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Unless you're one of the 19% of people using Bing or Yahoo, we all go searching for answers in the same place.

Google.

Google, in all its tech glory, represents two completely different, yet equally valuable traffic sources to inbound marketers: organic search and paid search.
The methods for acquring traffic from these two sources are known as search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) respectively. If you'd like to learn more about these individual methods, here are a few resources that you can read through.

SEO

SEO: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners by Kissmetrics (short version)
The Beginner's Guide to SEO by Moz (long version)
The Advanced Guide to SEO by Quick Sprout
SEM

A Beginner's Guide to Paid Search by Search Engine Watch
How to Create a Profitable Google AdWords Campaign by Kissmetrics
Now let's take a look at the key differences between organic search and paid search.

Organic Search
Whenever you type a question into Google, or any other search engine, the list of links that appear below the ads are known as "organic results."

These appear purely based on the quality and content of the page.

Traffic that comes from people finding your links among these results is classified as "organic search" traffic or just organic traffic.

Organic traffic is widely considered the most valuable traffic source for several reasons:

Google directs the highest amount of traffic and they are the most trusted source for people researching a purchase.
Google is very, very particular about their rankings and ranking in the top five results for a keyword indicates that your content is high quality.
Moving up in the rankings is difficult and takes time, but once you're there you get to reap the benefits for a long time.
Results on the first page of Google (The Top 10) receive 92% off all search traffic on Google. Traffic drops by 95% on the second page.
33% of clicks from organic search results go to the very first listing on Google.
The downside to organic search is that it takes time to get indexed and really start generating traffic from this source. (If you're looking for instant gratification, look elsewhere!)

Before everyone and their mom was online and SEO became the norm, ranking well on Google wasn't difficult at all. In fact, the competition was so bleak that simply writing a few articles about a subject was enough to gain the top spot for many niches. There was really no need to try to game the system.

But things have changed dramatically in the last ten years.

Now, every business has a website, most webmasters are at least vaguely familiar with SEO, and Google has cracked down on keyword stuffing and many "Black Hat" SEO methods (against their rules and sometimes illegal) that some marketers use.

Increasing organic traffic and earning top rankings takes time, persistence, and more effort than in the past -- but it's well worth it. Take the following facts into consideration:

57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation
On average, organic search leads have a 14.6% close rate, compared to 1.7% for outbound marketing leads
The highest spenders are more likely to turn to organic search for information
Every month there are more than 10.3 billion Google searches, with 78% of U.S. internet users researching products and services online
*Sources and more 2015 SEO statistics can be found here.

Google is engrained not only in our buying behavior, but our lives in general. Unless another robust, global method for searching the internet comes along, the importance of search engine optimization and organic traffic is unlikely to slow down.