Organic web traffic plays a vital role in digital marketing and inbound lead generation. While it may be more time-consuming than paid search, it provides businesses with long-term results if it’s consistently being adapted and maintained.
Increasing web traffic organically and generating leads isn’t as simple as 1-2-3. It requires consistent action to be used as a lead generator and it may take away before you see the results you want. However, it’s worth it… as long as you do it correctly.
This blog aims to teach you how you can increase web traffic organically. We’ll cover the following topics:
What Is Organic Web Traffic?
Organic web traffic refers to the visitors who come to your website through unpaid, natural, and non-promotional means. These are individuals who discover your website through search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, as well as other non-paid channels such as social media, referrals from other websites, and direct visits.
Here are some key points to understand about organic web traffic:
- It’s unpaid and naturally drives users to your website
- It requires optimizing content for search engines
- It supports long-term sustainability more than paid traffic sources
- It’s measurable and can be analyzed to gain market insights
For more insight into how you can optimize your web content for search engines, read our blog here.
Organic vs. Paid Search Traffic: What’s the Difference?
Organic website traffic and paid search traffic are two distinct ways of driving visitors to your website with fundamental differences.
When it comes to organic web traffic, it is generated naturally, primarily through search engines like Google. Ranking on search engines organically results from your website’s visibility in search results due to factors such as search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and content quality. Content searchability is based on the relevance and quality of your content, making it more aligned with user intent. Acquiring organic traffic is typically cost-effective in the long term but requires ongoing efforts in SEO and content creation.
On the other hand, paid search traffic requires you to pay to display your website prominently in search results for specific keywords or phrases. Paid search allows precise targeting based on demographics, geography, and specific keywords, offering more control over who sees your website.
Paid search involves direct costs, as you pay for each click on your ads. While paid search may provide immediate visibility, it can become costly over time. Generating paid traffic is dependent on your budget; once you stop paying for ads, the traffic ceases. Some web users may be skeptical of paid ads and may not click on them, preferring organic results.
However, it’s important to note that while organic and paid traffic is approached differently, there is somewhat of a correlation between the two. While it may not be direct, having paid ads plus effective organic ranks can increase the overall clickthrough rate (CTR) as people see your brand twice within the first few results on the search engine results page (SERP).
Benefits to Tracking Organic Web Traffic
Tracking organic web traffic offers several benefits for businesses, including the following:
- Better performance evaluation: This allows you to measure how well your website ranks for specific keywords and identify areas for improvement.
- An ROI analysis: Monitoring organic traffic enables you to calculate the ROI of your SEO efforts, helping you allocate resources more effectively.
- Gain user insights: Tracking organic web traffic allows you to gain valuable insights into user behavior, such as which pages are most visited, how long users stay, and where they drop off. This is important for identifying website improvements.
- Perform a competitor analysis: Tracking organic traffic allows you to compare your performance against competitors, helping you adapt and stay competitive in your industry.
- Optimize conversion rates: You can track how organic visitors convert into customers or leads, enabling you to fine-tune your conversion strategies.
- Achieve long-term growth: Organic traffic provides a sustainable source of visitors, which can lead to consistent growth without ongoing advertising costs.
Why Organic Traffic is Good for Lead Generation
Many times, organic traffic can be the beginning of someone’s exposure to your brand. Organic traffic is highly beneficial for lead generation because it attracts visitors who are actively seeking information or solutions related to your products or services. These users arrive at your website organically through search engines due to relevant content and effective SEO strategies. As a result, users are often pre-qualified and more likely to convert into leads or customers. Organic traffic fosters trust and credibility, as users perceive these search results as unbiased and earned.
Looking to generate more inbound leads through your website? Read our blog here to learn how to use your website as a lead generator.
Best Ways to Drive Organic Traffic to Your Website
To effectively drive organic traffic to your website, consider implementing the following best practices:
Perform Keyword Research
To attract organic web traffic, it’s crucial to identify keywords and long-tail phrases that align with your target audience’s search behavior and what they’re looking for online regarding your product or service offering.
For example, if you’re a software company, writing content around the different types of fish found living in the Great Barrier Reef wouldn’t be an effective use of keyword research because it’s not what your intended buyers are looking for. Sure, it may have some high keyword volume, but it doesn’t provide any impact on lead generation and leaves users confused about how and why they ended up there in the first place.
Utilizing tools like Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush empowers you to research and select these terms strategically. This ensures that your content is optimized for the exact queries potential visitors are making, increasing the likelihood of attracting qualified organic traffic.
Develop High-Quality, Unique Content
As we just mentioned, creating content that genuinely resonates with your audience is key to attracting organic traffic. Informative, valuable, and engaging content, whether in the form of blog posts, articles, videos, or infographics, not only addresses your audience’s needs and interests but also encourages sharing and organic discovery. This positions your website as a valuable resource, increasing its visibility in search results.
Use On-Page SEO
Optimize on-page elements such as meta titles, meta descriptions, headers, and internal linking. This on-page SEO ensures that search engines can effectively crawl, index, and understand your content. It enhances your website’s visibility in search results, increasing the chances of attracting organic web traffic. Luckily, there are on-page SEO checker tools like this one from SEMrush which are great for analyzing your page or blog to ensure it’s likely to rank on SERP.
Review Technical SEO
Technical SEO is vital for organic traffic. Core Web Vitals are key website performance metrics that impact user experience. They include Loading (Largest Contentful Paint), Interactivity (First Input Delay), and Visual Stability (Cumulative Layout Shift). Google uses these metrics to rank websites, so optimizing them can boost organic web traffic by improving site speed and usability. Speedier page loads, mobile-friendliness, schema markup for rich snippets, and eliminating broken links enhance user experience and search engine rankings. A technically sound website is more likely to rank higher, attracting organic traffic that values both relevance and seamless browsing.
Backlink
Building a robust backlink profile is essential for organic traffic. Seek quality backlinks from authoritative sites in your industry through guest posting, outreach, and content creation that naturally earns links. These links establish your website’s authority and credibility, boosting its search engine rankings and attracting valuable organic traffic.
For smaller and newer businesses, it’s important to create unique and helpful content that delivers the “why” behind what you do. Focus on creating this content and over time you will begin naturally achieving backlinks.
For more developed websites and businesses, identifying sites that can help provide more context or help your audience can be a great way to grow your site value. For example, a roofing website may want to partner with a solar company for some backlinks as the two almost go hand in hand. Connecting and networking between these two businesses can serve as a “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” agreement.
Promote Content on Multiple Channels
Promoting web content across various channels, such as social media, email, and partnerships, widens its reach and exposure. This expanded visibility leads to increased engagement, sharing, and referral traffic. As more people discover and interact with your content, search engines recognize its relevance and quality, ultimately boosting organic web traffic.
Consider the User Experience (UX)
Optimizing website usability, navigation, and mobile responsiveness ensures a positive user experience. As we mentioned above about Core Web Vitals, easy-to-navigate sites with fast-loading pages reduce bounce rates and keep visitors engaged. Search engines reward such user-friendly websites with higher rankings, increasing the likelihood of attracting and retaining organic traffic that values seamless browsing.
Routinely Update Outdated Content
Consistently updating and refreshing content is vital for sustaining organic traffic. It demonstrates your website’s commitment to relevance and accuracy, which search engines appreciate. Repurposing or revising older content can breathe new life into it, maintaining its value and search engine rankings, thus ensuring a steady flow of organic traffic.
When possible, it’s better to add and refresh existing pieces. Then, delete and replace content when it can be recycled. If a practice becomes outdated, don’t delete the old content right away. Instead, create and update the old content pointing to the new content.
Performing a content audit is essential for identifying what content you need to update. Learn how to conduct a content audit for increased SEO value here.
Implement Schema Markup
Schema is essentially the words or guidelines that Google bots read first to understand what they are about to “simulate reading as a human,” making it a powerful tool to enhance organic traffic. It provides search engines with context about your content, enabling them to display rich snippets in search results. These snippets make your listings more appealing, informative, and likely to attract clicks, ultimately driving more organic traffic to your website.
Use Analytics to Monitor Web Performance
Web analytics tools like Google Analytics offer invaluable insights into organic traffic. The “Traffic Acquisition Report” can help showcase what sources your users are entering from. Monitoring user behavior and conversion rates helps you understand what works and what doesn’t. Regular analysis enables data-driven refinements in your content, SEO, and marketing strategies, leading to more effective efforts and increased organic traffic over time.
Build a Mobile-First Website
In today’s busy world, your prospects may only get five minutes as they walk between meetings to interact with your site, so a mobile-friendly site is critical. As more users browse on mobile devices, a responsive website design ensures a seamless experience for a wider audience. Mobile-friendly sites rank higher in mobile search results, attracting organic traffic from both desktop and mobile users, ultimately enhancing your website’s reach.
How to Check Your Website’s Organic Traffic
To check your website’s organic traffic, you can use various tools and methods. Here are some effective ways to monitor your organic traffic:
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a powerful and widely used web analytics tool. It provides detailed insights into your website’s traffic sources, including organic traffic. To check organic traffic in Google Analytics, follow these steps:
- Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
- Select the website property you want to analyze.
- Navigate to “Acquisition” > “All Traffic” > “Channels.”
- Under “Default Channel Grouping,” click on “Organic Search” to view organic traffic data.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console offers crucial insights for organic traffic optimization. It reveals the keywords driving traffic, helping you fine-tune your SEO strategy. Additionally, it tracks click-through rates and search impressions, aiding in understanding your website’s visibility and how users interact with your listings in Google search results, thereby informing improvements for greater organic traffic.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools is essential for optimizing organic traffic from Bing. Like Google Search Console, it provides insights into your website’s performance on Bing search, including keyword rankings, click-through rates, and indexing status. This data enables tailored strategies to enhance visibility on Bing, attracting more organic traffic from this search engine.
Third-Party SEO Tools
SEO tools like SEMrush, Moz, Ahrefs, and SEO Surfer are invaluable for organic traffic analysis. They not only offer organic traffic data but also provide comprehensive SEO analytics. These tools delve into competitor analysis, and keyword rankings, and offer suggestions to refine your strategies, empowering you to drive more targeted and effective organic traffic.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
Certain CMS platforms, such as WordPress with plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math, provide rudimentary organic traffic insights directly in the dashboard. While not as comprehensive as dedicated SEO tools, this feature offers a quick overview of key metrics, aiding in basic performance monitoring without the need for more extensive data analysis.
Custom URL Parameters
While this is a more advanced strategy to organically increase web traffic, employing custom URL parameters or UTM tags in marketing campaigns is a precise way to track organic traffic sources in Google Analytics. It provides granular insights into which specific campaigns or sources are driving organic visitors, helping you fine-tune your marketing efforts for increased organic traffic from targeted sources.
By using a combination of these methods and tools, you can effectively check and analyze your website’s organic traffic, allowing you to make data-driven decisions to improve your online presence and lead generation efforts.
Key Takeaways
Increasing web traffic organically is the most cost-effective way to generate leads online. However, it’s not the easiest. A lot goes into boosting organic web traffic that many small to medium-sized businesses can’t handle internally. Luckily, there are outsourced marketing firms that can take the stress off these companies and provide them with sustainable, long-term results for inbound lead generation. And that’s where we come in.
At Abstrakt Marketing Group, we acquire a team of B2B digital marketing specialists who know and understand everything that goes into building organic web traffic, using it as an ultimate lead generator. As a leading outsourced sales and marketing provider, we can build websites and write and distribute SEO-driven content that leads to more sales for your business.
When you’re ready to boost web traffic organically through your website, contact the growth experts at Abstrakt!
Want to Learn More?
