Upon accessing your Google Analytics account, you may encounter unfamiliar terminology. The platform provides data on a multitude of metrics, and for newcomers to Google Analytics or digital marketing, these terms might be unclear. One such term is “organic search.”
Contrary to its name, organic search has nothing to do with pesticide-free foods. Instead, it refers to one of the most prevalent methods people use to find information online—search engines. Continue reading to delve into what organic search entails, its significance, how to locate organic search data within Google Analytics, and strategies to boost your organic traffic. **P.S.** Seeking more SEO traffic? Submit your URL here for tailored recommendations!
Organic search is a traffic source within Google Analytics—one of the pathways users take to reach your website. This term denotes unpaid listings on search engine results pages (SERPs), known as organic search results. It excludes paid results on SERPs, such as text ads and Google Shopping ads. Organic listings cannot be purchased; instead, Google and other search engines rank these results based on their quality, relevance to the search query, and other criteria.
Below is an illustration of organic search results and paid search results on a Google SERP.
[Image: organic search results for electric cars]
Google is the most popular search engine, but it is not the only one Google Analytics considers as a source of organic traffic. Google Analytics tracks organic search traffic from a list of search engines, including:
– Bing
– Yahoo
– Baidu
– DuckDuckGo
You can add or remove search engines from the list for each property in your Google Analytics account through your Admin settings.
While this post focuses on organic traffic, it’s beneficial to be aware of other traffic sources in Google Analytics for comparison. These include:
– Paid search: Traffic from paid ads on SERPs
– Direct: Traffic from an unknown source, such as users typing your website’s URL directly into their browser
– Referral: Traffic from links to your website on other websites
– Social: Traffic from social media platforms
– Display: Traffic from display ads, like banner ads
– Email: Traffic from links in marketing emails
To check your organic search data in Google Analytics, log in to your account, select your desired property and view, and you will find basic information about your traffic sources on your homepage. This data is displayed in a graph under the heading ‘How do you acquire users?’ To explore this data further, click on ‘Acquisition Report’ in the bottom right corner of the graph.
Another way to access this acquisition report is by navigating to ‘Acquisition’ and then ‘Overview’ in the left-hand menu. This Acquisition Overview report provides data about your traffic sources, including your top channels.
For more detailed insights into your organic search traffic, click on ‘Campaigns’ under the ‘Acquisition’ tab. Then, select ‘Organic Keywords.’ In the chart at the bottom of the organic keywords page, you can view the top organic keywords that drove traffic to your site. By adjusting the ‘Primary Dimension,’ you can also see the search engines that sent the most traffic to your site, the pages search engine users most frequently landed on, and more. You can also change the dates for the data in the report by clicking in the top-right corner of the screen.
Organic search is fundamental in digital and inbound marketing. Monitoring your organic search traffic in Google Analytics and learning how to expand it is invaluable for contemporary businesses and websites.
Here are some reasons why organic search traffic is so valuable:
1. Customers use search engines to find information.
2. Competitors are optimizing for search.
3. Organic traffic is highly qualified.
4. Organic search rankings increase credibility.
5. Earning organic search traffic is cost-effective.
To increase your organic search traffic, employ search engine optimization (SEO), which involves optimizing your website to rank higher in search engines for relevant keywords and attract more qualified organic traffic. Key SEO techniques include keyword research, backlinks, and page speed optimization.
For professional assistance with SEO, consider working with a seasoned SEO agency like WebFX, which has over 28 years of digital marketing experience and has been recognized as the world’s best SEO agency by Clutch. We can craft a custom SEO strategy for your business and offer a comprehensive suite of SEO services to drive more qualified organic traffic to your site. Request a free quote or call us at **888-601-5359** to speak with a strategist!
