Online traffic refers to visits that an online channel like a blog or a website receives. It keeps your business wheels moving. But do you know the different ways of gaining web traffic?
In this guide, we’ll decode how to fetch more traffic to your website. Let’s understand direct vs organic traffic and why organic traffic is ideal for your marketing strategies.
Difference Between Direct And Organic Traffic
Without a doubt, content marketing depends on attracting more users. Unless you bring the right target audience for your business channels, getting the desired results is impossible.
Now, there are two kinds of traffic sources- direct and organic traffic. To understand direct vs organic traffic, first, let’s look at each component and its specialty.
What Is Organic Traffic?
Suppose a user types “leather jacket” in Google or Bing. In this case, the unpaid results or websites appearing on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) are all considered organic searches. Note that an unpaid search result is the one without “Ad” before the hyperlink.
In other words, organic traffic, the most valuable web traffic comes from website visitors who naturally find it through a search engine. It implies that the more clicks you get, the greater the organic traffic for your website.
What Is Direct Traffic?
Consider a user typing your website URL into a browser. This direct search method refers to direct traffic. It also comes from users who access your website because they have it saved in the favorites category.
Remember that it does not count visits through a referring website. That is, if users visit your site without using the URL bar, it is not a part of direct traffic. So, even if a user has clicked on a (CTA) link and visited your website, it will not account for direct traffic.
Organic Traffic Vs. Direct Traffic: How Are They Different?
Now that we have discussed both types of traffic, here’s a comparison of direct vs organic traffic. It will give you an in-depth knowledge of leads being generated to your site and why so.
Referral URLs
One of the primary distinctions between direct and organic traffic is that organic visitors land on websites using referral links.
Due to referral URLs boosting traffic to a site, Google, Yahoo, and similar search engines mark it as a credible spot for users. It results in a higher ranking on search engine results pages and more organic traffic.
Contrariwise, direct links do not use referrals, so the traffic remains constant.
Website URL
Direct website visitors type in the specific URL to access a site without a search engine displaying a link in response to a search inquiry.
However, organic traffic does not know about your website and hence cannot search for it without referral links.
Tracking And Security
Since direct traffic usually comes from an uncertain source, it is not possible to track its referral points. In simple terms, traffic that comes from an unknown origin to an HTTPS-enabled website and cannot be recorded indicates direct traffic.
If traffic arises from inbound links or SERPs to the website via non-paid visits, it accounts for organic traffic.
| Parameter | Direct Traffic | Organic Traffic |
| Source | Users type the URL or use bookmarks to access websites directly. | Users type in relevant keywords to find a website on search engines. |
| Intent | Users already know the site they want to visit. | Users find the site while actively searching for solutions. |
| Entry Point | Users do not use search engine results and directly enter a website. | Users click on a search engine result link to enter a website. |
| SEO Impact | It does not have any direct link with SEO strategies. | It has a strong connection with SEO efforts. |
| Keyword Influence | Since it is brand-focused, it does not require keyword usage. | It uses relevant keywords suited to the content or offerings. |
If you are still confused, let’s consider a situation where you wish to buy a birthday gift.
Perhaps you are not sure of the exact kind of gift and type in “best birthday gifts” on the search bar. It will show several hundreds of results with many having “Ad” mentioned. Suppose you click on one of these sites and visit it. Such a search will bring about organic search traffic.
On the contrary, if you have decided on the gift item (say: an outfit), you may directly visit the specific website by typing its name on the search bar. It will give rise to direct traffic.
In the next section, we will highlight how to measure these traffic volumes.
Direct And Organic Search Google Analytics
Does your website generate more direct vs organic traffic? Google Analytics is a useful software for keeping a tab on traffic numbers on your website. With its channel grouping reports, you can identify how people are accessing your website.
A list of the metrics that Google Analytics helps you track are:
- Organic search
- Overall website traffic
- Paid search
- Keyword search
- Number of web pages visited
- Referrals
- Landing page traffic
- Bounce rate and so on…
For measuring organic traffic, use this tool to monitor search query rankings for specific keywords. You can also analyze which keywords are providing more value. Another usage of Google Analytics is to monitor the Click-Through Rates (CTR) from SERPs.
In the case of direct traffic, you can look at the direct visit volume through Google Analytics. Another way is to record visits from bookmarks and untagged links in emails or documents.
Other Notable Sources Of Traffic
Besides organic and direct traffic, there are various other ways visitors come to your website. The following sources are equally critical in gaining insights about your audience’s behavior:
Social Media Traffic
Suppose an individual clicks on your Facebook post and ultimately comes to your website. This kind of traffic generated on your site from any social media platform is a part of social media traffic.
About 5.07 billion of the global population are on social media. In such a scenario, analyzing social traffic can help you understand which social networks require more effort on your end.
Email Traffic
When you gain more number of visitors on your site through email marketing campaigns, it leads to email traffic.
In most cases, email lists consist of high-quality leads which makes it simpler to convert them. Note that powerful email campaigns on different channels can increase your email traffic.
Influencer Marketing Traffic
Influencer endorsements to reach more customers are in trend now. With tons of followers, chances are that they will be interested in your product or service and visit your website. This ripple effect inducing brand visibility to enhance website traffic is called influencer marketing traffic.
You must be careful in selecting the influencer for the success of your marketing campaign to boost conversions or traffic.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising Traffic
If you pay for a website and the user visits it, it will be a part of pay-per-click advertising traffic. PPC advertising traffic generates leads and drives sales from an audience to your website that may not be visible.
However, it comes with a risk factor due to the involved costs.
Referral Traffic
If a user comes to your website from other sites or social networks without a Google search, it constitutes referral traffic.
Not only does referral traffic give you brand recognition, but it also helps in tapping into a new audience.
Why Is Organic Traffic Important?
More than 40% of revenue comes from organic traffic.
Here are some reasons why you should consider opting for organic traffic to yield maximum profits:
Cost-effective
Once you have established a high SERP ranking, your website will deliver long-term returns without any monetary investment.
Compared to paid advertisements, organic traffic reduces marketing costs by leaps and bounds. Consequently, it leads to a higher profit margin on sales.
Improves Brand Awareness
When users start identifying your brand in top search engine results, it leads to brand awareness.
Through improved brand awareness, you can build trustworthy relations with potential customers. What’s more? Chances are that you may even convert them into paying clients.
Develops Credibility
With consistently high rankings on SERPs, users will consider your website more authoritative and keep on returning for further purchases. Building such credibility automatically increases customer loyalty.
In brief, organic traffic gets you more ROI eventually.
So, if you are looking to develop digital authority and expand your reach, organic traffic is your go-to method to connect with more users.
How To Increase Organic Traffic?
While organic traffic brings you immense results, it’s not easy to drive organic search traffic.
Ahrefs claims that 90.63% of web pages fail to yield organic search traffic from Google.
So, these tips may come in handy if you are wondering how to increase organic traffic.
Keyword Research
Keywords play a major role in guiding people to your website content. So, use highly relevant keywords to convey valuable information to searchers. For improving keyword visibility, you may look up free keyword research tools.
Content Creation
After compiling suitable keywords, the next step is to create meaningful content that voices your brand. It may be in the form of blog posts, newsletters, informative how-to guides, technical guides, and so on. Quality content helps boost SEO which gets you more organic traffic when people visit repeatedly.
Content Optimization
User experience is significant in welcoming more website visitors. To begin with, it includes structuring your content, optimizing images, and adding meta titles and descriptions. Also, you should make your website navigable and organized for retaining customers.
Internal Linking
Links that direct users from a page on a particular domain to another are called internal links. The benefit of internal linking is that you can improve organic traffic between related pages. For instance, you may interlink your company’s backlink checker to articles or blogs on link building for increasing rankings.
Featured Snippets
It is a question with an answer to the search query. Google displays featured snippets every time someone searches for something. Therefore, try to show up in featured snippets with a 2-8 ranking. You can achieve it via more useful information in the form of crisp accurate answers, solid definitions, and fresh data.
Schema Markup
A code helping Google grapes information on a web page to show rich results is a schema markup. They are more visually appealing and earn more number of clicks. To add schema, you can resort to your CMS or a plugin. Alternatively, you may use a schema markup generator to customize your schema code better.
Increase Organic Traffic With Rank Scholars
Does generating organic traffic sound complicated to you? At Rank Scholars, we enhance your rankings and generate leads for your business to fetch more organic traffic to your website. ‘Rank’ is in our brand name and our expert team pushes you to top rankings through inbound marketing strategies.
As you may have already understood, the more you attract organic traffic, the greater online traction. So, contact us to get high volumes of organic traffic and reap the best results out of your transformed online presence.
Author
A freelance content writer, Madhurima loves illustrating her thoughts and crafting engaging content. On days when she’s not so busy, you’ll find her painting or reading her favourite novels
