What is organic SEO?
The term organic SEO means something that has traits of an organism. Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) involves different methods and techniques that can help a site rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP) without paying anything and the rankings are given based upon calculations of different algorithms. There are different ways to do so like targeting keywords, creating high quality backlinks and writing high quality content.
Black-hat SEO techniques can also help to get good rankings in search engines but they are not approved by any major search engines and can get your site even banned. Some examples of black-hat SEO include keyword stuffing, link farming and spam comments on other forums and posts.
How to Achieve Organic SEO?
All the unpaid methods and techniques to get your site ranked are done through organic SEO. Normally, organic SEO runs its course (3-6 months) after the techniques are applied to show any results. Organic SEO is further divided into On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. On-page SEO deals with anything that is on the website and can be optimized to make it better. This involves writing high quality content with relevant keywords, proper title tags, meta descriptions, the layout of the site, user experience, adding internal links (to different pages of the site) and quality external links, adding text to images on the site and so on.
On the other hand Off-Page SEO techniques are applied outside the website. These include link building, social bookmarking, social media and or any other method that can help to bring traffic to your site. Link-building is the major part of off-page SEO which involves quite a few methods. Aim of link-building is to create backlinks that point to your site as these links are seen as ‘votes’ to your site’s quality by search engines and improve your rankings.
However, it is important that the links are coming from relevant and highly ranked sites, if it’s the other way around then it can be rather problematic for you and drop the rankings or even get you banned from Google. Back links can be created by guest blogging, forum posting, blog commenting, article directories and directory submissions.
Benefits of Organic SEO
Organic SEO mainly relies on the relevancy of the content a site has and the relevancy in the methods used to achieve better rankings. Here are a few benefits of Organic SEO:
- The rankings on SERP will be for a longer time due to content relevancy.
- The chances of generating higher clicks due to relevant content for which users type relevant keywords.
- Helps to build better trust among the visitors (providing what they’re looking for).
- As compared to paid listings (also known as Search Engine Marketing or Pay Per Click) , Organic SEO might not be completely free but it is very cost-effective.
- It helps to generate targeted traffic and only those customers who are potential buyers of your products visit your site. This means higher conversion rate (sales) – the eventual goal of almost every other business.
All in all, organic SEO takes its time to show results but if all the methods are applied properly it can prove really beneficial for any site.
I’m working on building my organic SEO. You’re right, it does take time to come together but I’ve had a good deal of success so far.
Hi Mark,
Usually it takes 3-6 months.
After you achieve top ranking, the chances of staying there is higher.
Thanks!
I’m looking to build trust with my user base so organic SEO is very important to me. I’d rather get relevant clicks than a bunch of meaningless visits that do nothing for my site.
Good point Jessi.