Why Organic Traffic is Critical to Your Bottom Line

Have you thought much about organic traffic, which is often overlooked but critical to your business’s bottom line?

Organic traffic is a powerful strategy for increasing the number of visitors to your website. Using this strategy can result in more leads, more sales, and higher profits.

If you’re a business owner, and you’re not using organic traffic for your business to attract new customers, you’re making a big mistake.

Why Organic Traffic Strategies are so Powerful

To understand why organic traffic strategies are so powerful, we have first look at the context of what somebody is doing when they’re searching online.

When they sit down at their computer or pull out their phone, open Google, and type a phrase about something they are looking for, they’re using those devices with the intent to buy. They’re not there to surf the net, write an email, or browse social media.

They have a product or service in mind. People’s actions are driven by their intent to find that product or service and buy it.

Their intent falls into one of four categories: navigational, informational, commercial investigation, and transactional.

Every single search phrase fits into one of these categories.

Navigational Searches

Navigational searches are the ones people perform when they want to go somewhere. These are the searches “I want to go…”

Perhaps they have in their heads already that they want to go somewhere for brunch, but they don’t know what location or what restaurant they want to go to. So they’ll go online and search for restaurants that serve brunch. And they’ll make their decision based on what they find.

Anytime someone needs to go to a place, whether it’s a bakery, a florist, or a dentist, and they aren’t sure where to do, they’ll start with a search.

Informational Searches

Anytime you want to know something, what do you? Ask Google. These are the “I want to know…” searches.

People turn to internet searches to find out all kinds of information.

Do they want to know about an upcoming festival? They search.

Do they want information about a product or service? They search.

Do they want information about a random topic? They search.

In all these cases, they are searching with intent behind it.

There’s a reason that spurs them to conduct a Google search, whether it’s “how to get your dog to be obedient” or “how to get your dog to stop going to the bathroom in the house.”

There is a reason behind those searches. They weren’t performed just out of the blue.

Another kind of online informational search is the “I want to do…” searches.

These happen when people need information specific to a task. They might search for “how to change your oil” or “how to build a table” or “how to integrate the technology to do a live stream.”

In each case, you’d go online to get the specific steps to complete your project.

Commercial Investigational Searches

These searches are those prompted by questions about specific product features, benefits, or the price. Rather than learning how to do something, they seek to get some questions answered so they can make a purchase decision.

They are asking questions like, “do they have that in different colors?”

They have already decided to buy. They just haven’t settled on exactly what. If these eager customers find your website and it provides them the answers they are looking for, they’ll quickly be persuaded to buy from you.

Transactional Searches

And then, there are the searches prompted by the thought “I want to buy…”

These happen when someone goes online to make a specific purchase.

They already had in their heads that they wanted to buy a computer, a sweater, gear, clothing, shoes, whatever it is. They go online to find the store that they’re going to be buying that product from. Based on the inventory, the colors, the descriptions, pricing, they’ll make their decision.

The point is that with every single search that someone is doing, there’s an intent behind it. This is different from every other form of marketing. With search marketing, you are reaching the people who already have an intent to buy.

How Organic Traffic Strategies are Different from Traditional Marketing

With other typical marketing strategies, it’s completely different.

I worked for a record company where we used mass media. We used magazines, newspapers, and radio ads. Our marketing efforts were based on us trying to cast a wide net, people who might have an interest in our products. Or they might not. And even if they wanted our records, they might not see our ads at a time when they are ready to think about buying.

Contrast this with search marketing. When you market through SEO, you are going after the people who already have an intent to buy what you have to sell.

And if your business can fulfill the need they have an intent to meet, you’re positioned to make a sale. Whether they want information about a product or need to know how to do something, you can meet that need.

If you know people will have questions about your product, you can provide videos, guidelines, and PDFs. All or any of these could appear in search results and lead those people to you and your business.

For example, suppose you are a webcams provider or a technology that connects to webcams. In that case, you can provide information on how to use their webcam or to interface with other technology. People searching for answers to the question “how do I use my webcam to live stream” will find you. Their intent behind their online search is to find information. You’ll provide it. And they’ll be more likely just to come straight to you next time.

By leveraging the people’s search intent, you harness this compelling strategy to bring in new traffic.

How much traffic? Think about how many people are online.

This data comes directly from Google.

There are 3.5 billion online searches every day, 100 billion searches per month, and 1.2 trillion searches per year.

That’s an enormous amount of people who are searching for everything under the sun online.

And if you don’t have a strategy in place to attract these customers that are already actively searching, then you’re missing a massive subset of the potential customer base. Old methodologies and marketing strategies will not reach these people because they are actively searching online.

You are not reading the newspaper. Newspaper circulation and readership have plummeted, and with that, the use of that medium as a marketing channel.

This is why you should be running using organic search strategies, like SEO campaigns, and why you should be optimizing your website to increase organic traffic.