For SEO beginners, the terms organic traffic, paid traffic, direct traffic can be confusing, but they don’t have to be.
In this post, you will learn what organic traffic is, why organic traffic is the most important form of traffic you can get to your website, and the best ways to increase your organic traffic levels.
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic is the term used to describe visits to a website that come from the organic results of a search engine and not from paid advertisements.
When users write a query in a seeker (such as Google or Bing), they are presented with a result set that includes both the pages that rank high organically and a set of ads (usually denoted by the word Ad) to differentiate them from the organic results.
Organic Search Results VS Paid Search Results in Google SERPS
When a user clicks on any of the organic results and visits a website, this is recorded in analytics tools as organic search traffic.
Organic Traffic Report – Google Analytics
The difference between organic traffic and paid search traffic
The main difference between organic traffic and paid search traffic is that organic traffic is free while paid traffic is paid.
There are two ways to get traffic from search engines. The first way is to rank your website high in the search results using SEO and the second way is to use Google Ads to get your ads to the top of the ad-supported organic results.
With SEO you can get free traffic 24/7, but it’s not instant. It takes time for SEO to work and generate results.
On the other hand, with PPC advertising you can get faster results but you will have to pay every time someone clicks on your ads and visits your website.
Another difference between organic and paid traffic (also known as WHICH), is that once you stop paid ads, the traffic to your website will drop, whereas with organic traffic you will get traffic as long as you rank high.
The process of marketing your website to search engines, either organically or through paid advertisements, is called search engine marketing.
Why is organic traffic important?
Organic traffic is the most important form of traffic that can come to your website. It is more important than paid traffic, traffic from Facebook or traffic from other social networks.
The reason is simple: organic traffic is managed.
Users who type a query into a search engine have a very specific intent and if you can provide them with a solution or answer to their question, you are more likely to get a new customer, email subscriber or follower.
In addition to the above, organic traffic is important because it increases trust in the website and this has a number of additional benefits.
Users trust Google and users trust websites that rank high in Google organically. This means that you are more likely to convert an organic visitor than a visitor from Facebook or other sources.
Organic search traffic in Google Analytics
One of the ways to monitor your organic traffic levels is through Google Analytics.
Sign in to Google Analytics and navigate to ACQUISITION > ALL TRAFFIC > CHANNELS.
Look at the ORGANIC SEARCH group in the report. This is the number of visits you received from organic traffic, that is, from organic search engine results.
You can also view another report by going to ACQUISITION > ALL TRAFFIC > SOURCE / MEDIUM to see exactly how much traffic you got from each search engine.
Organic Traffic by Search Engine – Google Analytics
Google/organic: is organic traffic from Google, Bing/organic is traffic from Bing, etc.
Organic traffic in Google Search Console
Another way to see how many organic visits you got from Google and for which keywords is to use the Google search console.
Sign in to Google Search Console and go to PERFORMANCE > SEARCH RESULTS.
The QUERIES tab shows you for which keywords your website appeared in Google’s organic results (Impressions) and how many visits it received (clicks).
Use Google Search Console to find out which pages get organic traffic from Google and for which keywords
The PAGES tab shows you which pages of your website appeared in Google search and the number of visits they received.
Organic Traffic VS Other Traffic Sources
Organic traffic is not the only form of traffic. Looking at your analytics reports, you will also find:
Paid search: As explained above, this is the traffic that comes to your website from paid search ads.
direct traffic: When someone visits your website directly by typing the URL into a browser, this is recorded in Google Analytics as direct traffic.
Referral traffic: When someone clicks on a link on another website and visits your website, this is recorded as referral traffic.
Important note: When a link has the take without reference applied to it, this hides the referral information from Google Analytics and the traffic is reported as direct.
Social: This is the traffic coming from social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.).
To show: Refers to traffic from paid ads on other websites. When you advertise on Google Ads, you have the option to show your ads on other websites. When someone visits your website by clicking one of your ads, this is recorded as Display traffic in Analytics.
Email: If you’re using email marketing software (such as Mailchimp or Sendy) to send emails to your subscribers, and you’ve connected your software with Google Analytics, any traffic generated from clicks on your emails is recorded as email traffic. electronic.
The best ways to increase organic search traffic
The best way to increase organic traffic and get more visits from search engines is to follow proven white hat SEO practices.
seo means Search Engine Optimization and it is the process to follow to optimize your website so that it can rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
There are more than 255 Google Ranking Factors but the most important are:
#1 – Post content that users want to read
One of the characteristics of users who use a search engine to find information is that they have a very specific intention.
Your job is to fulfill their intent by giving them the right kind of information.
To do that you need to do your keyword research and discover which one keywords to target with its content.
For a page to have a chance of ranking organically in search engines, it must target a specific keyword or topic.
Pages targeting multiple keywords or no keywords are highly unlikely to receive organic traffic.
#2 – Include relevant keywords/search terms in your page title
The page title is one of the most critical SEO factors. The title is used by search engines to get an idea of what a page is about and is also displayed in search results.
A good page title includes search terms users can recognize it and it is interesting to encourage users to click on it and visit your website.
Read this guide: How to create SEO friendly titles for more information on how to optimize the SEO of your page titles.
#3 – Get links from other websites
backlinks from other relevant websites (which do not carry the not to follow attribute) act as ‘votes of confidence’ and this improves a website’s organic rankings.
In the SEO world, this is known as Off-Page SEO.
#4 – Create user-friendly websites
Website usability is a direct and indirect SEO factor. You need to develop websites that load fast, are mobile-friendly, and free of technical SEO mistakes
If you don’t, you will minimize your chances of getting organic traffic from any search engine.
For more information on how to create SEO friendly websites that can potentially rank high in search engines, read the following guides:
Key learnings
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic is the term used to describe visits to a website that come from the organic results of a search engine and not from paid advertisements.
Why is organic traffic important?
Organic traffic is important because it is targeted. Users who visit your website from organic search engine results have a very specific intent, and if you can provide them with a solution or answer to their question, they are more likely to convert.
What is the difference between organic search traffic and paid search traffic?
The main difference between organic search traffic and paid search traffic is that organic traffic is free while paid search traffic is paid. With paid traffic, you pay the search engine every time someone clicks on your ad (pay-per-click) from the listings and visits your website.