Promote Your Site As Though Google Didn’t Exist

Brian Clark has an excellent post about relying too much on Google for traffic.

Believe it or not, my strategy since the beginning of Copyblogger has been to pretty much forget search engines exist. Don?t get me wrong? I?m not doing anything to annoy them, and I certainly don?t turn away visitors from search engines. I just don?t depend on them for traffic.

This is a timely post because of the Google has been dropping the PageRank on some sites that sell links. Danny Sullivan, a premier search journalist, contacted Google about this and this is what they said:

[Google] confirmed that PageRank scores are being lowered for some sites that sell links.

In addition, Google said that some sites that are selling links may indeed end up being dropped from its search engine or have penalties attached to prevent them from ranking well.

Maybe Google even targeted this site because we’ve gone down from PR5 to PR4.

How to Stop Relying on Google Traffic

Brian’s post gives three practical ways to stop relying on Google. First, he talks about focusing on getting repeat visitors through subscriptions. Bloggers should always be encouraging their readers to subscribe to their RSS feed. If you have a readership that is not very tech-savvy, you should also promote a RSS subscription through email. If you have a static site, build a list. I recommend Aweber for this.

Second, Brian tells us to get traffic from social media sites. The social media audience is among the fastest growing audiences on the web. The key to social media marketing is producing content the social media audience will like and building friendships with the users so they will vote on your content. Don’t just rely on the big sites like Digg, Propeller, and StumbleUpon. There are niche sites too that can send more targeted traffic. Also, Brian considers blogs social media sites. I’ve never thought about blogs that way, but blogs do have a big social element.

Third, Brian says we should start selling. As you begin to build your subscriber base and get traffic from social media sites, you’ll build trust and a reputation that allows you to sell effectively. Whether it’s advertising, reviews, links, ebooks, or other products, don’t be afraid to sell to your existing audience. People like to buy quality products from people they trust.

Totally Ignore Google?

If you have SEO skills, this doesn’t mean you should stop doing keyword research and trying to hit the top 10 of Google. However, you should also focus on the above three tactics. If you focus too much on Google, Google could wreck you and you would lose most of your traffic. Build a defensible site that survives even if Google bans it.

Further Reading

Conclusion

Are you depending on Google too much?

For more marketing tips, subscribe to Net Business Blog.