What is Organic Traffic?
Organic traffic refers to the visitors who arrive at a website through unpaid search results. These users find the website by using search engines - Google, Yahoo Search, Bing etc. - and clicking on the non-paid search results based on their relevance to the search query, without the influence of paid advertisements or sponsored listings.
Organic traffic vs paid traffic
Organic and paid traffic both have their pros and cons, but the major differences that all beginners must know are:
Organic traffic (unpaid) | Paid traffic |
|---|---|
Generally free, though there may be initial costs for SEO services | Costs a lot |
Search results appear below paid listings in SERPs | Appears at the top of SERPs as sponsored listings |
Increases gradually | Increases rapidly |
Remains for a longer period | Lasts for a short period (if you stop paying) |
Grows by quality content and good user experience | Grows by investing in advertisements |
Mostly, actual people are behind it | Can have bots or automated machines behind it |
Other types of traffic
Usually, traffic is divided between two main categories, i.e. unpaid/organic and paid. However, Google Analytics views traffic differently and divides it into the following categories.
Direct traffic
Direct traffic is generated when users type a URL directly into the search bar or click on their bookmarks, leading them to a specific page on a website.
For example, if you are a member of the SEODebate platform and type "seodebate.com" to log in to your account to join a community discussion or access any information, you will land directly on the homepage. This action contributes to building direct traffic for the website.
Referral traffic
Referral traffic refers to the visitors who arrive at a website through other sources besides search engines.
Unlike search engine traffic, which comes from the search results pages, referral traffic comes from outside sources, such as backlinks from other websites.
Social traffic
This traffic originates from social networking sites, such as Facebook or Instagram. This occurs when visitors click on a backlink that was either purchased or earned on those platforms, directing them to the website in question.
Paid traffic
Paid traffic refers to any visitor who arrives at a website by clicking on an advertisement that was paid for by the website owner, rather than through organic or natural means.
Why is organic traffic important?
Although organic traffic works gradually to improve your SEO, it results in higher conversions and long-term profit. It is also important in the following ways:
High credibility
Organic traffic is proof of your site’s credibility. Usually, users know the difference between paid and organic results, which is why they take organic search results as more credible than paid ones.
Also, the reliability and originality of the content make a user come to a site more than once, which results in a gradual increase in the number of visitors.
Cost-effective
Organic traffic is cost-effective as either it is free or costs a little initially. One might pay SEOs to optimise the site to bring organic traffic.
You do not have to run paid campaigns like PPC (pay-per-click), which sometimes are too expensive if the competition is high.
Reach out to a wider audience
Organic traffic can bring visitors to a website who have a specific intent or interest related to the website's content or products.
It allows you to reach a wider audience by attracting visitors who may not have previously heard of your brand or website. This can help to increase brand awareness and expand your customer base.
Long-term advantage
Organic traffic increases slowly, which is taken as a downside of it. However, once it improves your SEO and ranking, it benefits you in the long run.
It is because organic ranking builds a relationship of trust between a website and visitors, and they keep coming back to your website.
Scalable
Organic traffic is scalable as you can continue growing traffic by adding valuable content to your website. Also, if you want to scale it, it will cost you nothing but your time and effort.
Leads
In marketing, a lead is a person who has shown interest in your product or services. Quality leads are those that are more likely to become paying customers.
To generate quality leads, it is important to understand what your target audience wants and to provide content or solutions that meet their needs.
By satisfying the queries of your target audience, you can attract quality leads who are more likely to engage with your brand and make a purchase.
Does it have any drawbacks?
Organic traffic is considered the best among SEOs, but a few drawbacks may make it a little less valuable.
If you pay an SEO, it will not be free traffic altogether. There will be costs associated with the SEO services, which can vary depending on the level of service you require.
Another drawback of relying solely on organic traffic is that even if you have achieved a high ranking in the search engine results, there is no guarantee that a user will click on your URL. This can be due to factors such as the user's search intent, the quality of your website content, and the presence of other competing results on the SERPs.
Organic traffic can also take time to build up, especially for newer websites. This slow process can be frustrating for website owners who want to see quick results. In some cases, it may be worth considering investing in advertisements to supplement your organic traffic and speed up the process of driving traffic to your website.
How to get organic traffic?
Here are some good practices you can adopt to get organic traffic and scale it.
Good content
High-quality content is the key factor in SEO that can play a vital role in building credibility for both the user and the search engine.
If you know what a searcher wants from your content, you can create relevant content with appropriate keywords. You must also keep the content unique, original, and informative.
Keyword research
When you want to attract the target audience, target keywords are crucial to focus on. Using specific keywords like long-tail keywords can give you better results because they always have low competition.
Moreover, your focus keyword should be appropriately placed in the URL, title, description, and throughout the remaining content.
A good title
The title is not part of the content but is the crucial part to focus on individually. It is because it appears on the SERPs and introduces your webpage.
It must contain the focus keyword and concise information about the page that can encourage the user to click on it.
A meta description
It appears below the URL and title on the SERPs. You have to write a meaningful keyword-rich meta description for your page.
Page speed
Page load speed should be faster because a user never waits too long for a page to load and display its content.
If it takes too long to display the entire content of your web page, a user may go back to select another page with the relevant content that loads faster.
SEO-friendly URLs
These URLs can help you get a better ranking and more organic traffic. An SEO-friendly URL should ideally include a focus keyword that accurately reflects the content on the page.
In addition to using a focus keyword, it is also important to keep the URL short and concise, while avoiding additional special characters or numbers.
It's also a good idea to avoid unnecessary URL parameters or dates, as these can make the URL longer and more difficult to read for both search engines and users.
Google Business Profile
Creating a listing for your business on Google Business Profile can help to increase your online visibility and drive more traffic to your website.
By creating a listing on Google Business Profile, your business can appear on Google Maps, which can be especially beneficial for local searches.
This increased visibility can lead to more website traffic and ultimately more business for your company.
Navigation
The way you structure your internal links can greatly impact the navigation experience of your website users, as well as the efficiency of search engine crawlers.
If your website has a well-organized internal linking structure, users can easily navigate between pages, and search engines can more effectively crawl and index your website.
Multimedia and alt tags
Images and videos can be the best illustration of your content. However, this multimedia content has to be original and not a copy of other online sources.
Moreover, alt tags related to images should contain focus keywords to make them clear to the search engines which can bring additional organic traffic through vertical SEO.
How to check organic traffic?
You can use the following tools to check the organic traffic coming to your website.
Google Search Console
It is a free tool that almost every webmaster uses. You just need to create an account on it and check out a lot of information related to your website.
For organic traffic, you can go into the “Performance” section. There you can find out the number of clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position.
Google Analytics
It is a free tool introduced by Google that you can use to check plenty of information, including traffic, demographics, language, etc.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
This tool monitors the SEO performance of a website and also gives data about organic traffic, keywords, and backlinks.
It will give you an organic keywords report and a backlinks report. Likewise, it will provide data about Domain Rating and organic traffic.
SEMrush’s Toolkit
SEMrush's toolkit is a powerful resource for checking the keyword rankings and resulting organic traffic of any domain.
To access this feature, simply navigate to the SEO toolkit and select "Organic Research," where you can enter any domain to view its organic keywords trend and total traffic.
Takeaway
Organic traffic refers to visitors who come to a website through search engine results without being paid for. This type of traffic is earned and is opposite to paid traffic.
Organic traffic is important because it is cost-effective, has high credibility, reaches out to a wider audience, and provides long-term advantages.
By optimizing your website for search engines and creating valuable content that meets the needs of your audience, you can attract more organic traffic and improve your website's overall performance.