Boosting website traffic is a common goal for advertisers, and traffic can come from several sources. Website visits can increase when people search for terms and click on a SERP (search engine results page) option. Advertising can also bring traffic to websites. Other categories are direct and referral. In this post, we’ll review organic vs. paid traffic as well as direct and referral.
What Is Organic Traffic?
Organic traffic describes users who find a website through non-paid tactics. Millions of local searches occur daily, with users clicking on organic results. The key to obtaining a high ranking is SEO (search engine optimization).
Local SEO is critical for most of your advertisers. They achieve this traffic by optimizing their website content with keywords their audience uses to search. In addition, there are technical and off-page components of SEO.
A steady stream of traffic is often the result of continuous SEO best practices. Businesses need to publish fresh content frequently and assess technical aspects regularly.
What Is Paid Traffic?
Paid traffic comes from using advertising tactics to drive audiences to a website. Many tactics can deliver these results, including:
- SEM (search engine marketing)
- Social media ads
- Display ads
- OTT ads
- Sponsored content
- Geofencing
- Video
Organic vs. Paid Traffic: Major Differences
Obviously, the tactic usage is the biggest difference between organic and paid traffic. One focuses on content marketing and SEO, and the other relates specifically to advertising vehicles. There are other distinctions.
Long-term vs. short-term
Organic traffic generation is a long-term, never-ending strategy. Paid traffic represents specific campaigns that have a duration. Further, organic traffic efforts are “always on” to drive people to a website. Paid traffic only occurs when ads run, but results are faster. SEO work can take months to deliver performance improvements.
Targeting
SEO doesn’t necessarily have audience targeting capabilities other than using keywords that are unique to an audience. Paid advertising can precisely target audiences based on geography, demographics, interests and behaviors.
Reach
Companies only gain organic traffic through search engine queries. Those looking for products or solutions do engage with search to find options. However, the idea of searching is evolving and growing, with sites like YouTube and Facebook becoming secondary search engines.
Advertising can have greater reach to deliver more traffic when multiple tactics are in play. Consumers can see ads on websites, apps, social media platforms, search engines and videos.
Other Traffic Types
Organic and paid traffic are the dominant sources, but websites can also have direct and referral traffic.
Direct traffic results from someone typing in a website address without using search or other tools. Users directly heading to a site are typically current customers or those aware of the brand.
Referral traffic refers to someone clicking on a link from a third-party site to arrive on a website. It excludes any paid tactics. Examples of referral traffic include:
- Links posted on social media profiles
- Listings in directories
- Any other links on third-party sites, like those on media publications or partner sites
Generating More Traffic for Advertisers in Every Channel
Businesses are eager to earn traffic from any source. You should recommend they develop strategies and plans to boost all. You can guide them through the right tactics for paid traffic and when to use them.
Traffic doesn’t correlate to conversions. Businesses are more likely to gain these when they have an optimized, modern and mobile-friendly website. Landing pages will be a big part of paid traffic conversion to ensure the ad offer matches where clickers arrive.
By educating businesses on digital marketing concepts like these, you’ll become their trusted advisor. Renewals will be much easier when you earn this status, and you can capture more of their ad budget.
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