What is Organic Traffic? 4 Reasons Why SEO Reigns

If you have a website for your business, you need to care about growing your organic traffic. With 51 percent of all site visits stemming from organic search, not focusing some effort on organic search can leave your website feeling like a ghost town.

But what is organic traffic, exactly? We explore the answers every business owner should know below.

What is Organic Traffic?

Simply put, organic traffic refers to visits to your website that occur outside of paid advertising efforts. This includes visitors who find your page through search engine results or natural, non-paid syndication such as social media posts and shares.

While you don’t pay for this traffic, it doesn’t just happen naturally. It requires you to make an effort to rise in the search engine rankings through search engine optimization (SEO) best practices.

There are many ways to gauge your organic traffic. However, many people opt into using Google Analytics because of its detailed reporting.

4 Reasons Why Organic SEO Matters

SEO isn’t just a “wise” practice. It’s essential in today’s content-rich society. Here are 4 reasons why you need to make it a permanent part of your digital marketing and advertising strategy.

1. Organic SEO Brings in the Most Relevant Traffic

While paid search results are great for targeting a relevant audience for conversions, the reach of paid search is small. You only manage to hit a fraction of the people who would be interested in your website because you narrow it down to a single call-to-action or key phrase over the specific date range your ad campaign is running.

Organic SEO allows you to expand your reach like the roots on a tree. Ideally, your content will branch out into different subjects, trending topics, and more as you build upon your on-page and off-page content.

2. You Build Long-Term Results that Stick

While Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a great way to get traffic quickly, it only lasts as long as your budget. As soon as you cut off your advertising, your ranking and your traffic will plummet.

This is because PPC isn’t a long-term SEO solution. It’s advertising. Organic SEO practices such as building your local SEO listings and blogging around relevant keywords build traction in search engines.

You carve a place for your business and it’s reputation on the internet with relevant content and a steady stream of fresh information.

3. You Have More Control Over Your Site’s Reach

When your traffic is coming from syndication over platforms like social media sites, you are at the mercy of how the social media platform displays your information. Whether it’s organic posts or ones you pay for with expanded reach, you still are limited by how far that reach can go.

Why? Because these platforms limit post reach in order to gain more money in advertising. While Google’s algorithms play a major factor in your ranking, their focus is on user satisfaction.

Google (and other search engines like Bing, and Yahoo) is trying to deliver the best results according to the search term. Keep the focus on providing valuable and relevant information and you’ll reach your audience regardless of whether you advertise or not.

4. You Build Rapport with Google’s Algorithm

Organic SEO is built as Google’s algorithm crawls your content and determines whether your site’s pages offer credible and useful information. Add local SEO and backlinks to the equation and your domain grows its authority and thus its reputation on Google. If you are curious, you can check your domain’s authority ranking using premium services like Moz or Ahrefs.

Paid advertising doesn’t do this. As we said before, it only succeeds for as long as you’re feeding the budget. Organic SEO takes time and effort, but the results can lead to favor with Google’s search results.

Elevate Your SEO strategy by adding a Secret Weapon to your team

Now that you know the answer to the question, “What is organic traffic?”, it’s time to discover how to generate more of it. With Secret Weapon Media Agency’s Website & SEO audit, you will discover how to optimize your website for SEO.  Websites aren’t just glossy on-line brochures any more- are you using your website to attract your ideal customers?

To learn more about how we can help you grow organic traffic and increase your on-line presence contact us today .