Word-of-mouth traffic can be some of the best, most qualified visitors to your site. But, how do you actually know if you are getting traffic from word-of-mouth? PPC and SEO efforts are easy to track because you can segment out traffic based on the specific referrers or entry pages (PPC). You have to be a bit creative to find the word-of-mouth traffic.

1. Check out your direct traffic (no referrer). These visitors either knew your URL and typed it directly into the browser (or they had your site bookmarked). As your brand becomes part of more and more conversations, the number of visitors who will know your URL will increase.

2. Check out your branded keyword traffic. This is the same concept as the direct traffic.  Only for those visitors who cannot remember your URL, the most likely place they’ll look for you is on one of the top search engines. Word-of-mouth conversations about your brand will result in more traffic from the search engines by visitors searching on terms related to your brand.

3. Check out the blogs – free tools (http://blogsearch.google.com). You can enter specific dates to see if the number of postings is increasing month to month. You can set up a Google Alert to periodically receive this information.

4. Check out the blogs and other conversations – paid tools (www.trackur.com). As many companies understand just how crucial it is to know what people are saying about their brand, tools like Trackur are becoming very popular. You can proactively see the conversations about your brand (and your competition) just by logging in.

5. Ask your customers. This is perhaps the most obvious and the most overlooked way to find out if people are talking about you. Talk to your customers. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you customers have to say about your brand. Encouraging and rewarding feedback is a great way to grow loyal customers who will be happy to say positive things about your brand to their friends.

Related posts:

1. 3 Easy Ways to Encourage Word of Mouth Traffic
2. Authentic Engagement with Word of Mouth Marketing
3. Get a promotion by lowering your traffic
4. Beyond Word-of-Mouth; Getting Your Customers to Participate in Your Brand
5. How to measure brand awareness

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