To a blogger TRAFFIC comes to mind when you mention SEARCH ENGINES. Most people who begin in internet marketing believe that search engine optimization is the only way to get traffic to your website, but that is necessarily not true.
Search engine optimization (SEO) should be a viable part in your entire internet marketing campaign, but shouldn’t be the only part. There are many other ways to get traffic to your website, and these other ways are much simpler and time-effective to driving traffic to your website.
In “Types of Web Traffic and where you can get them”, I discussed the various types of web traffic and how you can get them. If you rely solely on search engines to get traffic to your website, your entire internet marketing campaign will fail and here is why;
Search Engine Updates: In the past few years, Google especially has implemented a lot of updates that has affected a lot of websites and have put a lot of businesses at risk. Updates such as Penguin update, Panda update, Payday Load updates, exact match domain update, DMCA update and now the Hummingbird update.
Statistics has shown that most websites that are dependent mostly on search engine traffic are most affected by these updates. Many websites that are solely dependent on search engine traffic especially from Google suffer when such updates are released, which is fairly often.
That is the first reason why I am telling you now not to solely rely on search engines for your traffic. It’ll be a shame if all your hard works go down the drain for making such a costly mistake. I am not saying you should not build your search engine traffic because search engines are the best source of web traffic, but you should also build other sources of traffic to your site, so that if any of the search engine updates affect you, your traffic won’t drain up before you can find ways to recover from the effects of the update.
Competitiveness of Search Engines: Another reason why I am asking you not to solely rely on search engines for traffic is the competitiveness of search engines. While you may work very hard to gain the top spot for a keyword on the search engine results, others are working as hard as you or even harder to take the spot from you always.
The competitiveness of search engines means there is no guarantee to steady traffic from search engines as you can be outshined anytime and your ranking could drop and you could lose your traffic in such event.
Search Engine Optimization is not easy: SEO is not an easy concept especially for newbies. So if you are just starting out, I will encourage you to drive traffic to your site from as many sources as possible. SEO takes time and skills. There is no short term fix for it; you have to earn it over time.
Diversify your traffic generation methods and drive traffic from as many sources as possible, other options to drive traffic to your site other than the search engines includes; Social Media, Email Marketing, Content curation, forum marketing, guest posting, blog commenting, Videos, Podcast, paid search, press release, Free Classified Ads, social bookmarking , participating in Q&A Sites, Traffic Exchanges, Pop-Up & Exit Ad Exchanges, Banner Exchanges, Viral URL Cloakers, host contests & Giveaways, Word of Mouth Marketing etc.
As already said, you should never rely on one source for your traffic, especially one that is as volatile as search engines. Always ensure top quality contents are published on your site often, and promote it in many other ways other than relying solely on search engines for traffic, that way whatever happen you will still have other sources of traffic to your site.
How to handle writer’s block as a blogger
How to Spy on Theme and Plugins used in a WordPress Site
How do i add Mashable style social subscription widget on my blog?
Improving search engine ranking with Cornerstone Content
6 Ways to make money with your blog
Hi Nwosu,
You are absolutely right! :)
We shouldn’t ONLY rely on search engines for the traffic to our blogs because that might not work because there is much more than meets the eye! Yes, we do need to be there, but that shouldn’t the only source as when and where your post ranks, also depends on the traffic you get to your blog.
Speaking of myself, I think search engines have always been my secondary means of traffic to my blog – after the referral and direct traffic I get through commenting on various blogs and of course, the social media presence that makes a huge difference overall.
It’s like they say, you should never place all your eggs in al baskets, I think it makes sense to diversify and go with various different ways, because you never know what really works, isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead :)
Hi Nwosu
Due to the frequent search engine updates, Some bloggers have realized how important it is to diversify one’s source of traffic.
Social bookmarking sites are very effective especially reddit. It is very important to think outside the box. Stereotype blogging is a waste of time.
I just followed you o twitter. Well done sir.
Thanks Harleena for your awesome contribution, and especially now with all the updates you can never say if what works today will still work tomorrow when it comes to search engines & traffic. Social media especially is great for traffic, and the other sources i listed in the article as well.
Thanks Abraham for the follow and awesome contribution.
hi nwosu. since you have mentioned about banner exchanges, is there any community that engage in banner exchanges like we do in our commenting group (comment exchanges).. about Q&A sites, i cannot link back in Yahoo Answers. i did not spam their site since i only used it thrice a day but they consider me as a spam..so better be careful when using yahoo answers
Hello Nwosu,
I totally agree with you. Depending totally upon search engines nowadays is not a good sign for bloggers. You can not guarantee traffic for your every post from search engine. SEO is getting harder day by day, and even the competition is increasing in the blogging field. In this situation bloggers need more referral traffic to their blogs.
Even for me, I am much more dependent on the social networking sites like Facebook for getting more traffic. Sharing blog articles in blogging communities, social media sites, provide you more readers and popularity provides direct traffic. Nice article man. Keep writing :-)
Hi Nwosu,
I agreed with your views, One should not completely rely on search engines for traffic. Continuous Google updates have affected number of businesses and as a precaution, one should also focus on social media promotion, and having conversation on Q&A sites or forums for generating relevant traffic.
Here are some Banner Exchange sites:
1800banners.com
adendum.com
bannerexchangenow.com
bannerrage.com
bannersgomlm.com
bucketsofbanners.com
click4click.com
ebannertraffic.com
exchange-it.com
freeadzone.com
freebannerdisplays.com
freebannerexchange.org
free-banners.com
hitx.net
impressionz.com
linkbuddies.com
neobanners.com
optimumbannerexchange.com
showyoursite.com
thebannerexchange.com
whambanners.com
worldbannerexchange.com
Thanks for your awesome contribution.
This is really good suggestion as all eggs in one basket always lives in risk.
Search engine traffic is desirable because it is free traffic and very important if your revenue model is through advertisements. We all know, referral and regular traffic don’t click on Ads.
Organic traffic is second of my traffic source after social networking for my Bivori and Search engine traffic as the very strong share for some of my sites like PS Exam. Social Networking traffic is much easier compared to SEO but once you get good number of traffic from search engines, it’s damn profitable.
Hi Nwosu ,
I am totally agree with you . we may not rely on search engine only to get traffic . My two site was lost their search engine visibility because of penguin and panda updates . Sites lost their 90 % traffic . But what can you do because most traffic to site come from search engine . Their is only a way to make a brand name if you don’t wish to loose traffic . I know their is several way to drive traffic but that will not work like search engine
Yes i like it so, most people depends on google for traffic, i mostly depends on other ways like blog commenting,article submission, social bookmarking sites etc..coz, the amount of traffic you gets depend on your dedication unlike search engine that have much competitors compared to you search engine optimisation knowledge. how you can retain and maximise the power status of your phone
This was a great read. I just started blogging for my business and this information is really going to help me get a good start. Thanks for sharing.