There are really only 2 main sources that give a website traffic, but those two forms bloom out to many other forms from there.

The two main forms of how people go to a website are either:

1. Hyperlink (Link)
2. Direct Navigation

From each of these two ways, blooms into other forms but those are the two main ways.

Link:

A link or Hypertext is likely the most common way for somebody to visit a website. A link for a website can be obtained mostly by the site owner doing something.

If you place an ad online using Google Adwords, that ad becomes a Link back to your site.

If your website is Indexed in a search engine, that listing is a link back to your website. Many or all pages on your website can become indexed (listed).

Directory service listings like DMOZ.org, Yahoo Directory etc.

If you place a comment on a blog and include your URL when writing the comment, that is a link.

If you Link Trade with another website (I’ll put a link on my site for your site, if you do the same) that is a link.

If somebody visits your site in one way or another and Bookmarks it to their favorites, that is a link. (in a way) Many stat providers include this in the Direct Navigation section, but a favorites could come from a Link or Direct Navigation.

Now many links are Better then other links, so keep that in mind. A paid ad link will only stay in place as long as the ad is paid for. If you do a link trade, it’s likely that link will stay up on a site for a very long time. SERP’s (Search Engine Rank Placement) are important but also can "move around". Your sites SERP’s are some of the Best links your site can have due the amount of traffic search engines get.

Adding a blog to your site and making frequent postings about products and services you offer is vital. It’s a great way to create important links back to your site. Try to get included in a popular aggregator site or use plugins to auto send your postings to sites like Twitter.com, Facebook.com and Digg.com for further link building .

Direct Navigation:

Direct Navigation is when somebody types a sites domain name directly into it’s browser to visit the site. This happens much more then one would think.

There would be considered "different forms" of direct navigation and those would include:

Natural ~ this is when somebody knows what they want and instead of using a search engine (Yahoo, Google) to find it, they visit the generic domain name. The majority of time this will include the .com TLD.

Example: Looking for shoes, a user simply type Shoes.com into there browser. Natural Direct Navigation is near priceless and one of the main reasons why generic domain names hold such a high value.

Print or Radio advertising. Example: You are watching American Idol and they show on the TV to visit AmericanIdol.com . You then type into your browser AmericanIdol.com and visit the site.

Branding. This is similar to any form of advertising like Print, Radio, TV, Brouchers, Mailings, Packaging, Auto’s (lettering), Business Cards, T-Shirts etc.

Direct Navigation is Very Important because it can save on advertising and also helps remove a sites dependancy off links you have very little control over.

For an example, DotWeekly.com’s traffic forms break down like this but let me explain a little after you see these numbers:

• 75.8% Direct Navigation/Bookmarks
• 15% From Search Engines (links)
• 8.9% From Links
• 0.2% Unknown

Now the reason I said let me explain a little is because by looking at these numbers could give you a false impression.

Keep in mind that when somebody visits a site and like it, they likely want to come back to it, so they bookmark the domain/site. So many people may visit DotWeekly.com off a link on a Search Engine, but then bookmark the site.

So a SE link can turn into a later Direct Navigation and so on.

Link building is vital to traffic so be sure to focus on these two main forms of traffic that can come to your site. If you are lacking Direct Navigation, you can consider doing some advertising or maybe rebranding your website with a domain name that get’s direct navigation (natural traffic). Owning more then one domain name for your site can be a great advantage and can also prevent you from this "rebranding". Simply use domain name forwarding. You can also use a "different" domain name for advertising to help track how your ads are working and again use domain forwarding.