Organic search and paid search are two of the most popular digital marketing strategies used by companies today. Organic search involves optimizing a website to improve its ranking in search engine results, while paid search involves creating ads to bring people to a website. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages, and marketers must use both to compete in today's digital landscape. Organic search is more profitable in the long run, as it can continue to move up the rankings over time if the information remains relevant.
However, with the right settings in your campaign and attention to landing page optimization, paid search can also be very profitable. The main differences between organic and paid search marketing are time and money. With organic marketing tactics, you're investing in long-term results, while with paid search ads, you pay for immediate search engine ranking results. Generating organic search traffic involves optimizing your website to improve organic search rankings, which is free but laborious.
Paid search traffic comes from creating prominent ads at the top of search results to bring people to a site, which is quick and easy, but it costs. Direct traffic is defined as visits without a referring website. When a visitor follows a link from one website to another, the source site is considered the referrer. These sites can be search engines, social networks, blogs, or other websites that have links to other websites. Direct traffic classifies visits that don't come from a referring URL. Organic traffic is defined as visitors that come from a search engine, such as Google or Bing.
This doesn't include paid search ads, but that doesn't mean that organic traffic isn't affected by paid search or display advertising, either positively or negatively. Companies can choose to invest money in organic searches, SEO agencies or paid SEO tools. To sum up all of this information, even organic traffic has some gray areas. However, for the most part, organic traffic is driven by SEO. The better you rank for competitive keywords, the more organic traffic you'll generate.
Websites that constantly create search-optimized content will see a steady increase in organic search traffic and better ranking in search results. As a marketer, it's important to analyze your keywords and high-ranking pages to identify new SEO opportunities every month. Companies can choose to invest money in organic searches, SEO agencies or paid SEO tools, but they have the freedom to choose since it's not a requirement.
