics (obtained by one of the two previous methods) into a netflow aggregated information stream

Libpcap

In the first case, a copy of the packet passing through the interface, after passing the filter (man pcap-filter), can be requested by a client program on the server written using this library. The packet arrives with a layer 2 header (Ethernet). It is possible to limit the length of the information captured (if we are only interested in information from its header). Examples of such programs include tcpdump and Wireshark. There is an implementation of libpcap for Windows. If address translation is used on a PC router, such interception can only be carried out on its internal interface connected to local users. On the external interface, after translation, IP packets do not contain information about the internal hosts of the network. However, with this method it is impossible to take into account the traffic generated by the server itself on the Internet (which is important if it runs a web or email service).

libpcap requires support from the operating system, which currently amounts to installing a single library. In this case, the application (user) program that collects packages must:

• open the required interface
• specify the filter through which to pass received packets, the size of the captured part (snaplen), the buffer size,
• set the promisc parameter, which puts the network interface into capture mode for all packets passing by, and not just those addressed to the MAC address of this interface
• set a function (callback) to be called on each received packet.

When a packet is transmitted through the selected interface, after passing the filter, this function receives a buffer containing Ethernet, (VLAN), IP, etc. headers, total size up to snaplen. Since the libcap library copies packets, it cannot be used to block their passage. In this case, the traffic collection and processing program will have to use alternative methods, such as calling a script to place a given IP address in a traffic blocking rule.

Firewall

Capturing data passing through the firewall allows you to take into account both the traffic of the server itself and the traffic of network users, even when address translation is running. The main thing in this case is to correctly formulate the capture rule and put it in the right place. This rule activates the transfer of the packet towards the system library, from where the traffic accounting and management application can receive it. For Linux OS, iptables is used as a firewall, and interception tools are ipq, netfliter_queue or ulog. For OC FreeBSD – ipfw with rules like tee or divert. In any case, the firewall mechanism is complemented by the ability to work with a user program in the following way:

• A user program - a traffic handler - registers itself in the system using a system call or a library.
• A user program or external script installs a rule in the firewall, “wrapping” the selected traffic (according to the rule) inside the handler.
• For each passing packet, the handler receives its contents in the form of a memory buffer (with IP headers, etc. After processing (accounting), the program must also tell the operating system kernel what to do next with such a packet - discard it or pass it on. Alternatively, it is possible pass the modified packet to the kernel.

Since the IP packet is not copied, but sent to the software for analysis, it becomes possible to “eject” it, and therefore, completely or partially restrict traffic of a certain type (for example, to a selected local network subscriber). However, if the application program stops responding to the kernel about its decision (hung, for example), traffic through the server is simply blocked.
It should be noted that the described mechanisms, with significant volumes of transmitted traffic, create excessive load on the server, which is associated with the constant copying of data from the kernel to the user program. The method of collecting statistics at the OS kernel level, with the output of aggregated statistics to the application program via the NetFlow protocol, does not have this drawback.

Netflow

This protocol was developed by Cisco Systems to export traffic information from routers for the purpose of traffic accounting and analysis. The most popular version 5 now provides the recipient with a stream of structured data in the form of UDP packets containing information about past traffic in the form of so-called flow records:

The amount of information about traffic is several orders of magnitude smaller than the traffic itself, which is especially important in large and distributed networks. Of course, it is impossible to block the transfer of information when collecting statistics via netflow (unless additional mechanisms are used).
Currently, a further development of this protocol is becoming popular - version 9, based on the template flow record structure, implementation for devices from other manufacturers (sFlow). Recently, the IPFIX standard was adopted, which allows statistics to be transmitted via protocols at deeper levels (for example, by application type).
The implementation of netflow sources (agents, probes) is available for PC routers, both in the form of utilities working according to the mechanisms described above (flowprobe, softflowd), and directly built into the OS kernel (FreeBSD: ng_netgraph, Linux:). For software routers, the netflow statistics stream can be received and processed locally on the router itself, or sent over the network (transfer protocol - over UDP) to the receiving device (collector).


The collector program can collect information from many sources at once, being able to distinguish their traffic even with overlapping address spaces. Using additional tools such as nprobe, it is also possible to perform additional data aggregation, stream bifurcation or protocol conversion, which is important when managing a large and distributed network with dozens of routers.

Netflow export functions support routers from Cisco Systems, Mikrotik, and some others. Similar functionality (with other export protocols) is supported by all major network equipment manufacturers.

Libpcap “outside”

Let's complicate the task a little. What if your access device is a hardware router from another manufacturer? For example, D-Link, ASUS, Trendnet, etc. It is most likely impossible to install additional data acquisition software on it. Alternatively, you have a smart access device, but it is not possible to configure it (you don’t have rights, or it is managed by your provider). In this case, you can collect information about traffic directly at the point where the access device meets the internal network, using “hardware” packet copying tools. In this case, you will definitely need a separate server with a dedicated network card to receive copies of Ethernet packets.
The server must use the packet collection mechanism using the libpcap method described above, and our task is to submit a data stream identical to that coming from the access server to the input of the network card dedicated for this purpose. For this you can use:

• Ethernet - hub: a device that simply forwards packets between all its ports indiscriminately. In modern realities, it can be found somewhere in a dusty warehouse, and using this method is not recommended: unreliable, low speed (there are no hubs with a speed of 1 Gbit/s)
• Ethernet - a switch with the ability to mirror (mirroring, SPAN ports. Modern smart (and expensive) switches allow you to copy all traffic (incoming, outgoing, both) of another physical interface, VLAN, including remote (RSPAN) to a specified port
• Hardware splitter, which may require installation of two network cards instead of one to collect - and this is in addition to the main, system one.

Naturally, you can configure a SPAN port on the access device itself (router), if it allows it - Cisco Catalyst 6500, Cisco ASA. Here is an example of such a configuration for a Cisco switch:
monitor session 1 source vlan 100 ! where do we get the packages from?
monitor session 1 destination interface Gi6/3! where do we issue packages?

SNMP

What if we don’t have a router under our control, we don’t want to contact netflow, we’re not interested in the details of our users’ traffic. They are simply connected to the network through a managed switch, and we just need to roughly estimate the amount of traffic going to each of its ports. As you know, network devices with remote control support and can display counters of packets (bytes) passing through network interfaces. To poll them, it would be correct to use the standardized remote management protocol SNMP. Using it, you can quite easily obtain not only the values ​​of the specified counters, but also other parameters, such as the name and description of the interface, MAC addresses visible through it, and other useful information. This is done both by command line utilities (snmpwalk), graphical SNMP browsers, and more complex network monitoring programs (rrdtools, cacti, zabbix, whats up gold, etc.). However, this method has two significant drawbacks:

• blocking traffic can only be done by completely disabling the interface, using the same SNMP
• traffic counters taken via SNMP refer to the sum of the lengths of Ethernet packets (unicast, broadcast and multicast separately), while the rest of the previously described tools give values ​​relative to IP packets. This creates a noticeable discrepancy (especially on short packets) due to the overhead caused by the length of the Ethernet header (however, this can be approximately combated: L3_byte = L2_byte - L2_packets * 38).

VPN

Separately, it is worth considering the case of user access to the network by explicitly establishing a connection to the access server. A classic example is the good old dial-up, the analogue of which in the modern world is VPN remote access services (PPTP, PPPoE, L2TP, OpenVPN, IPSEC)


The access device not only routes user IP traffic, but also acts as a specialized VPN server and terminates logical tunnels (often encrypted) within which user traffic is transmitted.
To account for such traffic, you can use all the tools described above (and they are well suited for deep analysis by ports/protocols), as well as additional mechanisms that provide VPN access control tools. First of all, we will talk about the RADIUS protocol. His work is a rather complex topic. We will briefly mention that the control (authorization) of access to the VPN server (RADIUS client) is controlled by a special application (RADIUS server), which has a database (text file, SQL, Active Directory) of allowed users with their attributes (restrictions on connection speeds, assigned IP addresses). In addition to the authorization process, the client periodically transmits accounting messages to the server, information about the state of each currently running VPN session, including counters of transmitted bytes and packets.

Conclusion

Let's bring all the methods for collecting traffic information described above together:

Let's summarize. In practice, there are a large number of methods for connecting the network you manage (with clients or office subscribers) to an external network infrastructure, using a number of access tools - software and hardware routers, switches, VPN servers. However, in almost any case, it is possible to come up with a scheme where information about traffic transmitted over the network can be sent to a software or hardware tool for its analysis and management. It is also possible that this tool will allow feedback to the access device, using intelligent access restriction algorithms for individual clients, protocols, and other things.
This is where I will finish the analysis of the materiel. The remaining unanswered topics are:

• how and where the collected traffic data goes
• traffic accounting software
• what is the difference between billing and a simple “counter”
• How can you impose traffic restrictions?
• accounting and restriction of visited websites

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Traffic on the Internet is the information that a computer transmits and receives.

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Imagine your family budget. You received your salary and put it in an envelope at home. You need to buy a refrigerator - you got the required amount from there. It's time to pay the rent - they took the money from the envelope.

From a user's perspective, Internet traffic is a flow of data in and out. Money in this case will be units of measurement of information - bytes, megabytes, etc. When performing any actions on the Internet, the computer transmits or downloads data. This exchange is called Internet traffic.

Internet traffic - what is it?

When using a desktop computer, the traffic flow is greater than when viewing from mobile devices.

Traffic for websites is the number of visitors who visited the resource during a period of time: day, month. Let the website be a store and its visitors be the customers. It is important for the store to ensure an influx of new and regular customers and to disseminate information about the selection and quality of the assortment. The situation is similar with websites; traffic expands the capabilities of the resource and brings profit for further development.

Types of traffic

Traffic can be viewed from the point of view of an ordinary Internet user and from the point of view of a web analyst.

For the user

Traffic on the Internet is divided into two types: outgoing and incoming.

• Outgoing data.
  Information that a computer uploads to the Internet. This is what you send to other people: messages on social networks, photos, documents.
• Incoming data.
  Information obtained from the Internet.

The computer constantly receives and transmits information, so when working on the Internet, both types of traffic are consumed simultaneously.

Sometimes the computer sends information without the user's knowledge. This happens due to viruses that increase outgoing traffic. Check your computer for viruses to avoid losing personal information.
Previously, there was a division into internal and external traffic.

• Internal traffic is information transmitted over a local network. The provider does not charge a fee.
• External traffic is information coming from the Internet to a computer or uploaded to the Internet.

Now such a division is outdated: technology has improved and the boundary between internal and external traffic has blurred.

Another type of traffic classification is the division into mobile and desktop traffic.
The difference between these two types is the device that is used to access the Internet.

1. Mobile traffic is used on phones and tablets. Its speed is limited, information loads slower than on computers. The provider offers a limited traffic package for a month. After the free traffic expires, the provider significantly reduces the speed. You can purchase more megabytes for an additional fee. There are packages that provide high speed and unlimited data during fixed hours of the day, for example, at night. Mobile Internet traffic is gaining popularity. According to Cisco research, global mobile Internet traffic grew by 63% in 2016.
2. Desktop or stationary traffic is used on computers. Providers limit the speed, not the amount of information, but nevertheless, Internet speeds on computers are usually faster than on phones.

For web analyst

A web analyst is a person who analyzes resource traffic and promotion effectiveness. For him, Internet traffic is the flow of visitors to the site. =

In this case, traffic can be divided into groups according to the type of site audience:

• Target.
  The flow of visitors interested in the content of your site. These could be purposeful buyers, students, and so on.
• Non-target.
  A flow of visitors who are not interested in the site’s content. For example, a random visitor.

By type of traffic source - where the user came to the site from.

• Purchased Traffic or Advertising - Visitors come to your site through paid ads or sponsored links.
• Direct traffic - visitors who like your site and visit it regularly.
• includes referrals from other sites.
• Traffic from social networks - people who came to the site through links posted on social networks.
• Search traffic is visitors who came to your site through a request on search networks.

How to count traffic

To always have access to the Internet, you need to monitor the amount of traffic. This can be done using the built-in settings on the device or special programs. Here is a list of programs for Windows OS:

• NetWorx - measures the speed and load of the Internet connection, issues notifications about traffic overuse and has a list of actions for this case, for example, completely disconnecting from the network.

• BitMeter is a simple and free utility. Shows a variety of statistical parameters. In addition to standard functions, it has a number of additional ones for a detailed study of specific actions on the Internet.

• NetSpeedMonitor is a free tool for monitoring Internet speed and traffic. Has a wide range of settings, for example, units of measurement, fonts, location.

• NetBalancer is a free tool that has antivirus capabilities, prioritizes network activity, and distributes traffic between applications.

• NetLimiter - analyzes applications in real time, contains a built-in firewall to block unwanted processes, and limits the access speed of a specific process.

• GlassWire - nice visual design, built-in firewall, alert log.

What does the website traffic indicator mean?

Web traffic is an indicator of the popularity of a resource and contains the following parameters:

• The number of unique visitors over a period of time.
• Number of pages viewed per visitor.
• The page from which visitors become acquainted with the contents of the resource.
• The page where visitors end their acquaintance.
• A typical path is which pages of the site the visitor viewed.
• Average time to visit a resource.
• Average time spent on one page.
• Time when the website is most busy.
• Popular pages that are in demand by clients.
• Unused resource pages where visitors do not linger.

Based on this indicator, the analyst can predict the growth of the site’s popularity. It evaluates the effectiveness of promotion methods. For example, contextual advertising was launched. Money was invested in it. To understand whether the costs are justified, you need to evaluate the traffic that came to the resource through this advertising channel.

Various metrics and traffic counting systems are used for analytics. The most popular are Yandex.Metrica and Google Analytics.
Yandex.Metrica is a tool of the Yandex company. It allows you to upload detailed reports on website traffic and evaluate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Google Analytics is a free service for tracking website traffic.

Thus, Internet traffic can be understood in two ways. For users, this is all data received from the network and transmitted to it. For websites, these are visitors who use its resources. It is important to track traffic statistics to stay ahead of the curve.

In this article we will talk about traffic. More precisely, let’s look at what traffic on the Internet is for dummies. In simple words and in detail. Why is it important to differentiate between traffic? It’s very simple - the type of traffic used to attract customers to your business determines the amount of money they will bring to your business.

In my humble opinion, most entrepreneurs don't understand what traffic is, let alone how to work with it. By taking just a few minutes to read this article, you will be able to understand once and for all the nature of traffic and why it is important to recognize it.

By tradition, at the end we will analyze what type of traffic will bring the most money to your business. But I warn you that the information given in this article can completely change your point of view on how to run your business as a whole. Even if you are not a beginner.

First, let's define how most marketers and entrepreneurs understand traffic and why you simply must understand where traffic comes from if you want your project to be successful.

What is traffic in simple words

So, what do most people understand by the word traffic? Traffic is the flow of people on the Internet, some of which come to our website or one-page page ( ) for a certain amount of time. In other words, several billion people use the Internet, and some of them come to us.

The question arises: why do not all people who use the World Wide Web come to our site, but only a part? In fact, there are only three such reasons:

1. Not all people are interested in the theme of your website or one-pager. In this case, they say that people who pass by your site are not your target audience.
2. In addition to you, there are several hundred, or even thousands of sites on the network with similar topics. Normal competition in most niches.
3. Your website or one-page website is not promoted enough for people to find it. What this means is that you haven't taken any steps to get people to come to your website or landing page.

At the same time, we have not yet touched upon a very important point - how much your offer is in demand among other people in the real world. This does not directly affect the number of visitors to your site.

Not all people who come to your site are your target audience at any given time. And not all of them will leave their contact information or buy your product (goods or services). The ratio of visitors who took the target action to the total number of visitors to the site is called conversion.

Conversion is the other side of the coin called traffic. No matter how many people visit your resource, it is the conversion that will decide how many sales you will make. There is still a debate among entrepreneurs about what is more important: traffic or conversion? No one has an exact answer. My not very modest experience shows that traffic is primary. And he is more important. If there is no traffic, then there will be no conversion. Do you agree?

Another important point is that not all target visitors to your site are your customers at this very moment.

Yourselfbranding

Let's say you are selling a course that guarantees weight loss of 10 kilograms in 1 month without dieting or exercise. A visitor comes in who wouldn’t mind losing 10 extra pounds, but there are factors that influence his decision to buy or not buy.

Why is this happening? Why don't all people buy everything from us? First of all, it's not real. Even monopolists do not achieve 100% sales conversion. And secondly, you need to analyze all types of attracting visitors who come to your resource, and work only with that type of traffic that gives the maximum conversion.

Therefore, you need to understand what type of traffic you are working with and what you should strive for to improve your business. And this is truly the most important function that you, as an entrepreneur, can do in your (or others') business.

Secret #1: Why is traffic generation the most important skill?

In fact, any business project begins not with an idea, not with defining a niche, but with generating targeted traffic. Coming up with a product and good packaging for it is not a very big problem. But with traffic it’s much more difficult.

In most cases, entrepreneurs delegate this task or simply outsource the service. It is believed that setting up traffic is too difficult and time consuming.

It seems easier to hire a specialist. But you must remember that if you decide to make your own business project, then not a single specialist will set up advertising for you the way you need. And where is the confidence that the specialist you hire has the proper experience in his field? It is quite possible that he just completed free courses on Yandex Direct yesterday.

My first experience of purchasing such a service, before I figured out how to set up traffic on my own, led to very interesting results. We worked through the social network VKontakte. The price per person was quite low, but the traffic was half-targeted and was very poorly monetized.

Now let's look at why, from a business point of view, traffic plays such a colossal role? At its core, any business process solves only 2 simple tasks:

1. Generating a flow of incoming clients.
2. Their quality service.

And if you don’t solve the first problem, then it will be difficult to start solving the second problem. So, traffic is primary, without traffic there will be no customers, there will be no sales. And if there are no sales, then there will be no business. It's simple. You can watch a separate video on this topic on our channel:

In my opinion, generating an incoming flow of clients is so important that this is exactly where you need to start a business project. You can delegate this function as a last resort. Whoever has the valve to traffic is the one in charge.

Therefore, you should learn how to attract traffic yourself. Set up your first few advertising campaigns. Understand how it works, what average numbers you will receive for each advertising campaign. Only then can you look for people who will help you generate traffic.

If you just start purchasing this service without understanding the issue, then you will not be able to measure the effectiveness of a particular traffic channel for each product. There is a strict rule: in any business, if we cannot measure something, then it works at a disadvantage. Therefore, generate traffic yourself and measure it.

Secret #2: What type of traffic do you need?

Let's talk about what types of traffic there are based on the nature of the flow. In fact, there are not many such types. To understand what type of traffic comes to your site, you need to install several counters on each page of the site. This is usually done in the footer of the page, since this part is duplicated on almost the entire site.

Be sure to install the following counters on the site and on all one-page pages: Yandex.Metrica, Google Analytics and liveInternet.

How do visitors get to your site?

Direct traffic

This type of traffic in which the visitor directly enters the address of your site into the search bar. And also, this is a transition to the site from bookmarks or browser history. Direct traffic is direct because we are not looking for any necessary information, but immediately enter the name of the organization or the name of the site.

Such traffic tells us that either the site is quite popular, or the company that owns the site has a high level of brand promotion. In addition, those who directly enter the domain name into the address bar trust this resource and know what information they want to receive. And this, in turn, tells us that this is not a new visitor, but a regular user who constantly returns.

Direct traffic is the very first that a company or website will receive, thanks to the so-called “word of mouth”. We will classify this type of traffic as a trusted type, and users who access it will be targeted in most cases.

Yourselfbranding

Search traffic

From the name it is clear that this type of traffic applies only to those visitors who found the site using search results. This is sometimes said to be natural or organic traffic. This is the type of traffic you should strive for from the very beginning of launching a business project.

This kind of traffic indicates that the site is filled with useful content on its topic, is well structured, and is running a successful SEO campaign. It also has sufficient link mass (links leading to the site from other sources). With proper work with content, such a site can generate targeted visitors, who are easier to work with in the future.

It will be difficult to drive this type of traffic to a young domain, since the level of trust in new domains on the network is low. But website optimization for this type of attracting visitors should begin from the start of a business project. The disadvantages of such traffic include the fact that we do not know exactly how search algorithms work and how they change their structure after the next update.

Link traffic

This type of traffic is characterized by referrals from other sites. How it works? Links to your site are placed on other resources: this is done either for a fee or for free. When people click on them, it is considered that these are target visitors, since the link interested them for a reason.

Initially, link building affects the ranking of the site in search results. Don't forget that links themselves also drive traffic. Moreover, if other sources link to your site, then this is considered a kind of recommendation. And we know that recommendations provide high-level targeted traffic.

Yourselfbranding

In addition to direct purchases of links, you should also remember that the number of resources that link to the site depends on the quality of the content. By the way, if you don’t know how to make quality content, then here’s for free material on this topic. There you will learn how to create content for 1 month in advance in just 1 day.

Traffic from social networks

This type of traffic comes to the site through links from social networks. This suggests that the company is engaged in high-quality SMM promotion. It is generally accepted that different social networks have different levels of target clients and this depends primarily on the niche in which the business project operates. For example, if this is a business training niche, then Facebook is best suited here; if these are lessons on 3D graphics, then it is best to use Youtube

The main disadvantages of this type of traffic:

1. Constantly changing trends in SMM promotion. Today one thing is popular, tomorrow something completely different.
2. In the early stages of a business project, this type of traffic will bring you few targeted visitors.
3. Requires a long time to implement.

From my experience, you shouldn’t expect an immediate and/or high return on your investment in social media traffic. This type is needed, but it is not clear when it will bring the first clients.

Paid traffic

From experience I will say that one way or another, we pay for traffic. There is no such thing as free traffic. But it is this type of traffic that comes from paid advertising on the Internet. There are usually 2 types of paid traffic:

1. With pay per click (transition)
2. With payment for the number of impressions.

Don’t think that well-configured paid traffic guarantees successful promotion. If you have set up paid traffic and it gives you an average number of visitors, then it is naive to believe that increasing the advertising budget will give an increase in potential clients.

This type of traffic, since there is direct payment for results, needs to be constantly monitored.

Secret #3: Distinguish traffic by warmth

It is clear that both targeted and non-targeted visitors will come to your site. In the previous chapter, we looked at what types of traffic attract the target audience.

But in my opinion, dividing traffic into targeted and non-targeted is not entirely correct. Therefore, introduce a difference in heat for yourself. We will divide your traffic into:

1. Cold (conditionally non-target)
2. Warm (conditionally target)
3. Hot (target)

You must understand that cold traffic is not necessarily untargeted. It is quite possible that people will be interested in your niche, but for various reasons they will not buy anything. You can also work with cold traffic if you know how. But at the stage of starting your business project, you should still work with hot traffic.

Hot traffic gives maximum conversion. These are those people who are ready to buy something and are looking for a product on the Internet. Therefore, visitors who come from search traffic are the hottest, ready to take a targeted action for you. And visitors who saw advertising on social networks, for example a VKontakte target, will be considered cold traffic.

Look carefully at the picture below:

The figure shows that we classify all types of search traffic as hot or warm. You might be wondering why Youtube is classified as search traffic? Very simply, Youtube is the second search engine in the world after Google.

Therefore, when starting any project, pay attention to: SEO (writing high-quality text content), Contextual advertising (Yandex.Direct Google AdWords), Youtube (video content). After mastering these traffic channels, start the affiliate program.

And last but not least, master teaser advertising (Yandex Advertising Network and Google Contextual Display Network) and Targeted advertising on social networks.

Secret No. 3: How to cook scrambled eggs?

In some niches, there are situations when you cannot use search advertising or your niche is so highly specialized that you cannot use SEO promotion due to the low number of queries.

We want to eat, but there are few target visitors. What to do? How should we cook our own scrambled eggs and eat?

For example, in the same niche for 3D visualization of interiors, no one is looking for courses in 3ds Max. People are mostly looking for tutorials on Youtube that solve a specific problem, but they are not looking for courses. I had to work with such cold traffic.

The only thing you need to know about cold traffic is that it needs to be warmed up. Yes, yes, we work with the cold flow of visitors and warm them up, pushing them to the target action. How do they warm up cold traffic? Quality content. Therefore, if you have launched targeted advertising on VKontakte, then know that traffic from this channel will give financial returns only after some time. No one can tell you exactly how long this will be. But I had a case when a person from my subscription base “warmed up” for about 2 years and then bought a VIP package of the main product.

Another important point. Our advertising depends on how cold or hot the traffic is. Therefore, make sure that your advertisement has a measurable result for the client. In this case, the traffic will be much warmer than simply writing: “individual approach”, “quality services” or “we are open”.

Secret #5: Traffic is not what it seems

If we correctly translate the English word traffic, we will get the following options: movement, transport, trade. It turns out that this word means nothing more than an ordinary street stream of people, where each person solves his own problem.

This gives us an understanding that traffic is not limited to the Internet. If you put a store in a crowded place, then you can say that the problem with the flow of customers has been solved. However, such traffic will not always be targeted.

Interest clubs are a different matter - people with similar problems meet there. And if you start working with such clubs, offering participants a solution to their problems, then the traffic issue will also be resolved.

Think about where there are clusters of people with similar interests in your niche? Seminars, conferences, pet clubs, fitness centers, spas and so on. All these are places where the target audience gathers.

Yourselfbranding

In most cases, budding entrepreneurs look for a target audience only on the Internet, although there is much more of it in the real physical world. And therefore it will cost you much less. The main thing is to know how to work with it. Remember that traffic is not what it seems at first glance.

How to work with traffic offline? Are there any specific examples of using this type of traffic? If you have asked yourself these questions, you can download my book . There, all types of traffic that entrepreneurs usually avoid are discussed in more detail.

Which traffic brings in the most money?

Paradoxically, no one can answer this question for you. Dividing traffic into types and types only gives an understanding of what kind of visitor we have on our site and what kind of conversion we can approximately expect.

Remember that hot traffic gives the highest conversion, but the competition for such visitors is very tough. In some cases, the cost per click reaches $10. Therefore, first focus on those types of traffic for which you do not pay money, but only waste your effort and time.

Cold traffic, in turn, is attracted by its relative cheapness, but it needs to be warmed up well. And it’s not a fact that you will get at least some return from it.

In my opinion, the amount of money you make from your traffic directly depends on the value you broadcast to the world. If your offer solves a specific pain for specific people, then you can be sure that you are simply doomed to a good level of sales.

By the way, by watching the video below, you can test your niche for relevance:

Ultimately, it is you who decide what kind of visitors you will have on your site, as well as what and how you will sell to them. The return on investment and profit will depend on this.

That's all. We have looked at what traffic is on the Internet and where to look for it for dummies. I hope this article was useful to you. And if so, then be sure to share it with your friends. It is quite possible that I forgot some type of traffic, so write your opinion on this hot topic in the comments.

Be sure to view all additional materials linked in this article. They will definitely help you earn more money from your traffic.

See you in touch!

New owners of an individual or regional network may not at first attach much importance to counting the traffic that they consume from the global Network. But after receiving the first receipt for Internet services, the user realizes the significance of such an abstract, at first glance, concept as incoming Megabytes.

What it is

In simple words, traffic is the amount of information that a user sends and receives while surfing the Internet. Accordingly, a distinction is made between outgoing and incoming traffic.

There are several ways to waste incoming data:

How to find out spent traffic

A computer user can quickly find out the amount and statistics of traffic consumption using the standard Start menu. By going to the “Control Panel”. Then, by selecting the “Network Connections” option, you can see two icons with the necessary information:

“Main connection”: the window contains data on external traffic. “Local network connection” the open window displays data on the activity of incoming and outgoing data, as well as statistics on the movement of fixed traffic packets. This information applies only to the internal network flow when using local resources.

But standard tools often display inaccurate information, and the meaning of some indicators can be quite unclear to inexperienced users. Programs created for accurate traffic measurement (such as NetWorx) are quite easy to use. Most of them are available for free download.

In special counter programs, there is a step-by-step adjustment of the operating algorithm, which allows you to view the dynamics of incoming data at any time (with bit accuracy), set a warning function for exceeding the limit, and track statistics for a week, month, or year.

Measuring traffic waste is no less relevant for Android, whose users are online almost 24/7. The fastest way to establish control is to configure the “Traffic Control” option in the standard menu. It is possible to set individual restrictions on the reception of data via Wi-Fi or a mobile network, and their transmission can be disabled altogether.

Special applications (such as Data Usage or Internet Speed ​​Meter Lite) are designed not only for accounting, but also for saving a limited amount of information. The Android user independently creates a template for displaying consumption, setting the desired period of time and warnings about exceeding the norm.

For example, Data Usage monitors transferred units of information, both through a mobile and Wi-Fi network (which is important for frequent users of the public Internet, where there is a limit on free access). Restrictions can be enabled for each network separately.

Video: ways to save mobile traffic

Ways to save

Android users can prevent device apps from communicating with the Internet on their own. Installation of updates should only occur with the user's consent. But canceling auto-synchronization may negatively affect the operation of some standard programs (weather forecast or mail agent).

As mentioned above, each user on a separate line needs to either install a counter program, or at least know where this information can be found in the standard menu.

It is better to start using the Internet economically on your computer by cleaning up overly active programs. The Process Hacker application scans the computer in operating mode and helps the user eliminate traffic hogs on their own.

Photo: Scanning Firewall programs

System programs cause damage to traffic with automatic requests. You can control their activity using the free firewall Firewall, which controls the flow of information and blocks programs from unwanted access to the Network.

Determining where precious Megabytes go is half the battle. Rational use of all services of the global Internet should become a habit. Programs like uTorrent.exe should not start when turned on and run idle.

How is Internet traffic measured?

The smallest unit of measurement of the information received is Bit. Depending on the situation and the volume consumed, the consumed data can be counted in Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes. The most common unit is Megabyte (MB).

Average sizes of the most popular files:

• three dozen pages on the Internet or 400 text pages: 1 MB;
• 5 high quality photos: 1 MB;
• one audio file: 3-12 MB;
• one video clip: 30-200MB, film: 600-1400MB.

In conclusion, it is worth saying that monitoring and counting Internet traffic allows you not only to avoid the need to pay inflated bills, but also to save significantly, without limiting yourself in using the capabilities of the Internet.