As data-driven digital marketers, the Shark Digital team is obsessed with correctly attributing the web traffic our clients receive to their websites. Of fundamental importance is the difference between organic and paid traffic.
So, what is the difference?
Organic traffic is the number of visitors who reach your website through unpaid search engine results. Unpaid or “natural” search engine results are those that are ranked algorithmically by Google based on relevance, trust, authority, and a myriad of other “ranking factors”. In contrast, paid traffic is the number of visitors who reach your website through paid search engine results that are labelled as “sponsored” in the search engine results page (SERP) for a particular query.
Unlike paid traffic (where you must pay a fee each time a user clicks on your ad to reach your website), organic traffic does not have any inherent cost. Organic search traffic also behaves differently from paid search traffic, with organic visitors more likely to engage with and stay connected with your business for the long term.
In this article, we’ll dive into how organic traffic is defined, why it’s valuable, and the critical role that SEO (search engine optimisation) plays in helping you boost it on your website.
Key Takeaways:
- Organic traffic, driven by unpaid search engine results, is a cost-effective and sustainable way to attract visitors to your website through effective SEO practices and relevant content.
- Organic search traffic is more likely to trust and engage with your website’s content because you are seen as having genuinely earned the search position (rather than paying to get it).
- Key factors influencing organic traffic include SEO tactics like thorough keyword research, high-quality content, and technical SEO (such as optimising site structure, speed, and mobile friendliness).
- Tracking organic traffic using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console is essential for monitoring performance, refining SEO strategies, and identifying areas for improvement.
Defining Organic Traffic
Organic traffic consists of visitors who arrive at your website through unpaid search engine results. This means they found your site because it appeared naturally in the search engine rankings based on its relevance to their search queries. Unlike paid search results, organic search results do not contain advertisements, and advertisers cannot buy their way into these rankings.
Since the goal of SEO is to increase your website’s relevance to search queries, it’s the primary mechanism for boosting organic traffic. Optimising your website for search engines will enhance your organic rankings, drawing in more visitors without relying on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising through the Google Ads platform.
Why Organic Traffic Matters
For most businesses, the main appeal of organic traffic is that it represents a lower cost-per-lead (CPL) than paid traffic. Essentially, if someone arrives at your site through an ad and makes a purchase, you’ll profit less from that transaction than if they had arrived organically, all due to the cost of that initial click.
Depending on your industry’s competitiveness, the cost-per-click (CPC) to run Google Ads for your keywords can be prohibitively expensive, and you’ll struggle to compete with bigger competitors who have more cash to splash.
With all that said, organic leads are not necessarily “free” if you’ve invested in SEO tools, site plugins, content creation, or hired a specialist agency like Shark Digital to do it all for you. However, the overall CPL will always be much lower than paid advertising since your SEO campaign will eventually pay for itself as your organic traffic (and leads) begin to snowball. With paid search, you are always paying a fee for each lead, no matter how much your site improves.
Organic Search Traffic as a Ranking Factor
Organic traffic isn’t just a way to acquire low-cost leads; it’s also an SEO ranking factor. This is because organic traffic represents people who genuinely want to visit and return to your website, signalling you are both popular and trustworthy in the eyes of Google. It enhances your website’s authority and visibility in search engine rankings, delivering compounding results over time.
Moreover, organic traffic often leads to higher conversion rates, especially for higher-cost products and services where users are looking for the highest-quality option. For example, this research from BrightEdge reveals that B2B businesses generate twice as much revenue from organic search than all other channels.
The Value of Organic Traffic
At a glance, going after organic traffic has several benefits:
- It is cost-effective, as it does not require direct costs for appearing in search results.
- It provides long-term benefits, as the SEO efforts put into optimising a website for search engines will continue to drive traffic over time.
- It offers a better return on investment (ROI) compared to other marketing strategies.
With all this in mind, it’s no wonder organic search traffic is so highly valued. Nothing worth doing is easy, so while paid traffic is relatively quick and easy to acquire, organic traffic is the true signal of your website’s quality and, by extension, the quality of what you’re offering users.
Key Factors Influencing Organic Traffic
Your website’s Google rankings directly influence the organic traffic you receive.
The higher you rank for key search terms related to your business, the more organic traffic you will attract. This is simply because higher rankings = more people seeing your pages in Google search results.
The fact that less than 1% of users go to the second page of search results highlights the importance of utilising SEO tactics to rank your web pages as high as possible. Even if you never reach the coveted top 3 ranking positions for a search, you’ll enjoy considerably more organic traffic just by ranking on page 1 at all.
So, all the SEO tactics that help you get to page 1 (such as keyword research, high-quality content, and technical SEO) are key ingredients in boosting your organic traffic.
Let’s dive a little deeper into each of these key tactics:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the cornerstone of any successful organic search strategy. It involves identifying the target keywords your audience is searching for and creating content around those topics. Targeting search terms used by your audience on Google allows you to connect with them precisely when they’re seeking something specific.
Tools like Google Search Console are invaluable for keyword research. They allow you to:
- See which search queries bring users to your site through organic search in Google.
- Help you optimise your content to target those keywords effectively.
- Attract users searching for relevant topics.
- Improve your search engine rankings.
High-Quality Content
Crafting superior content is vital for drawing in organic traffic. As per their official documentation, Google aims to serve dependable, high-quality, and genuinely helpful content that provides original information and interesting insights beyond the obvious.
Effective content presentation and intuitive navigation not only enhance user engagement but also communicate relevance to search engines, ultimately boosting your site’s rankings. This can lead to longer interactions with visitors, positively impacting your site’s performance.
When you produce engaging, informative, and original content, you attract more organic traffic and keep users coming back for more. This user engagement is crucial for maintaining strong search engine rankings and driving long-term traffic growth.
Learn more about how to craft an effective content marketing strategy and how SEO and content harmonise to boost your website’s visibility.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves optimising various site-wide elements that can affect organic search performance. This includes improving website structure, speed, and mobile friendliness. Optimising site structure and design helps search engine crawlers understand different sections of your site, improving your SEO ranking.
User experience plays a significant role in SEO performance. Search engines reward websites that have fast page load times and are optimised for mobile, as these factors create a positive user experience. This can lead to higher rankings in search results. Conducting a technical SEO audit can help identify and fix backend issues that may be hindering your organic search performance.
At Shark Digital, we differentiate ourselves from other agencies with a deep focus on technical SEO, performing thorough SEO audits and monthly technical fixes for our clients, ensuring their site is responsive for users and easy for Google’s crawler to index.
Tracking Organic Traffic with Google Analytics & Google Search Console
Leveraging SEO tactics to improve your Google rankings and boost organic traffic is great – but how do you measure and draw useful insights from said traffic?
The answer: Google Analytics and Google Search Console!
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking how users behave when landing on your website. It is essential to understand your website’s performance and identify areas for improvement. Google Search Console helps you understand how your traffic finds your website in the first place.
By monitoring organic search traffic with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can understand the following:
- How users find and interact with your site.
- Which keywords are driving the most traffic.
- The pages that are performing well and those that need optimisation.
- How long traffic dwells on each page before clicking away.
+ more!
This information can help you refine your SEO strategies and drive more organic traffic to your website.
Learn more about how to set up Google Analytics and get started with Google Search Console.
Effective Strategies to Increase Organic Traffic
Implementing a comprehensive SEO strategy is crucial for increasing organic traffic. This includes creating relevant content, building high-quality backlinks, and improving website speed and performance. These strategies help you rank higher in search engine results and enhance user engagement – meaning they’ll be more likely to take a desired action and complete that quote form, sign up for your newsletter, or call you to make an enquiry.
Regularly publishing blog content, optimising pages for humans (not purely for Google’s crawler), and targeting featured snippets are effective ways to boost organic traffic. Addressing user needs and providing valuable information can attract more visitors and keep them engaged with your site.
Creating Relevant Content
Crafting pertinent content is crucial for drawing in organic traffic. Targeting search terms used by your audience on Google allows you to connect with them precisely when they’re seeking something specific. Craft content that addresses the questions and needs indicated by search queries to attract users searching for relevant topics.
Websites that consistently create content optimised for search queries tend to see a steady increase in organic search traffic. Regularly updating blog content keeps your site relevant and can improve organic traffic by addressing current user interests. Integrating relevant keywords naturally within your content helps target search queries effectively, increasing your site’s visibility through a broader keyword set.
Building High-Quality Backlinks
Establishing superior backlinks is vital for enhancing search engine rankings and boosting organic traffic. Backlinks from reputable websites make your site more authoritative in Google’s eyes, boosting your rankings. Organic anchor text links in link building demonstrate to search engines the authority of your content. This can have a positive impact on your website’s overall search ranking.
Guest posting on reputable sites and regularly contacting industry influencers can earn valuable backlinks. These efforts drive organic traffic and enhance your website’s reputation and authority.
Remember, when it comes to backlinks – quality always beats quantity. At Shark Digital, we define a quality SEO backlink as:
- Coming from a website relevant to your industry.
- Has a Domain Rating (DR) of 40+
- Has an average monthly traffic of 1000+
The DR and traffic are metrics we get from Ahrefs, which is the industry-leading SEO tool for analysing a website’s backlink profile. You can use the Ahrefs free backlink checker to do a quick quality check on the current backlinks you have to your domain.
There is much more to say about backlinks we will explore in a future post, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Improving Website Speed and Performance
Enhancing website speed and performance is necessary for:
- Improving the user experience (making it easy and pleasant for them to engage and take a conversion action).
- Increasing the amount of time users stay on your site.
- Encouraging users to return to your site.
Search engines reward websites that have fast page load times and are optimised for mobile. These factors create a positive user experience, leading to a higher ranking on the search engine results page.
Tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights can help identify areas for improving website speed. Optimising images and reducing server response times are critical to enhancing website performance and ensuring a smooth user experience.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Organic Traffic Strategy
Steering clear of typical pitfalls in your organic traffic strategy is vital for preserving robust search performance. Keyword stuffing is a discouraged practice that can harm your SEO efforts and lead to search engine penalties. Instead, focus on integrating keywords naturally within your content.
Mixing branded and non-branded keywords can obscure your real SEO visibility and make it challenging to compare performance accurately with competitors. Not segregating brand and non-brand organic traffic can distort SEO goals and make it hard to prove the ROI of your strategies. Additionally, technical errors such as broken links, crawl errors, and mobile site flaws can hurt your organic search performance.
This is why it’s recommended that you partner with an experienced SEO agency like Shark Digital to help you plan for all eventualities and implement, measure, and refine your strategy accurately.
Tools for Monitoring and Enhancing Organic Traffic
Employing contemporary SEO tools can notably boost your capability to oversee and enhance organic traffic. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush provide insights into keyword performance, content exploration, and detailed site audits. These tools help non-SEO specialists access keyword search volume, intent, and difficulty data, making optimising your strategies easier.
SEMrush allows users to:
- Track visibility improvements over time
- Perform link building
- Conduct keyword research
- Analyse competitors
Other tools, such as SEO PowerSuite, Moz Pro, and Screaming Frog SEO Spider, offer specialised functionalities that complement comprehensive suites. By leveraging these tools, you can gain a competitive edge and ensure your website performs at its best.
Case Study: Boosting Organic Traffic for 3D/4D Ultrasound Clinic
Learning from successful companies can provide valuable insights into effective SEO strategies. For instance, since engaging with us at the start of 2024, our client UBM Scans has seen a 121% increase in organic traffic and a 162% increase in user engagement. We achieved this by optimising existing pages, creating new service pages, and creating high-quality blog content around 3D/4D ultrasounds in Sydney.
Comprehensive technical fixes and a consistent link-building strategy also assisted these results.
With their highest-value keywords, “4D ultrasound Sydney” and “3D ultrasound Sydney,” now ranking in the first position on Google, UBM Scans is perfectly positioned to enjoy an even more significant surge in organic traffic in October and November (historically their busiest months).
This textbook SEO campaign highlights how consistent application of SEO best practices (and a little patience) can yield incredible organic traffic results.
Summary
In summary, organic traffic is crucial for long-term website performance and growth. You can significantly increase your organic traffic by focusing on effective keyword research, creating high-quality content, optimising technical SEO, and leveraging modern SEO tools. The success stories of various companies highlight the potential benefits of a well-executed SEO strategy.
Remember, increasing organic traffic requires consistent effort and adaptation to evolving SEO trends. By implementing the strategies discussed in this blog post, you can build a sustainable and cost-effective approach to digital marketing, ensuring your website remains visible and attractive to potential customers.
If that all sounds a little daunting, connect with us and see how Shark Digital can supercharge your organic traffic with our proven SEO model and help you swim circles around your competitors.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic refers to unpaid visitors who find your website through search engine results, which results from good SEO and relevant content.
How can I improve my organic search rankings?
To improve your organic search rankings, focus on effective keyword research, high-quality content creation, technical SEO optimisation, and regular SEO practice updates. These efforts will help increase your visibility and reach a wider audience.
What is the difference between organic traffic and paid traffic?
Organic traffic is generated through unpaid search engine results, while paid traffic offers immediate results but requires ongoing ad spend. Organic traffic is cost-effective and sustainable.
How do I track my website’s organic traffic?
You can track your website’s organic traffic using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These tools provide insights into search queries, keyword rankings, and other metrics.
What are some common pitfalls to avoid in an organic traffic strategy?
When building an organic traffic strategy, it is important to avoid keyword stuffing, mixing brand and non-brand keywords, and neglecting technical SEO issues. These can hinder your website’s performance and visibility.
