Your site will receive traffic from a number of different sources. These sources are called your “top referers” because they refer traffic to your site. Depending on the month, some social media sites will refer more traffic to individual websites than others. For example, for about five months in 2009 Twitter was a top referer to most websites overall. The amount of traffic that Twitter was directing to sites exceeded the amount that Google directed to those sites.

In order for your site to receive top referrals from Twitter, however, your site would need to be optimized for Twitter. This means your Twitter account needs to be linked to your blog or website (preferably both); and you would need to tweet on a consistent basis (at least once a day). People would find your site through your tweets, through retweets of your tweets, and through your profile on Twitter. If you used hashtags in your tweets, then this would be yet another way for people to discover your tweets (and then, your website).

Now Facebook seems to be the top referer for most major sites. Since Facebook introduced their live stream, among other enhancements such as pulling images from links and Facebook Connect, traffic to websites seems to be coming from Facebook in the largest numbers. Again, your site would need to be optimized to receive this traffic. In terms of Facebook, this means you have a Facebook page, you regularly update it, perhaps you run your Twitter stream through your Facebook status that appears on your “wall”. In addition, you can drive traffic to your site with a Facebook Fan Page. And there are countless other ways to drive traffic to your site using Facebook.

But let’s back up a bit. The Google Search Engine was the original top referer on the Web. The whole foundation of Search Engine Optimization is based upon configuring your website and blog to be searchable by Google. In 2009, however, the reality is that Google is not a top referer for most sites. A number of different social media sites are in fact delivering traffic to websites worldwide.

This is not to say that your website should not be Search Engine Optimized. Because your site will still receive a significant amount from Google. If your site has a lot of images on it, then it will receive traffic from Google Images as well.

But because social media sites have recently begun delivering most overall traffic to websites, let’s take a look at which ones are the top referers. (Disclaimer: this is a generalized overview of the top referers I have seen from my own experience.)

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a social media site that gives new meaning to the word “viral”. If one of your pages becomes popular on StumbleUpon, you can see thirty thousand visitors to your site in one day. People who use StumbleUpon are called “stumblers”. Some stumblers looks a thousands of webpages a day, and they have a close-knit network of friends. When one stumbler discovers a page, all their friends find out about it. Usually the page shows up in the “recently popular” category. Before you know it, 100 visits has turned into a 1000.

So how do you get your page on StumbleUpon? First, you can begin using the service yourself. It’s a form of web entertainment. Build a community on StumbleUpon, and once in awhile index a page from your site. Make sure to categorize it properly with the right keywords.

Or you can wait for the stumblers to find your site, but this might take a bit longer depending on the type of material on your website. Most business websites are pretty dry. Social media is all about excitement. What can you create for your business website or blog that would serve as linkbait? How about a YouTube video? Instructive videos are very popular. Or maybe a top 100 list. Don’t try to be cool. Think, “What would most people find useful? What can I offer others that no other site can offer?”

Reddit

Reddit is another social media site that has the potential to deliver a lot of traffic to your site. Like StumbleUpon, either you or someone else posts a link to the webpage of interest. On StumbleUpon, you can write a short review of the site. Reddit is all about brevity. Everything depends on the heading of your link. So before you post that link to Reddit, make sure the heading is just right. Pick a heading that gives enough information to tell people what to expect, but not too much information to take away their curiosity.

Another important aspect of Reddit are the subReddits. Like StumbleUpon, you want to index your page under a category. For Reddit these categories are called subReddits, and you have to subscribe to them before you can submit. Subscription just means you join the subReddit group. You essentially become a follower of the subReddit.

Reddit can really work for you and deliver traffic to your site if you take the time to learn Reddit. Begin by submitting links that are not from your website, add friends, and learn the overall attitude of the particular Reddit.

Both StumbleUpon and Reddit have widgets that you can put on your website or blog. StumbleUpon has a thumbs up widget. When a person comes to your site, or lands on one of your pages, they can thumb it up. Reddit has a meter widget that shows how many people bumped up your article or webpage.

I will cover more social media sites that deliver traffic in the coming weeks. But I wanted to cover the two big ones, Twitter and Facebook, and then two other lesser known social media sites, StumbleUpon and Reddit, that can also send a significant amount of traffic to your website.