Do you depend on google for returning visitors?

Build an email list.

You can't control Google or the traffic that it sends.. so you can't depend on it.

But you can control your email list.. that's effectively traffic on tap whenever you want it.

....Or make them like your Social Media Pages. This way they will receive updates from you and you will not depend on Google.

I learned a number of years ago to never keep all my eggs in one basket. I have found I really have zero control over my marketing if I leave it all up to Google.

They must be an impulsive group who don't care where the content comes from as long as it does the job.

Possibly why people don't bookmark but use G every time?

Advertise.

I got a lot of traffic from Google high rankings up through 2013 Panda/Penguin and then lost my rankings (still think unfairly)... anyways, it taught me the value of building an email list, like Michael said. Starting a podcast also really helped me.

Now my Google rankings are not quite to the point they were at before the algorithm change, but I am consistently around spot 10-12 of the Google SERPs and I appreciate that traffic... but I do not depend on it!!

Look at other channels and especially building your list.

As long as you build your websites the right way(that means whitehat link building), you'll be confident that google will reward you for years or decades to come. That's the reason why I only focus on whitehat link building on my sites!

And of course, capture people's emails. Link building man..

From my experience, the best way to get people to come back to your site is to recruit them to your list and send them news of updates.

Don't overdo the update emails though. They have to be SIGNIFICANT and add value. They also have to be STORY-DRIVEN.

"Bookmark us" still important but not the main way to bring traffic back to the site. Don't depend solely on Google but look at other alternative which has become a trend and most importantly, the more effective ways.

Nowadays, many repeat visitors are generated from email broadcast as well as re-targeting.

1) Email broadcast : you get almost instant visitors i.e your repeat buyers when you send an email about your new product to your buyer list. Constant communication with your buyers will also play important parts to generate repeat sales. This doesn't involved Google.

2) Retargeting : Show your ad and expose your brand again and again via re-targeting increase the chances to get repeat buyers.

Of course, having good ranking on Google is no doubt great, but do focus on other methods as well while you are building up your site ranking.

I agree having an updated email lists of your client is the best way to control your audiences, as well as updating your social medias in your what abouts is you could reach them out.

GOOD => You can't control Google or the traffic that it sends
if your business depends by google results, you must be very lucky ( and your biz is at risk)

I get huge traffic on autopilot since 12+ years, with google or not ;-)

Um why was this thread moved to SE Optimization??
I wanted to discuss how people got their return visitors to come back WITHOUT goole LOL

I am a pretty weird but kind 'of" ? popular niche in the "environmental" field....a LOT of my traffic comes from Social Media, linking my site with our Linkedin page, FB Page & G+ page seems to draw in about 500% increase that day when a new blog post is released, granted these are 2000w+ authority written articles such as "How to spot and eliminate Mold in your house" etc etc I've noticed if you put out GOOD - USEFUL content on Social Media it will pay off with returning visitors, lower bounce rates, higher CTR's etc. This also leads to a 30-50% increase that week in Email subscribers (through MailChimp/SumoMe), if that helps. Just have to make sure to optimize all your major social networks together so when you release something it hits all social sites at once, usually post them early EST time by mid day results start climbing and keep going until evening.

The irony here is, by ignoring any tactics to actively get traffic from Google and focusing on non-Google ways to drive traffic, you'll probably do a pretty good job of driving traffic from Google. It's basically what Google wanted all along - stop focusing on trying to artificially rank in Google and just market to people online.

Focusing on social media? If you're getting content shared, it's a positive ranking signal, plus there's more chance others will link to you, improving your rank.

Focusing on building a brand? Part of that is being mentioned in big publications - a PR campaign, if you will. This will improve your rank on Google. As will things like guest posting for brand building and putting your brand in front of people's eyes on any site with decent, relevant traffic. Oh wait, that sounds a lot like SEO...

Sharing your content to your email list? Increases your chance of content being shared on social media (see first point) and linked to - thus increasing your Google rankings.

Looking at building an online community of regular contributors and readers? That will drive links, social shares and increase your traffic from Google.

I think it's a great idea, but the methods used are really the same methods that a white hat SEO campaign uses.