When it comes to marketing your business online and attracting as many ‘ready to spend’ customers to your website, it’s important that you understand not only where that traffic is coming from, but what kind of traffic it is.
For example, what’s the difference between organic and paid traffic – and which has more value?
In this article we’ll tell you everything you need to know about Organic And Paid Traffic…
What’s the difference between organic and paid traffic?
The difference between organic and paid traffic is actually rather straightforward:
- Organic traffic refers to any people who find your website online, organically (e.g., through a standard Google search).
- Paid traffic refers to any people who find your website via clicking on a paid advertisement (e.g., through Google Pay Per Click advertising).
In essence, it’s FREE Vs. Paid traffic…but it’s not quite as simple as that.
Organic Vs. Paid Traffic: Which is better?
Now the real question is: which type of traffic can bring more value to your business? Organic or paid?
The answer is both! Otherwise it could be like comparing apples and oranges; both organic and paid traffic each have their place. For example:
- Organic traffic can be increased by adopting a well-strategized SEO campaign. We’re paraphrasing here, but when executed properly, an effective SEO strategy can help you increase your online visibility tremendously and attract lots of organic traffic to your website.
- The primary benefit of this is the fact that you essentially ‘own’ that traffic. So long as you are working on your SEO and climbing the rankings in Google for your focus keywords, you’ll always be attracting organic traffic.
- The downside of this is that SEO can take months to establish. In fact, depending on a wide number of factors (namely how competitive your industry is), it could take anywhere between 3 and 12-months to start seeing an attractive ROI.
- Paid traffic on the other hand can enable you to put your website on the map much faster. A well optimized PPC campaign can yield fast results and start driving traffic to your website while you are working on your organic traffic in the meantime.
- PPC can offer fast traffic.
- However, it often takes a few months to establish – especially if you are creating your own ads and figuring it out for yourself.
In any case, what you can see from the information above is that both SEO and PPC work together wonderfully. In an ideal world, you should have a balanced marketing campaign that includes a focus on organic traffic and paid advertising – including social media, video marketing, content marketing, email marketing, interactive marketing and so much more.
As the saying goes: “The bigger the net, the more fish you’ll catch”. So, rather than look at organic and paid traffic as choosing ‘one or the other’, instead look at how you can factor them both into your broader marketing campaign.
Final thoughts: Twice as nice
In conclusion:
- Organic traffic refers to website visitors that find your website naturally.
- Paid traffic refers to website visitors that click through on your paid advertisements.
- Both organic and paid traffic can bring excellent value to your business.
- If, however, you were to favour one over the other we recommend treating SEO as the backbone of your marketing.
For the best results it’s worth considering outsourcing these requirements to a digital marketing agency. For example, this agency specialises in SEO in Los Angeles and PPC advertising and social media marketing to boot. By hiring a full-service agency, they can handle most of your online marketing needs under one banner.
Either way, we hope you’ve found the information in this article helpful. Best of luck with your future marketing efforts!
