Surviving the Google.

[Sam1]

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An 800 pound gorilla is destroying the SEO world of a few years ago. During that time you could purchase a bunch of bulk backlinks and rank highly for the keywords which you were targeting. Life was good. Then Google changed things up a little, everything was about a small number of very high quality backlinks. My own SEO attempts always seemed to be one step behind the current conditions. I was building bulk backlinks when Google switched it up and started penalizing sites which had them and then I was creating quality backlinks when they meant a lot less. I even built an article wheel just as that SEO beauty was crushed by Gorilla Google. Google even targets sites that they consider "overly-optimised". This environment is extremely hostile for a career webmaster, luckily I am not one one those. Imagine ranking extremely well for high ranking keywords one day, having lots of traffic converting into high paying Adsense clicks. Then Sha-Zam, you are penalized and your income probably decreased by 50-90% (depending on how reliant you were on Google). What can you do?

Stick to the Basics:

A site which creates lots of high quality, unique content will rank well on Google. Be patient with rankings. In Awstats and Analytics you can find the search terms which lead readers to your blog or visitors to your site. If you can, create even more content around those terms to become an "authority" on them. Nobody know what Google will do next. They may decide to take bounce rate into consideration with rankings or maybe the number of Plus votes a site has received. Therefore the most future proof method to rank well on Google is to create a site which best caters to your audience.

Alternative Sources of Traffic:
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It is hardly ever a good idea to "keep all your eggs in one basket" so to speak. Diversify your sources of traffic so that you do not become too reliant on Google. Here are some alternative sources of traffic which you could target:

1. Reddit. If you are a blogger, especially in something glitzy like entertainment or current events then you could find reddit a good source of traffic. I have never used Reddit as a source of traffic as I have never owned the types of sites which would benefit from Reddit. I can see the potential with the up votes on the top articles/ the numbers of comments. I have found this guide on Reddit traffic which you may wish to pursue.
2. Squidoo and Hubpages. These are article directories with a social network aspect. As they are established sites, they rank well in Google and other search engines. You may also gain traffic from the Squidoo/ Hubpages communities. Like Reddit, the key is to build your reputation for good posts within the community rather than shamelessly promoting your page. Here is an article on how to use Squidoo for traffic.
3. Twitter. Here is one source of traffic which I have used to great effect. A twitter account can get you a heap of traffic. An autoblog which I ran was getting around 300 visitors a day from its twitter posts. You can setup your wordpress blog to autopost the article titles to twitter to make things easy. You can probably do this with a forum too... Otherwise manual posting. Sites like Twiends.com and SocialClerks.com can help you exchange followers for coins to build up your own follower base. Twiends is fantastic because the quality of followers tends to be higher. This is actually a pretty easy way to gain traffic if you have good content. It just takes 10 minutes a day gaining followers over a long period of time.
4. Facebook. I've never seen Facebook as a good traffic source although I think it could be. To take advantage of Facebook traffic you need to engage with your fans. Don't simply auto-post from your blog. Make the posts on your page manually. Same as Twitter, you will need to build up fans/ likes on your page. Exchanging is probably the easiest way, using sites like SocialClerks and YouLikeHits.com.
5. Yahoo Answers. Have you noticed that Yahoo Answers often rank extremely highly in Google search results? You can take advantage of this. @xpl0iter wrote an amazing article on gaining Yahoo Answers traffic a while back here: http://www.webgurubb.com/threads/promoting-your-website-using-yahoo-answers-101.2709/. I've found Yahoo Answers to be a good source of targeted traffic.
6. PasteBin. PasteBin pastes rank really well on Google. It is a lot harder to gain traffic from these as they do not allow linking but I am sure you could... Probably the best use for this is if you are a blackhat illegal site. You need to be offering something that people really want.
7. Pinterest. I've been hearing whispers that Pinterest is a huge source of traffic. It probably is considering its massive user base- heck even my Mum spends hours browsing pinterest. As I am not a Pinterest user, I have found this article which explains how to gain traffic from the site.
8. Bing/Yahoo. It may surprise you but Bing (and Bing powered Yahoo) account for a reasonably big percentage of search engine traffic and you probably aren't targeting your site for it! According to BlackHatWorld members (I browse through a lot of forums but I am not a member...) ranking well on Bing is as simple as using the SEO techniques you were using a few years ago i.e. build backlinks. This will give you an insight into Bing: http://www.bing.com/blogs/site_blog...23/four-areas-of-search-and-social-focus.aspx.
9. YouTube & DailyMotion. Videos on these popular sites are generally easier to rank on the internal site and on Google as well. Youtube ranks via how many views a video receives, likes and comments. All of these can be purchased but you can gain them naturally if you put in the effort. YouTube traffic generation is a huge topic in itself. Here is how to dominate youtube.

What are your thoughts? Are you still trying to gain traffic from Google?

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[enhu]

I was able to earn hundreds a month from my websites but these days is just too hard. My websites can just even get around $50/month in adsense. My main site can't even found in the search terms unless I search the domain myself lol. Currently My means of income is just to do some jobs in freelance sites.

Hope things will change later.

 

[Martee]

Good article there Sam, I can personally attest to the potential traffic some of these points can bring in. I remember @xpl0iter using reddit once after posting up a TNC story, he decided to stick it on Reddit and we gathered something like 700 clicks on that link alone. It was quite mad!

Same goes for YA, whilst we didn't receive 700 visits, it was in the 2-300 range from posting a link to our iOS 7 article on a few questions regarding what time iOS 7 was coming out.

On a personal note, Pinterest has always been a good source of traffic to my personal site, so much so that once I rebuild it I will build the sites social media around that as much as I do for FB/Twitter.

 

[Shole]

Yeah reedit and most of the social sites can help you gain a lot of traffic but you need to know what to post and how to post it, you cant just go and spam

 

[Martee]

Yeah reedit and most of the social sites can help you gain a lot of traffic but you need to know what to post and how to post it, you cant just go and spam

Hahah, certainly on Reddit! I think myself and @xpl0iter was scared of posting on Reddit (a link to our site I mean) due to the ..feedback one can receive there. However, Xpl0iter just bit the bullet and it paid off that day. It was a new story that hadn't yet been wrote about on major sites so we managed to gather some traffic from that day!

 

[xpl0iter]

Awesome article @Sam

Good article there Sam, I can personally attest to the potential traffic some of these points can bring in. I remember @xpl0iter using reddit once after posting up a TNC story, he decided to stick it on Reddit and we gathered something like 700 clicks on that link alone. It was quite mad!

Same goes for YA, whilst we didn't receive 700 visits, it was in the 2-300 range from posting a link to our iOS 7 article on a few questions regarding what time iOS 7 was coming out.

On a personal note, Pinterest has always been a good source of traffic to my personal site, so much so that once I rebuild it I will build the sites social media around that as much as I do for FB/Twitter.

Reddit is one of those places from where you would get a lot of traffic, but only if used the right way. Their anti-spam measures are pretty tough, so you should take it slowly if you want to be successful in reddit link building.

 

[Shole]

Hahah, certainly on Reddit! I think myself and @xpl0iter was scared of posting on Reddit (a link to our site I mean) due to the ..feedback one can receive there. However, Xpl0iter just bit the bullet and it paid off that day. It was a new story that hadn't yet been wrote about on major sites so we managed to gather some traffic from that day!

Yeah thats one of the things you cant predict, the reaction of the community, and that can ether help your site or make it look bad. I got some positive things by commenting in reedit for hosting problems

 

[MyDigitalpoint]

I really like Sam's survivor guide because I will always bet for alternative traffic sources than put all my SEO eggs in one basket.

In fact whether one devotes time to search engine optimization or simply devotes time to promote a site, there is always a workaround for Google's zoo effects.