More than 90% of people on the internet never click on the second page of the search results in Google. Survival is hard in such a competitive environment, especially if your business page is new. To get ahead of millions of other niche websites, you’ll want to generate “organic traffic.”
While you can always place ads to encourage people to visit your websites, mainly relying on paid traffic isn’t sustainable. If you want long-term, self-sufficient success in your business, you need a genuinely interested audience to support you.
Fortunately, generating organic traffic doesn’t need to be complicated. You have to take it one step at a time. Let’s take you through it step by step in this in-depth guide.
What is Organic Traffic?
You can’t fully understand organic traffic without defining ‘traffic’ first. Online traffic is simply the number of users visiting and interacting with a website over time.
Organic traffic, in particular, is the portion of website traffic that comes free from queries on Google. However, there are many other types of website traffic. Take a look at the comparison of the common types:
| Organic Traffic | Directly comes when users click on your website from the search results on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. |
| Direct Traffic | The user goes to your website by typing or pasting the exact URL or clicking on a bookmark. |
| Referral Traffic | The website traffic comes from another web page linked to your site. |
| Paid Traffic | Users click on an ad from Google Ads, social media ads, and other advertising platforms. |
| Social Media Traffic | The traffic comes from when users click the link you or others share on social media. |
| Email Traffic | As the name suggests, this is the traffic that comes from emails you or other people send via email. |
| Affiliate Traffic | These people click on the links your affiliate marketers share on their platforms. |
While all kinds of traffic are important, many marketers aim for high organic traffic due to its low cost and effectiveness. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the backbones for generating organic traffic. It gives you a higher chance of ranking well on Google and other search engines.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing strategy that lets your website and company blog get more people to click on it during an online search. SEO’s primary goal is to get your website as high up the search results as possible. To achieve this, you must create valuable, high-quality content using carefully planned keywords.
Many companies hire SEO specialists to rank their websites higher. In fact, companies in the US spend over $70 billion every year on SEO. Given the cost, it’s essential to generate organic traffic to ensure the long-term success of a marketing strategy. Let’s explore the reasons why.
Why Should You Generate Organic Traffic?
Organic traffic saves you money and gives your company blog more authority. Below is an in-depth discussion of why you should write content that attracts an authentic audience.
1.) It Creates ROI
Companies spend between $2,000 and $10,000 on Facebook ads every year. Keeping the people that a business gets from ads can take a lot of work to maintain. You must continuously invest and spend on ads to keep the traffic going.
Organic traffic, on the other hand, is free. Aside from SEO-related expenses, you don’t need to constantly increase your budget to maintain and generate organic traffic. Organic users most likely find your content useful. Once you build a decent number of organic audiences, you must keep feeding them valuable content.
However, it doesn’t eliminate the need to invest in inbound marketing efforts that will help you generate organic traffic. It includes expenses for keyword research, SEO specialists, and analysis tools.
For a more in-depth analysis of how SEO can be sustainable, take a look at a case study on an SEO client:
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Sales Index of an Auto Parts Business |
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| SEO | Paid Advertisement | |
| Before Marketing Approach (With Brand Name Ads) | 100 | 100 |
| During 3 Weeks of Marketing Approach (Paused Brand Name Ads) | 130 | 45 |
| After 3 Weeks of Marketing Approach | 80 | 100 |
Data from: Hedges Company
As illustrated, Organic traffic breaks even with marketing costs and boosts sales. Meanwhile, using paid advertisements alone decreased the sales index due to the extra cost of placing ads.
Still, both organic and paid traffic are essential to enhance the positive impacts of one another. For example, coupling paid ads with SEO can give high-quality content a shot at reaching more audiences.
2.) Organic Traffic Establishes Credibility and Trust
People tend to trust the first ones on the search engine results page (SERP) when searching on Google. Getting on that first page gives you authority in your niche. Not only does Google trust you, but people start to recognize your website’s credibility as you consistently appear on SERPs.
In addition, high-ranking websites often provide a better user experience with faster loading times and mobile-friendly designs. It gives people the impression that the quality of your content is at its best. It also helps you reduce your bounce rate, as people can easily navigate your website hassle-free.
3.) It Gives You More Flexibility and Independence
As your website reaches more users, you’ll also become less reliant on paid traffic. After all, your audience already knows about your website. If they trust it, they will keep coming back to your site.
You only need to keep giving what people need to maintain organic traffic. This is easily doable with continuous keyword research, competitor analysis, and content planning. As long as you consistently appear on Google’s first page, your website will stay relevant for users.
Meanwhile, if you rely too much on paid traffic, you’d need to spend the same ad expenses or more. Paid traffic usually comes when someone sees your ad without looking for it. The chances of them buying or subscribing to your service are lower than with organic traffic.
In contrast, when you generate organic traffic, your audience genuinely looks for a website like yours. You don’t need to keep spending on ads to increase your audience reach. Instead, your website will work by itself, attracting more and more people as it gains authority.
| Helpful Article:
Want to know more about conversion rate optimization? Check out these optimization tools that can help you encourage more website visitors to buy your products or subscribe to your service. |
There’s no denying how organic traffic significantly impacts your business. Let’s move on to how you can attract organic visitors to your website.
How to Generate Organic Traffic?
Your website must consistently rank high on Google search results to generate organic traffic. Otherwise, the chances of you getting a user’s attention are slim.
Each piece of content, especially your blogs, should offer value so that the entire website ranks highly. The following section provides a breakdown of each step to generate organic traffic.
Conduct Keyword Research
Keywords lay the foundation for what topics you should write content about. When doing keyword research, you need to take note of the following:
- Understand your audience and goals: Who are your target customers? What are their interests? What do you want to get from them? Do you want them to buy your product, sign up, or subscribe?
- Brainstorm seed keywords: What are the general keywords related to your topic? For example, cat care tips would be a good keyword for a pet shop’s blog.
- Use longer phrases related to your topic: People who search using long-tail keywords have clearer and more specific needs. They are likelier to click on your website when they see you have what they want.
- Consider trends and seasons: Seasons can affect some keywords. For example, the word “Christmas gifts” is trending on Google Search between October and November.
As you start keyword research, you’ll see that there are a lot of topics and subtopics you can discuss. It can be overwhelming to start from scratch. The good news is that there are special tools that can help you keep keywords organized:
Google Keyword Planner (Free) |
| Google Keyword Planner is a service under Google Ads that gives you keyword ideas based on Google’s search data. To use it, you need to enter a topic or short-tail keyword. It will then develop suggestions based on the search volume and competition.
However, this tool has limited features if you want an all-in SEO aid. Still, Google Keyword Planner has everything you need for simple advertisements. |
SEMrush ($129 to $499/month) |
| SEMrush is an all-in-one SEO tool that offers keyword research, pay-per-click advertising, campaign management, and more. Aside from the search volume, SEMrush also tells you how hard it is to rank for that keyword.
In addition, SEMrush lets you track your ranking on keywords and compare it with your competitors. |
AnswerThePublic ($5 to $99/month or $50 for a lifetime) |
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| AnswerThePublic has a different approach to keyword research. It provides a visual map of the questions that people often search for on the topic. In addition, it arranges keyword ideas based on categories. This tool works by listening to Google Search’s autocomplete data.
From there, AnswerThePublic quickly gives useful phrases and answers to people’s questions. Say, for shoes, the result would look like this: |
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Can
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How
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What
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LSI Graph ($14 to $44 a month) |
| LSI Graph is a unique tool that lists keywords based on a specific topic. While most keyword tools focus on search volume, LSI Graph also considers the keywords relevant to your topic. LSI Graph knows that related topics don’t always need to have the keyword in them.
For example: You asked for suggestions about “digital cameras.” Other Keyword Tools’ Suggestions:
LSI Graph Suggestions:
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Utilize SEO Techniques
SEO is almost synonymous with generating organic traffic. Its principles answer the question, “How to increase my chances of getting to page one on Google?” SEO considers how Google and other search engines rank websites and applies that throughout content production.
However, SEO isn’t just about making better content, using the right words, and providing the correct information. Take a look at the rundown of the SEO work you should consider:
| On-page SEO | Technical SEO | Local SEO |
| Includes the techniques you use when you write content.
Examples:
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It’s all about making your website user-friendly and working on “behind-the-scene” elements.
Examples:
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Targeting people in a certain geographic location.
Examples:
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Here are some SEO tips to improve content and help you generate organic traffic:
- Limit meta titles to around 60 characters and meta descriptions to 160.
- Use an SSL certificate and HTTPS to secure connections and rank your page higher in search results.
- Put the keyword within the link. For example, you can have “www.shop.com/products/clothing/skirts-9923” instead of “www.shop.com/products/?id=39473948982”.
- Claim and verify your business on Google. Provide your business’s address and phone number so customers can easily reach out.
- Ask local charities and events to link to your website so that more people in your area will discover your business.
- Consider local values when you write content.
| Helpful Article:
Local SEO is a great start if your business is new since you can understand your target audience better. To learn more, check out this article on mastering local SEO. |
Create High-quality Content
Search engines like put the most relevant content at the top of the search results. To improve relevance, your company blog should align with your target audience’s needs.
Engaging content can also keep users on your website longer. The longer people stay on your website, the more Google thinks your content is useful. As a result, Google will rank your website higher.
Fortunately, you don’t need to improve content manually. There are tools you can use that will help you write better content to generate organic traffic:
Grammarly (Freemium) |
| Grammarly is a popular proofreading tool that helps you check grammar, spelling, and sentences you can improve. Premium access lets you check content for tone, fluency, plagiarism, and other advanced editing options. |
Hemingway Editor (Free) |
| Hemingway Editor helps you improve your content to make it clearer and easier to read. By running an article on Hemingway, you can detect passive voice, long sentences, and words that have a simpler version.
Another unique feature of Hemingway is that it grades your content based on US grade-level reading standards. For example, a grade 5 article indicates that people who went to at least 5th grade can understand the content. |
Canva (Freemium) |
| Canva is a design tool that lets you easily create visual elements for your content. With its user-friendly features, you don’t need to be a pro in digital design to make high-quality visuals for your content.
You can use Canva to design various designs, from infographics to logos, social media posts, and blog covers. |
Pew Research Center |
| Pew Research Center is a research platform that gives you valuable insights and reports. Here, you can find legitimate sources that you can use to write informative content. Pew Research Center covers various topics like public opinion, social issues, and global trends. |
Build Backlinks
Backlinking involves linking your webpage to another website. It helps promote your content to readers of other sites by citing you as a reliable source. For example, a reader wants to know more about a topic outside the niche of the website they’re reading. In that case, that website can link to your page.
Backlinks also prove to Google that your website contains valuable and trustworthy information. Thus, it’s like hitting two birds with one stone: Websites lead visitors to you while Google ranks you even higher.
On the other hand, you may think it’s hard to get websites to link to you when you’re just starting to build your name. Luckily, you can partner up with websites to have them mention you. However, take note that backlinking is different from advertising.
Backlinks vs. Ads: Which is Better?
Both ads and backlinks promote your business or website. However, unlike ads, users tend to trust backlinks more than ads. Take a look at the key differences between the two:
| Ads | Backlinks |
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As your business becomes more popular and credible, other websites may mention you for free. In the meantime, you can get backlinks manually by contacting other websites you can partner with. In that case, the backlink is usually paid for.
Top Sites for Backlinks
Here are the best sites to build high-quality backlinks and boost your Google ranking:
- HARO: Help A Reporter connects journalists to experts. This way, journalists can quickly get sources, while experts can promote their skills by getting them mentioned in an article.
- SourceBottle: Like HARO, SourceBottle helps you gain publicity while assisting journalists to get reliable info.
- Medium: You can write on Medium to promote your website to its 100 million+ readers.
- BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo helps you find influencers that have mentioned your competitors. This way, you’ll discover which websites will likely share your business.
Monitor and Analyze
Monitoring your traffic helps you gauge whether or not your efforts are making a difference. With clear data, you will know which areas to improve and which strategies do not generate organic traffic. Here are tools you can use to monitor results easily:
Google Analytics (Free) |
| Google Analytics is an all-in-one tool for measuring marketing metrics, including organic traffic. You can view organic searches, landing pages, user behavior, and conversion rates. Google Analytics also provides data on the users’ age, location, and other basic information. |
Moz Pro ($99 to $599/month) |
| Moz Pro is an SEO tool that helps you understand your audience and measure organic traffic. This platform tracks your website’s rankings, audits your site, and improves your content. Compared to Google Analytics, Moz Pro focuses more on SEO. Therefore, you can use it alongside Google Analytics for a perfect SEO and performance analysis tandem. |
Hotjar (Freemium) |
| Hotjar gives you an overview of organic traffic using heatmaps, feedback forms, and session recordings. Heatmaps visually represent where users click, move their cursors, and scroll. Therefore, you know which specific parts of your content need improvement. |
Key Takeaways
Organic traffic is a vital aspect of inbound marketing. It creates actual results and produces a long-term, sustainable audience that will trust and support your website.
SEO is an essential backbone to generating organic traffic. If you want results, you should rank well on search engines and write content people find helpful and valuable.
That said, it takes time. Your effort to generate organic traffic and attract a genuinely interested audience eventually pays off if you’re patient and smart enough.
Overall, organic traffic shouldn’t stand alone. Use it along with paid traffic strategies and referrals to constantly attract new audiences.
Get Found with Profitable Media’s SEO Services!
Is your website buried in search results? At Profitable Media, we help businesses like yours climb to the top of Google rankings with proven SEO strategies. From keyword research to technical optimization, we’ll drive organic traffic that converts.
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