Don't rely on Google traffic?

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25
Hi guys,

When I first started out as an IM, I made the mistake of relying on Google traffic and obsessed about Google rankings. Most of my website traffic does come from Google and the fact of the matter is that this traffic converts for all my sites.

I don't want to be reliant on Google, so for my new site (launched 7 months ago) I totally disregarded SEO and Google and created really good content. I've had links from The Guardian, the National Careers Service, the BBC and other well established authority sites, along with very select forums, social bookmarking and social media.

I get a decent amount of traffic from the above, but they don't convert (I'm using Adsense). Traffic is around 200 uniques per day and for Google, I'm on the 2nd/3rd page for relevant keywords. Problem is, the rankings have been the same for about 4 months and I promised myself I wouldn't obsess over it. I know some would say to buy high PR links, but I want this to be as 'natural' as possible. I've tried altering the positions and types of Adsense ads, but it's only generating around £3/$5 per day!

I've got a number of key specialists in my field to write content, so I know it's good quality, but I don't know what to do with this site. Google Adsense ads appears to be relevant, but I'm wondering if it's putting people off. Is 200 uniques per day far too little to approach advertisers? I've spent a great deal on marketing and content, seeing this as a business and not a quick way to make money.
#search engine optimization #google #rely #traffic
  • I think you will have to get some of those links you are afraid of. To me it looks like you just need a little something to be pushed on 1st page and make it a $100 per day site.

    I would look into investing in private blog network. Even build it yourself if you really want to be safe.

    I know it's not completely natural, but the truth is they just work right now. And if done right, they will for long time (:
  • Since you've done everything naturally and white hat so far, I wouldn't resort to black hat techniques. The first thing I would do is look at which keywords you're rankings decently well for that have the most potential (most impressions according to Google Webmaster Tools and most searches according to the Keyword Planner). I bet those pages just need a few tweaks. Make sure you're following basic SEO guidelines on those pages like making sure the keywords are appearing in the content as well as in your title tags. Try this before you move onto the dark side!
  • Banned
    You need a lot more targeted traffic.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Totally agree.

      Although the all importnat question is what is your niche (you don't actually have to answer this), since Adsense payouts highly differ from one niche to another.

      So, if you are in a niche with high paying ads, even 200 uv a day could get you decent earning. But as Yukon mentioned, with most niches you need way more traffic (targeted that is) to hit $100 a day or so.
  • Banned
    In my humble opinion Google seems to dominate the Internet.. you avoid google you avoid profit..
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    • Banned
      Not true at all, Google only has a small fraction of web traffic.

      I still target Google SERPs but they're only about 50% of my traffic.
      • [1] reply
    • I used to feel that way, but now, only a small, small sliver of my traffic is from Google

      You can definitely get along just fine without them
  • It looks like targeted traffic is your issue. It is possible to get targeted traffic from social-media, especially Twitter. People who say you can't don't really understand the how to use these sites.

    This is basically what Google wants you to do anyway. If you keep at it you will rank for good longtails. That's assuming you aren't completely ignoring your on-page SEO, which would be a mistake.
  • You need traffic like 2,000 unique or 20,000 unique a day to make decent money from Adsense, or thinking of other revenue steams. It's safe to use 50% of built links as long as you have 50% of earned links.
  • If you are only earning from Adsense then Paid traffic or else techniques can cause you bad. Adsense needs pure SE traffic, if you do affiliate marketing then paid traffic would work otherwise build backlinks...

    Do you prefer Hats - I like Gray
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  • Look to hire a warrior here on warrior forum to better your SEO and concentrate on driving traffic to your squeeze page build your list and make money
    Hope this helps you
    PM me if you have any questions
  • Its not a wise idea to completely avoid Google. It do have a monopoly over the internet. Its not only as a search engine but also Google have a lot of associated sites along with it which are the major places where actual people are present.
  • Why do you stick to adsense as your revenue steam? Why not try CPA or affiliate programs?

    Don't rely on google traffic ONLY, but you still need to rely on google, which can play a big rule in your traffic. So try your best to get your website to the 1st page.
  • It's a bit hard to say wether totally disregarding SEO is something that's coming back to bite you right now. If the site was professionally produced or even semi-competent work the on-page SEO should be good enough, but it's just impossible to tell without seeing the site. Handful of good backlinks will usually not make or break the site.

    I'm not using Adsense myself, but 200 visitors per day seems low. People just filter out ads, and don't click them. CTR will probably be quite low too no matter what you do with the ads. Simple back-of-the-envelope calculation with average values pulled from internet would show that it's not going to be profitable on those levels.

    So you need much more traffic. You've done the obvious social media stuff, like Twitter feed and a Facebook page? If the content somehow relates to businesses try to push it to LinkedIn too. Pinterest seems to work really well for some sites, but I guess it's certain kind of content that gets traction there.
  • Thanks guys.

    I have exhausted all the niche forums and all social media - reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook groups etc. The niche I'm in is educational courses and I have another site in this field which brings in the majority of my income on very little traffic. BUT, the converting traffic is from Google searches and NOT from the other sources.

    I enquired about affiliate programmes, but this is a very specific niche and no courses were available.

    The desired search term is "** ** courses" and "** ** jobs". The content on the site covers a wide range of topics associated with this subject and I'm ranking for long tail keywords, just not the main, lucrative keyword.

    Yukon, you mentioned targeted traffic, but it appears Google is the only source. As mentioned, other sources like niche forums, social media and Government sites are all sending traffic, but it's clearly not targeted. I've also tried offline traffic. Where do you look for targeted traffic that isn't from Google?
  • of course! you can't solely rely on google traffic. Traffic doesn't mean profits. You can't convert your traffic at 100%. That's why people venture on doing offline marketing strategies, and do other online marketing like emailing probable clients
  • While SEO/Google shouldn't be a do or die affair but it can contribute significantly to your business.

    The secret to a successful web business is targeted traffic...
  • Many other ad sources but Google has been good for my clients
  • A good method of driving targeted traffic is by commenting on other blogs, articles, youtube videos etc.

    You're in the education niche - how many articles and news are published every day around your keywords? There's plenty of young eyeballs reading them every single day.

    And these articles get and will continue to get longtail traffic from google, social media and forums. If you can funnel some of this traffic to your site, you've got yourself another traffic stream, completely legal/whitehat and effective.
  • You don't want to rely on Google because??? If you making money on Google traffic why not focus on that? Google is an economical power-house, it's not going anywhere in the near or far future, so you shouldn't worry on the possible 'What if" scenarios...(If that's what your doing).
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    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • This is key and what most of the experts here will advise. I've seen decent sites tank in SERPs, without any black hat shenanigans. No-one knows what Google will do next, so those that think they know are talking nonsense. My approach was to use every other source except Google, but all other sources just don't convert. There is a large forum where there are several threads about my keywords, where I have provided detailed answers. Traffic flows from these sites, but just don't convert. I have a large Facebook and Twitter following with decent activity, but again - no conversions.

      My current income is coming from long tail Google searches, so (annoying as it is) those that are searching for those keywords in Google are those that are likely to click on ads. For me anyway.
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    Don't rely on Google traffic?

    Hi guys, When I first started out as an IM, I made the mistake of relying on Google traffic and obsessed about Google rankings. Most of my website traffic does come from Google and the fact of the matter is that this traffic converts for all my sites.