Whether you run a Pittsburgh Web design firm or you're a Hartford flower grower, if you do business online, then it's likely that a large portion of your online revenue is dependent upon organic traffic. And considering that Google has the lion's share of the search market, this also means that you're probably heavily Google-dependent. This isn't a wise position for any business to be in, and as we've seen in the last 12 months from repeated algorithm overhauls called Panda, if you're dependent purely on SEO for your business, you should consider diversifying your traffic sources – even if you only engage in White-hat tactics.
SEO does entail some risk in the sense that it is largely dependent upon the actions of entities that are completely out of the control of the industry. In fact, most of the operating principles of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are unknown: SEO is a "in theory" industry for the most part, and strategies are developed and abandoned based upon whether they work or not right now.
Some SEO experts have stated that as long as you operate within the Google Webmaster Terms, you'll never have a problem. However, this isn't the case, as we've seen by some of these algorithm updates where sites lost ranking that were not penalty-based. This could easily happen again. For instance, if the article marketing industry becomes over-saturated with spam, then Google or another search engine could opt to devalue or even de-index links from article directories. This would be a major hit to the rankings of thousands of websites worldwide and would immediately and completely rewrite the SERPs.
So while SEO isn't inherently risky, it does depend largely upon the actions of the search engines, which can in part be controlled by spammers and other bad guys. Therefore, it's essential to diversify your traffic sources. There are a number of ways you can do this:
SEM or Search Engine Marketing: PPC and other paid search campaigns can help even a brand new website begin to develop traffic and sales.
Email Lists: One of the most significant ways to generate traffic and interest in your products or services is to build an email list. This list can be marketed to as you see fit within ICANN guidelines, and means that your website can be setup to receive a massive influx of traffic based upon your mailings.
YouTube: YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and it's all about videos. Tapping in to the potential traffic on this monstrous site is a powerful way to completely bypass the need for normal search engine traffic.
Facebook/Social Media: By being active on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, you can generate your own traffic without the need for a search engine. By writing posts, articles, posting pictures, videos or quotes, you can develop all the traffic you need if you're active enough and have something of value to offer.
Branding: Branding is still the most powerful type of advertising - both online and offline. If you're seen as a leader in your industry, people will link to your site and traffic will come on its own.
To learn more about these and other strategies so that you can rely on search engines less, call the number at the top of your screen right now for a free, comprehensive consultation and quote.
