Can we talk about organic search? It's a term that appears in the acquisition area of Google Analytics. It sounds like a sign you see in the supermarket, which is disconcerting.
Organic Search means people, or sessions, that come from search engines, but not from the sponsored links on those search engines.
That's not very clear, so let me give you an example.
Imagine Katy used Google to search for the term web design agency london. I know London should have a capital letter, but how many people do that when they Google?
Katy got a page of results like this:
Imagine Katy skipped past the sponsored links and started perusing the other search results. She liked the look of this one:
Katy clicked the link, and it took her to the website for Bond Media.
Now, imagine that Bond Media were running Google Analytics on their website. Later that month one of their team looked at the Acquisition Report. It might have looked something like this:
Katy's session was counted on the Organic Search row. That's because she came to the Bond Media website via a search engine, and not via one of the sponsored links. If one of Bond Media's sponsored links had brought her here, then she would have been counted on the Paid Search row instead.
Here's one way to remember this: when we see the term 'organic' think 'natural' or 'normal' - as nature intended. People arriving via organic search come via the normal way search engines work.
One caveat: all of this depends on how well Google Analytics interprets incoming website traffic. It's possible that some combinations of user device, browser and search engine don't get assigned to Organic Search and end up listed in a different row instead.
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