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.