There are dozens of ways to drive traffic to your website, including
- paid search engine ads
- social media
- email marketing
- and direct referrals.
However, organic traffic will always remain king. 
It can be challenging to measure the exact ROI of organic rankings. It depends on how many users you acquire via organic search, the profit you make from each customer, and how much money you invested in your SEO campaigns or inbound marketing efforts.
However, one thing is clear: Organic traffic remains one of the best ways to
- boost your ROI
- get more leads
- increase your sales
- and improve your bottom line.
Today, I will talk about five incredible benefits of organic traffic and why you need to focus on getting organic traffic, from search engines as well as social media, instead of relying entirely on paid campaigns.
Let us get into it.
1. It Is Much More Sustainable and Cost-Efficient Than Ad Campaigns
Ad campaigns can bring in a positive ROI, but the reality is that organic traffic is more cost-efficient and more sustainable.
It can often be challenging to maintain a positive ROI when running search engine ads. Bidding prices fluctuate all the time, and they can increase as more people compete for that keyword. In addition, there are only a few sponsored spots on the first page of Google. The more coveted those spots get, the more they will cost.
The bidding game can be pretty tricky at times, as you have to find a fine line between earning a positive ROI and bidding too low to the point your ads don’t appear on the first page.
The total investment cost of organic traffic is much lower, however. The initial investment cost can vary, but it can be as little as paying a freelancer to write a single article or even writing one yourself. It may also involve hiring someone to conduct keyword research or investing in a subscription for a tool like SEMrush or some other keyword tool.
Once your page gets ranked for your target keyword, you won’t have to continue paying any money for that ranking. Of course, you may continue paying for a subscription to a keyword tool or for freelancers to pump out new content, but since you won’t have to pay for that keyword to rank, your ROI will be exponentially higher than with PPC ads. That makes it a more sustainable, long-term option.
Research shows that organic search results are 8.5x more likely to get clicked on than paid search results. While paid search results are somewhat higher to convert, this may be because they tend to be more optimized for conversions than organic traffic. In addition, the fact that organic search results are 8.5x more likely to get clicked on means that overall, you will get more conversions out of organic results.
2. It Gives Your Company Solid Branding and Credibility
I alluded to this in the previous section, but the fact is that organic search results tend to be trusted more. It gives you credibility and authority when your page shows up as one of the first results on Google. That’s because people know that Google will only show valuable, informative sites in those first few results.
Ads can work, but the reality is that many people online tend to gloss over ads and not pay too much attention to them, even if they are not using an ad-blocker (which many people are).
Organic search results are essential for branding as well. This includes not only organic search engine traffic but organic social media traffic as well. When your social media profiles have a lot of followers or when your social media posts are getting shared a lot, it boosts your credibility and helps improve your branding. Social signals boost your SEO rankings too.
3. It Can Destroy Your Competition
Can you destroy your competition with paid PPC ads? Not really. You can outbid your competitors, but who’s to say that they won’t have a larger budget and outbid you, so they get that first sponsored spot? In addition, outbidding your competitors can involve a lot of money.
However, dominating the organic search results can destroy your competition. Not only can a great SEO strategy land you on that first spot of Google, but if your SEO strategy is on point, you can even take up a few of those first spots.
Take the popular keyword “SEO,” for example. As of this writing, Moz ranks for the first two spots on Google (Google’s own site ranks for the third). You can even take up three of the results on the first page.
That will destroy your competition. When someone enters a search term into Google, and your page appears multiple times in the results, or even just in the first spot, your competitors won’t stand much of a chance. You will stand out as the clear authority in your niche, and more people will click on your search results and buy from you. You can also set the narrative in the niche simply by tweaking your meta title and description.
The same applies to social media, by the way. If you have a larger Facebook group or a more active and more popular Twitter profile, you will appear first in the search results on Facebook or Twitter for any specific keyword or hashtag you use in your posts. When someone searches for a hashtag on Twitter, Twitter shows them the top posts with the most engagement. The more followers you have, the more engagement your posts will get.
4. It Gives You a Consistent Flow of Potential Customers
One of the benefits of focusing on organic search is that it allows you to build up a steady flow of potential customers. These leads will come in even while you are not actively running ads or focusing on your SEO campaign.
That is one of the significant differences between PPC and SEO campaigns. With a PPC campaign, if you stop spending money on ads or simply don’t run a campaign, your traffic flow will stop. You need to constantly run ads and manage your campaigns to keep your traffic flow going.
SEO is the opposite. Sure, you do need to keep publishing quality content, or your website will eventually slip in the rankings as it becomes older and outdated. Google doesn’t like websites that have no updated information. In addition, you do need to keep focusing on getting backlinks.
If you are getting your organic traffic from social media, the same rule applies. You need to keep posting quality posts and engaging with your followers.
However, if you take a break from publishing posts for a while, it won’t do any long-term damage, as long as you eventually start publishing new content again without waiting too long. In the short term, it won’t matter much either. Even if you miss a week here or there, your existing posts that are ranking high will likely continue to rank, bringing in a steady flow of traffic.
That’s called passive income. Even if you take some time off of your blog to focus on other projects, you will still attract traffic and convert some of those traffic into sales. That’s the beauty of organic traffic, something that just isn’t possible with paid campaigns.
5. It Generates Targeted Leads
Most paid advertising platforms allow you to target who your ads are shown to. However, organic traffic allows for a level of targeting that can’t always be obtained when running paid ads.
With organic SEO, you can target specific keywords that will lead to higher conversions. You can be more targeted because you are reaching people who want to see organic content. Most people who search on Google do not want to see paid ad results, even if some of them click on it.
Your organic content, on the other hand, can be helpful and informative, reaching people who are interested in learning valuable, informative content. Not only that, but you can target buyer-intent keywords so that you get a constant stream of visitors who are ready to buy something.
For example, you can target a keyword like “the best coffee machine 2021.” People searching for that keyword are likely on the lookout for a coffee machine and are interested in buying one, but they first want an unbiased opinion on what the best coffee machine is. Perhaps they are looking for a list reviewing a few different coffee machines, and you can provide that to them.
Wrapping It Up
Paid search campaigns can help you improve your bottom line, and there’s no reason to stop using them if they are working for you. However, if you are not yet focusing on increasing your organic traffic, or if you have not put enough effort into your SEO campaigns, now is the time to start.
Yes, it may involve a bit of a learning curve, and you may have to adapt your strategy somewhat. However, the long-term benefits you will get out of it are well worth it.
Are you ready to take your SEO to the next level? Find out more about our SEO Consulting Services, and contact us for further information!
Steve Scott is the CEO & Director of Training at the New York SEO Training Academy. He has taught SEO skills to people from around the world and currently offers his hands-on search engine optimization training workshops in New York to individuals and businesses of all sizes. Corporate SEO training classes and consulting are also available.
