What is the difference between direct and organic website traffic?
The quick and short response to this question of what is direct traffic vs organic traffic is that organic traffic is any flow that arrives from search engines and is acquired rather than purchased. Any traffic that does not originate from a recommending website is direct traffic.
Some people misunderstand direct traffic and think the visitor must manually type the link in order for them to be categorized as direct traffic. However, let’s find out more about the difference between direct and organic website traffic!
Different types of traffic
Before comprehending the framework of direct and organic traffic, you must know what other sources are available and how they’re different. Software like Google use special analytic tools to know what type of source caused this traffic.
#1 Direct traffic:
It is defined as visitation that does not arrive from a referring website and for which the referral or origin is unknown.
#2 Email:
Any traffic that comes to your site via email campaigns that have been appropriately marked with an email variable will turn up as email traffic.
#3 Organic Traffic:
Any traffic that arrives on your website from a web browser but isn’t bought is known as organic traffic.
#4 Referral traffic:
It is that traffic which comes from a source besides a big search engine.
#5 Paid search traffic:
This comprises any traffic that originates from a sponsored search ad you’ve run on a search engine like Yahoo or Google.
#6 Social traffic:
Social traffic includes any traffic that originates from a social networking site such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
#7 Other:
Traffic that doesn’t fall into some other domain or has been labeled as “Other” via a URL variable will be categorized as “Other.”
What exactly is direct traffic, and how does it work?
Any traffic that comes straight to your website is considered direct traffic. This includes anyone who types your address into their computer or visits your site via a saved link. Unfortunately, direct traffic isn’t always as simple as that.
When users arrive at a website, browsers do not often record exactly where they came from. If your analytics tool is unable to determine the source of traffic, they will presume it is direct traffic. Your statistics don’t recognize where the visitor has come from because they didn’t have a reference. Thus, they immediately move to the direct traffic category.
Here are some common causes of direct traffic sources:
- Customers using your website portal
- Certain emails from clients
- Employees visiting the site
- Lastly, actual direct traffic
To avoid categorization of some of these, you can filter them out using the analytics tools.
What is an Organic Traffic source, and how does it work?
Organic traffic, as previously stated, is any traffic that comes to your site from search engines without being impacted by any paid ads. Inbound marketing aims to boost organic traffic as the main approach. You can consider visitors who arrive using a search engine, such as Bing and Yahoo, in this traffic. This excludes paid search ads, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that sponsored search or screen marketing affects organic traffic, either positively or adversely. Users trust search engines in practice.
And, there are two ways in which you get organic traffic:
- Ranking on the first page of search engine results
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Takeaway
For anyone who deals with marketing, it is important that you know all the basic information and the difference between direct and organic website traffic. This will help you stay ahead of your plan and gain reach on your website quickly. In case you need any further assistance you can check out Up And Social.
