What Is Organic Search Traffic?

Why Does Organic Traffic Matter?

Organic traffic is like gold. It’s highly targeted and gives you a better chance at conversion than any other type of internet traffic. When organic traffic works the way it should, it effectively matches you up with the users who are interested in your content. If your website satisfies a need, it can turn users and subscribers into customers and repeat visitors. To maximize your organic search efforts, your website must appear in one of the top five spots on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Beyond these top five spots, you’re far less likely to get an organic click.

What Are the Benefits of Organic Traffic?

Along with creating a more satisfying experience all around, organic traffic is a cost-effective way to bring awareness to your website and build your brand. The top three benefits your site gets from increased organic traffic are:

• Domain Authority: There may be more opportunities to get bot-generated traffic from other channels, but organic search results are achieved purely by humans. The traffic you get from these channels produces stronger intent and better potential. With domain authority comes trust–an elusive benefit you can’t buy. Below you’ll see the DR (domain rating) score as seen in Ahrefs.
  
• Credibility: Savvy internet users will scroll past the paid ads at the top of the page and look for the top organic results. If you’re positioned in one of the top organic search spots, you’re perceived as having credibility.
• Better Branding: Rich, relevant content is what internet browsers value. If you make it easy for potential visitors to find you, answer their questions effectively and provide them with what they want quickly, you will create priceless brand awareness and potential long-term customer relationships.

SEO’s Role in Organic Traffic

Search engine optimization is the process used to enhance a website to make it appear higher in organic results for keywords that are relevant to user inquiries. There are three main components that help boost your online presence:

1. On-Page SEO: Content that appears on each web page.
2. Off-Page SEO: Content that promotes your website and encourages clicks. Typically this content links back to your website.
3. Technical SEO: Web crawls, indexing, website speed, Core Web Vitals and other technical items.

Improving your organic search rankings requires your content to be indexed and your website to be speedy and accessible on all types of devices. You’ll also need to promote your website by garnering more mentions and backlinks.

The Keys to Organic SEO

Several organic SEO strategies can be used to move your page’s results closer to the top of the SERPs. These include:

• Researching Keywords: Discover what high-ranking, relevant keywords are going to move the needle.
• Creating Content: Use multiple platforms to produce content that’s richly peppered with keywords to build organic traffic.
• Internal Linking: Help search bots crawl and index your website properly by adding internal links.
• Producing Multimedia Content: Create visual appeal and engage visitors using videos, photos and graphic elements to break up the page. (Bonus: Post videos to YouTube for another linking opportunity.)
• Offering Clean Navigation: Simplify site design to make it easier for visitors to navigate and find what they need on your website quickly and easily.
• Reducing Page Load Time: Ensure your web pages take no more than three seconds to load to avoid browser bail-out.
• Adding Image Alt Tags: Add descriptive code to your images to ensure Google understands what an image represents and why it’s relevant to your content.

Top 8 Organic Traffic Boosters

It’s a conundrum. To rank higher in organic search, you need more people visiting your website. But to get more people to your website, you need to rank higher in organic search. While no one outside of Google knows the precise algorithms used to rank web pages, we do know that some factors influence organic search. Following are the top eight:

1. Backlinks: Clearly, there’s a strong relationship between organic search and backlinks. There are several tactics you can use to build links. The best way is to start by looking at your competitors to see what backlinks they are getting referrals or use a link building company.
2. Relevance: As Ahrefs notes, having “the same keywords as your search query” is a good start for proving a page’s relevance. But just because you include the keywords on your website doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll rank higher in organic search–unless your page demonstrates search intent, indicating the reason for a search query. For example, if someone searches for “questions to ask my doctors,” the results will not include a list of doctors in the area, even though they both contain the word “doctors.”
3. HTTPS: If you look at your browser bar and it begins with a lock icon, that means the connection is secure. HTTPS encrypts the data that flows between the user and your server to enhance security. Since 2014, it’s been a Google ranking factor — and one that’s easy to fix.
4. Mobile-Friendliness: How does your website appear on a mobile device? Is it simple to read and navigate? With the large percentage of users browsing on mobile devices, this factor has become crucial.
5. Freshness: This may or may not be an important factor, depending on the search subject and the user’s intent. For instance, if someone is looking for advice on purchasing an electronic device, an article dated last year will not be relevant. However, if they’re looking for information on dog training, it won’t matter if the blog is dated a few years ago because the topic is not frequently updated.
6. Title Tags: A title tag is the HTML code tag enabling you to give a title to your web page. (You can see the title tag in the SERPs or by looking in the browser bar). A lot of sources say that title tags need to be less than 60 characters, but that’s not necessarily true. In fact, barring site limitations, longer title tags with additional keywords tend to work better, as long as you don’t get too carried away. Never use all caps. Do include your keyword and provide a message that matches what searchers are looking for that’s relevant to your page.
7. Meta Descriptions: The meta description appears below your title tag on the SERPs. It’s a short body of text that tells what’s on your page. It helps users determine if your content contains what they’re looking for. Using an active, conversational voice, expand on the topic introduced in the title. Stay within a 120-character limit and include multiple keywords. Make sure your message is relevant to searchers.
8. URLs: A uniform resource locator (URL) is the web address for each page that appears on your site. Be clear about what’s on your page. Refrain from using content that will be out of date in six months. And avoid repeating keywords, which can make your content look like spam.

Tools to Help You See Organic Traffic Performance

There are two popular tools on the market to help you see how you are performing when it comes to organic traffic. If you want to get more in-depth, there are paid services you can subscribe to. These two options are free:

• Ahrefs: This SEO software suite has several helpful tools, including an Organic Keywords Report. You can sign up for a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) account.
• Google Analytics: There is a lot of helpful information about website users included in Google’s free analytics tool. Once you’ve signed up for Google Analytics, you’ll be able to access statistics on organic search. You can find it by following Acquisition/All Traffic/Channels/Organic Search.

Both of these tools will allow you to see how your organic search is performing and how it compares to your efforts with paid search.

Does Optimizing for Organic Search Bring Immediate Results?

Search engine optimization is essential, but it requires patience. Think of it like planting a seedling. It takes time for the oak tree to grow, but when it does, it’s strong and solid. That’s how organic search works. You’re putting down roots and looking for long-term growth. With that being said, if you have a keyword or terms close to the first page of Google, optimizing the page may move your site to page one within a matter of days. How quickly you see results is largely dependent on where you’re starting. For more info, read “How Long Does SEO Take To Work?”

Trust OuterBox to Help Maximize Your Organic Search Traffic

At OuterBox, we hold the key to unlocking organic search capabilities that can make all the difference for your business. Our experienced SEO agency consists of strategists, writers and account managers who provide SEO services that are data-driven and encompass the industry’s latest best practices. Give us the opportunity to show you what we can do to help you build your business. Request a free estimate for your project today!