# What is Organic traffic?

> Organic traffic is the visitors who reach your website by clicking an ordinary, unpaid search result rather than an advert.

- Source: https://nerdsharks.com/glossary/organic-traffic
- Publisher: Nerdsharks (Exeter, Devon, UK)
- Updated: 2026-09-26

Also called: organic search, unpaid search, natural search.

When someone searches on Google and clicks a normal result rather than one labelled ‘Sponsored’, that visit counts as organic. It is the traffic SEO is designed to grow.

It is not free in the sense of costing nothing, because earning those positions takes work, but you do not pay per click. Once a page ranks well, it can keep bringing visitors for a long time.

Analytics tools split your visitors by where they came from, so you can see how many arrived from organic search compared with ads, social media or people typing your address directly.

## Why it matters for a small business

Paid clicks stop the moment you stop paying. Organic visitors keep coming as long as your pages stay useful and well ranked, which makes them the steadiest, cheapest source of enquiries most local businesses can build.

**Example:** A carpet fitter notices most of their website enquiries arrive through organic search for ‘carpet fitter’ plus their town name, which tells them their service pages are doing the job.