According to ReadWriteWeb’s Strategy Roundtable, 85-90% of search traffic is organic search. Organic search is simply searches conducted by users without them going through sponsored results (ads), or other referral methods. This means that search traffic is still largely governed by users organically searching on their own. This also brings to light the overall importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) in terms of making sure your website or brand shows up where you want it to in search engine results.

As much emphasis as the meda likes to put on social media and social networking, search is still king when it comes to increasing overall traffic, and subsequently revenue. Not that social media and social networking are bad things, for they can be used to increase backlinks, drive traffic, and increase brand awareness but overall good SEO and SEM will likely benefit most small businesses more then a casually updated FaceBook page or Twitter account.