My website's direct traffic visit count has increased 20% from 25K to 30K from Apr10-23 to Apr24May7. I chose the same days of the week (Thu to Wed in both ranges) to compare the two ranges as it gives a better comparison. I have implemented several changes on a few pages on April 22nd (all #1 in organic SERP for a few high search volume keyword phrases), as a result of which the bounce rate on these few pages has decreased and navigation to other pages has increased. I don't want to skew your thought process but I am thinking the changes above have somehow contributed to the increase in direct traffic either via bookmarks, or via brand recognition (since some of those people have browsed the site longer, as opposed to bouncing prior to the changes I have implemented). In the meantime number of visits has increased by 4%, Absolute Unique visitors have increased by 6%, and New Visits have increased by 2%. I am not running campaigns of any sort. How do I make sense of this scenario the most accurate way? Where can I look for clues? And what should my next steps be to figure out the cause of this increase in direct traffic?
a good weay would be to get a regional rank application and check differences from one week to the next...
Free Bet that is an excellent idea, also it may just be a spike in your traffic. I would wait for another 2-3 months before drawing any conclusions. It could be linked to changes in your content, seasonal changes depending on your target market, branding, the reality is that it's hard to know. My suggestion would be in the future to change one or two things at a time that way you'll start to understand what the contributory factors are