7 Ways To Decrease Your Dependency On Google For Traffic
Google has been temperamental over the past few years.
While you may see significant traffic gains for one update, you could lose all of that traffic and more the next time around.
And Google’s stance during these situations is that nothing is broken – just keep doing what you’re doing.
When Google rankings have the power to shake the economy of entire countries, it’s critical that we avoid “putting our eggs in one basket” and diversify.
But how exactly?
In this post, I’ll show you how to decrease your dependancy on Google for traffic (and revenue).
Let’s get started:
1. Focus on providing great content and establishing a solid reputation
The first step in limiting our dependancy on Google is to focus on creating better content.
The old approach of creating content for search engines (and not users) is dead and gone. Google’s AI knows the score, well, somewhat at least.
If you provide content that is genuinely helpful and interesting, you’ll improve your reputation and start to become the go-to source for information in your niche.
This process will typically result in:
- More social shares
- More email subscribers
- More backlinks
- More traffic
- More revenue
Sure, just because you publish great content, doesn’t mean it’ll get seen. You’ll still need to promote your content. But, without good enough content, you’ll simply sabotage future growth.
Action steps:
- Brainstorm post ideas that will be helpful to your readers and will help you to stand out from other blogs in the niche. Check out Blogging Wizard’s article on blog post ideas if you’re looking for ways to come up with content ideas.
- Set a publication schedule so you know how many posts you want to publish per week or per month.
- Dedicate plenty of time in your daily/weekly schedule to be able to adequately research, write, and edit the posts to fit within your desired publication schedule.
2. Build a strong network of contacts
The company you keep will have a significant impact on your ability to grow your website, and your business.
There are plenty of benefits to having a strong network:
- Help with social media promotions
- Affiliate relationships
- Link building
- Friendly advice
- New opportunities
For example, if you notice a decline in traffic and there’s an SEO pro in your network – you can hit them up for advice. They may be able to point you in the right direction of refer you to someone who can fix the issue for you.
Or, you may launch a new product and need to recruit affiliates – one of your contacts may have an audience you can gain access to via an affiliate partnership.
The magic of having a strong network is that you never know what sort of opportunities can arise as a result.
As an introvert, I’m not a big networker but I’ve persevered with it because it’s worthwhile. And the added bonus is that I’ve made some great friends as a result.
And if anything happened to my business, I have people who would hire me quickly. It’s always good to have that sort of safety barrier as an entrepreneur.
Action steps:
- Identify influencers in your niche that you would like to add to your network. Don’t target only the most well-known people in the niche. Those who run smaller blogs or are reputable but not as well know are still great to have in your network, and in most cases it’s much more realistic to make connections with them.
- Regularly comment on their blog posts so they start to see your name and interact with you.
- Follow them on social media sites, and communicate with them through whatever social media sites they use. Share links to their posts, retweet, +1 their posts, and use your social profiles to give them some added exposure.
- Introduce yourself to them either through an email, contact form, or a message through a social network. Keep it brief, but let them know that you follow and respect their work. The quickest route is to sign up to their email list and engage with them in their inbox.
- Keep going. Strengthen your existing connects with more interaction and establish new connections as well. In some cases you may want to offer a guest post for their blog or talk about a possible affiliate partnership.
- Return the favour. Don’t choose relationships simply by the influence someone has. If someone tries to develop a relationship with you, let it happen. Regardless who it is, or what point their business is at, good things can come of it.
3. Go all in on building an email list
There are those that think email has had it’s day but the reality is that as of 2019 there are more than 5.5 billion active email accounts worldwide.
And while social media is not something to be ignored, email is far more effective at reaching people.
Here’s why:
Email is immediate and it’s personal.
When someone gives you their email address, they’re giving you permission to contact them. That takes a fair bit of trust (or a significant incentive).
Think of email marketing like an extension of your professional network. Your aim should be to deliver on the promises you made when they sign up and then break those expectations.
That way, when you come to promote your own products (or an affiliates), or share something important with your list – they’ll be more likely to listen.
As a starting point, you’ll need to choose an email service provider to power your email list. You’ll also need to offer some sort of incentive to encourage people to sign up. This is often known as a lead magnet. They can be anything from a free PDF, or a checklist to a discount code.
Then you’ll need to add email sign up forms on your website. Some email providers offer opt-in forms, but you’ll get more mileage out of a purpose built tool. For example, Thrive Leads is typically my go-to WordPress plugin for this sort of thing.
One key feature is the A/B split testing functionality. This allows you to figure out exactly how to get more email subscribers by understanding what’s converting (or what isn’t).
You can learn more in our post on opt-in form plugins for WordPress.
Action steps:
- Set up your mailing list with a platform like ConvertKit (includes 30 day free trial). It’s designed for bloggers who need something feature packed that’s easy to use. Alternatively, check out ActiveCampaign – they offer the best email marketing automation out of all platforms I’ve tested.
- Offer a lead magnet to encourage people to join your list. Templates, checklists, or bundles can perform very well. The higher the perceived value and the more exclusive, the better.
- Add email sign up forms to key locations on your blog. Sidebars don’t convert too well, but in-content forms, or slide-ins can convert better. Popovers work even better but they’re more annoying.
4. Actively maintain your email list
Building an email list isn’t enough – you need to maintain it.
This means regularly emailing your list so your subscribers don’t go “cold” or forget who you are. You need to keep the relationship going.
What you want is an email list of subscribers who want to hear what you have to say. Engagement is key.
You’ll want to pack value into each email you send, not just pitches for products or affiliate promotions.
Include helpful advice, engaging content, and highlight recent blog posts. And get your subscribers involved.
This will ensure your email list will continue to grow into a powerful asset that can drive traffic and revenue for your website – this is what will reduce your reliance on Google.
Action steps:
- Set up an automation sequence to send a series of emails at specific intervals after someone subscribes to your list. Use these emails to welcome subscribers, let them know what to expect from being subscribed to your list, and provide helpful information that will make it possible to gain their trust. And be sure to highlight some of the best content on your site.
- Create a schedule for emailing your list, such as once per week. Use these emails to provide value, promote your content, and products (only when relevant – nobody likes a pitch fest).
5. Create your own digital products to sell
The strategy you choose for monetizing your site will impact just how dependant you are on Google’s search traffic.
For example, if you rely on revenue from ad sales and/or AdSeense – your income is likely to be impacted if you lose a lot of search engine traffic. And the same goes for affiliate revenue if sales mainly come from search traffic.
One of the best ways to overcome this challenge is by selling your own digital products. Since they’re your products, you have control over how they’re sold – pricing, discounts, payment processing, conversion optimization.
For example, if you need a quick income boost, you can always choose to run limited-time sales. Or even change your pricing as you expand on your product.
You can then takes your digital products to the next level by recruiting affiliates. The great thing about recruiting affiliates is that you get people marketing your products and you pay them on their results.
Affiliates are the key to making this strategy work without dependancy on Google – if search traffic drops, they’ll still be sending highly targeted visitors so you will still make sales.
And if you’ve followed point 3 about building an email list, you’ll have a solid base of potential customers who you can email about your new product.
You could create an ebook, which would open up opportunities for selling on Amazon, or creating a physical book at some point. Alternatively, you could create an online course or a membership site with a WordPress plugin like MemberPress.
Action steps:
- Understand which types of products your target audience needs. You could either search sites like Quora and Reddit to find what challenges your audience is facing, or look at what sort of products are being promoted through ads on popular websites in your niche.
- Survey your audience to get a clearer understanding of their needs. A great way to start is to send out a survey to your email subscribers and social media followers. Use a free tool like Typeform.
- Create your first product. You’ll need to figure out whether you want to create a course, ebook or a subscription offering.
6. Offer a great affiliate program
I mentioned in the previous point that selling your own products and offering an affiliate program can help to provide some stability to your revenue.
You’ll have the most success attracting affiliates and making sales by offering a high percentage commission to your affiliates. If people are going to go out of their way to promote your products, it needs to be worth their while.
A good benchmark to look at is the commission offered by others in your niche. This will give you a good idea of where to start.
You’ll also find it beneficial to offer banners, swipe files, promotional tips, coupon codes, etc. You may want to offer free review copies for affiliates so they can check out the product.
Acton steps:
- Setup your affiliate program. Both SendOwl and Podia that I mentioned earlier can help you with this. If you plan to use WordPress to setup an e-commerce solution, check Blogging Wizard’s post on affiliate manager plugins for more details.
- Design banners and promotional materials. You may want to create some for yourself, but your time is best spent creating and marketing your product. Consider hiring a flat-rate design company like DesignPickle – they just need a brief to work from and they’re pretty cost effective if you have ongoing graphic design needs. Alternatively, you could use a platform like Fiverr.
- Set up a compelling landing page to attract affiliates. Just like you need to sell your product, you need to sell people on the benefits of promoting it.
- Make a list of high profile bloggers in your niche and reach out to them. Identify those who have large email lists and sizeable audiences – you may want to offer a tiered commission structure for those who can send more traffic.
7. Focus on profit, not traffic
It’s easy to get obsessed with traffic numbers but the truth is that traffic doesn’t always equal profit.
It’s critical to switch your focus to profit (not traffic) because it’ll give you a much clearer picture of how effective your efforts are.
When I first started earning money from my blog, I got far too focused on traffic. As a result, it took my focus away from the marketing activities that would have helped me grow my business faster. So, I can understand the temptation.
Start off by looking at how you’re making money from your site right now. And see if there are other sources of revenue that you could pursue. Diversify!
When you focus on profit, you may actually be able to increase profit after losing traffic.
Action steps:
- Set action goals rather than milestone goals. Focus on the steps you need to take in order to create a profitable website, instead of just setting a goal for the number of visitors you want to receive.
- Analyze your current monetization methods and figure out if there are ways you could be squeezing more profit out of your existing traffic. Are there products that would help your audience that you could promote as an affiliate? Are there opportunities to create your own products to sell? Are there ways to increase your email sign up conversions? What about companies that may be interested in advertising on your site? The possibilities are endless.
Start decreasing your dependency on Google search traffic
To summarise, here’s exactly what you need to do to get the ball rolling:
- Focus on providing great content and establishing a solid reputation
- Build a strong network of contacts
- Go all in on building an email list
- Actively maintain your email list
- Create your own digital products to sell
- Offer a great affiliate program
- Focus on profit, not traffic
Try to incorporate as many of these ideas into your business strategy as possible and you’ll start to see your revenue become a lot more stable.
You may even see a ranking improvement thanks to more people talking about your brand.
And, if you found this post useful, be sure to check out my article on content promotion tactics to further reduce your dependency on Google for traffic.