SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, has seen some hype in the last several years. If you’ve heard of it, you would be right to know it has to do with various strategies to bring more traffic to one’s website. Over $65B was spent on SEO since 2016, with future growth ahead. And we agree, being optimized can be a powerful tool. That being said, SEO itself is quite young (~20 years old), and with all the hype often comes confusion, misconceptions, and frustrating results.

Therefore, we figure we take some time to shed some light on one aspect of SEO where we believe it all counts, at least here at A La Carte Web Services.

Organic SEO: The Most Valuable Juice

Organic SEO is the process of maximizing your visibility in the organic search results. Organic search results are unpaid listings. As opposed to paid SEO or social media advertising, Organic SEO does not require a PPC campaign or monthly advertising dollars.

Different Traffic Sources = Different Engagement

As you’ll see in the data below, the interaction your website receives from your visitors will generally vary based on which traffic source they came.

Below are screenshots of Google Analytics for 8 different websites showing data of different traffic sources. Private information has been removed or blurred out. For your convenience, we’ve highlighted the organic traffic in red.

Definitions

In the table you’ll notice the columns ‘Bounce Rate’ and ‘Avg. Session Duration’:

Bounce Rate The likelihood a visitor will leave the site without engaging with the site. Generally, the smaller the number, the better, but there is no perfect universal number. We often compare bounce rates with one another rather than aim for a certain number.

Avg. Session Duration The average amount of time spent on the website in each session.

The site above gets most of it’s traffic from organic searches, with incredibly low bounce rates compared to other sources.

The site above is clearly active on Facebook, however most of the traffic comes organically, meaning the site owner didn’t have to lift a finger to get visitors to her site.

The site above has a combination of organic and paid SEO (Rows 3, 6 and 8). You tell us which source is the primary contributor in web traffic.

The site above has a strong organic reach, with most of it’s traffic coming from the main organic search engines (including Ask! with the lowest bounce rates among organic searches and highest avg. session duration!). This website gets constant traffic without spending any ads or posting on social media.

The site above is clearly active on Facebook and Instagram, with low bounce rates and avg. session duration as a whole. However, most Facebook traffic (Rows 5 and 8) show high bounce rates and low avg. session duration.

The site above gets most of it’s traffic from organic sources, with more than half of all traffic coming directly from Google organic. Generally lower bounce rates and a healthy average session duration.

The site above generates solid traffic from other referrals, but look how little time they spend on the website compared to their organic cohorts!

In Conclusion

As a whole, organic traffic tend to yield more engaging visitors and spend more time on the website than those coming from other sources such as social media, referrals, and sometimes direct (although a high number in direct traffic is an indication of a healthy word-of-mouth network.) Organic traffic also does not require a monthly budget, as there is no advertising involved. Enjoy long-term traffic by having an organically SEO-friendly website!

Want more organic traffic? We can help! Start here.

Do I Really Need Backlinks?

If you’ve actually taken the time trying to acquire backlinks to your website, you’ll quickly realize the number of hoops you need to jump through to actually earn one. But first, let’s back up.

What Is A Backlink?

A backlink is an incoming link from one website to another. For example, if Website A has a link to Website B, Website B has earned a backlink. The standard advise is to gain quality backlinks from credible websites.

The Process of Acquiring Backlinks

The actual addition of a backlink on a website is fairly simple. It’s getting the second party to agree to go through the trouble of updating their website to benefit you that’s the hard part.

Have Your Ducks In A Row

Suppose you have a company in mind from whom you’d like to acquire a backlink. Before contacting anyone, however, be sure to have the following handy:

• Decide which page of YOUR website their backlink should point to from their website. Which page of yours makes sense for the other website to backlink to? We advise selecting an inner page (a.k.a not the homepage) as your backlink destination, but any page will do.

• Decide which page on THEIR website their backlink should display. Is it at the top somewhere? Embedded in an existing paragraph on an inner page? Or will you craft your own sentence with a backlink and instruct them to copy and paste directly on their specified page?

Give Them An Incentive

If you have something to offer them in exchange for a backlink, offer that upfront. Barter if necessary.

Trades Are Common

Oftentimes the second party will agree a backlink for a backlink. That means you’ll need to create a backlink to their website, which may or may not agree with your website’s goals.

In Conclusion

Backlinks are challenging because a) you don’t have control over the creation of a backlink and b) there’s no guarantee that you will see the results you’re hoping for. While they may boost some rankings, don’t break your back going about it thinking it’s your only option for greater web visibility.

Instead, we recommend focusing your marketing time and energy on areas where you do have control: your own website. Explore topics within your industry as blog posts. Optimize your existing title tags, make the site more user-friendly, add new promotions, etc.

Need help bringing traffic to your website? Check out our affordable Organic SEO plans.