Google’s a powerful way of getting free traffic, but with all the Google algorithm changes, and no doubt more on the way, you need more traffic assurance than that.
Why put all your eggs in one basket, right?
These are 3 of my favorite methods for driving targeted traffic to my website without relying on Google or any search engine.
You don’t need to do them all. Just one method, any one, will start driving more traffic to your site almost immediately.
1. Create a Social Media Plan
Many people have a love/hate relationship with social media. I completely get that because social sites can be a time hog.
To avoid wasting your valuable time, create a social media plan. But in order to have a plan you have to have a goal for using social media.
For example:
- Are you going to use social media as an extension of your blog and share updates on your content?
- Do you want to meet new business connections?
- Are you trying to do more link building?
- Are you trying to establish your brand?
Maybe you want to do all of the above, and that’s OK, but start with just one goal. That’s because your goal will determine which social media platform you use. Using them all isn’t a wise use of your time, so figure out what is most important to you at this time and plan your tasks accordingly.
Based on your goals, here’s how popular social sites can help you:
- Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn, Google+ are ideal for sharing blog updates and content.
- For link building use Squidoo, Weebly, Digg, and Delicious.
- For networking and branding use Twitter, Facebook Ning, and LinkedIn.
2. Guest Posting
Write an awesome guest post and watch your traffic soar!
Guest posting is a great way to expand your reach to thousands of readers that may not have otherwise heard of you.
Sure there’s extra writing involved, but I’ve found that using private label rights content is an easy way to write blog posts faster, especially if you need ideas on what to write.
The other benefit to guest posting is the link love you’ll receive. If you still want to work at getting natural search engine ranking, guest blogging gives you a double advantage.
3. Use Ezine Advertising
I like ezines because they’re highly targeted when it comes to sending you traffic.
And advertising in ezines is cheaper than you may think. You can advertise for as low as $20 or $25 in an ezine that has a circulation of 8,000-10,000 subscribers.
Start by finding the ezines that are related to your specific niche, in other words if you sell exercise equipment, you don’t want to advertise in a skincare ezine. A large subscriber list might make it tempting, but it’s not the size of the list that matters, it’s how targeted the ezine is to your product or service.
Next, be sure to look for things like the format of the ezine, is it pleasing to the eye? Does the ezine offer a top sponsor ad? How many subscribers are there, noting that bigger is not always better.
But even though ezines are effective and cheap, it takes time to find ezines, look up their circulation, and create your ads. I don’t personally have time to research ezines, so I use the Directory of Ezines. With DOE, I can quickly find the best ezines, see their circulation, and the type of ads they offer, such as solo ads, sponsor ads, classified or banner ads. For me personally, I love how DOE helps me find ezines that I can joint venture with and exchange articles.
So where does that leave SEO?
Don’t’ get me wrong. SEO is still important. Taking the necessary steps for writing effective SEO copy, finding good keywords and using optimal linking strategies isn’t something to neglect. Your site pages still have a decent chance for ranking well in the search engines if you do these things right.
But with all the other proven and powerful methods for achieving targeted traffic, it doesn’t make sense to limit your success by depending solely on just one form of traffic.
How about you? What’s your favorite method for driving traffic to your website?
Blessings,
Traffic is one of the key ingredients of a successful web business. If you generate enough traffic to your website, you will have more customers and more customers will bring more profit.
Yes Matt, offline advertising, or even online advertising is another option. I’m not a big fan of PPC any more, especially Google Adwords. I think they’ve just made it too difficult to get right and of course, it’s too pricey. My favorite has become ezine advertising, which I mentioned above. It’s a favorite of mine because it’s incredibly effective and a lot cheaper than folks realize. Thanks for you feedback!
Twitter: ozblogsarticles
on October 10, 2012 at 7:17 am said:
People do tend to get obsessed with getting Google traffic as you say, but there are many other sources out there.
As well as the methods you list it’s also worth looking at offline advertising. It can be particularly good if you have a geo-specific website, for obvious reasons. Sure, it can cost a fair bit per click, but it’s usually very good quality.
I’ve always depended on facebook and commenting on other blogs. But I really need to try doing a guest post. Didn’t know about Ezine so I’ll give that a try too. Thanks
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Twitter: savitara
on October 4, 2012 at 3:55 pm said:
Ezine tip is great! Thanks.
Hi Adrienne, Social marketing has been a great opportunity for all of us, and with all of Google’s changes, it’s come at a perfect time.
But building relationships isn’t really anything new, it’s still an important part of doing business, the difference is we can seek out those relationships on our own instead of waiting for Google to connect us.
Blessings,
Liz
Twitter: adriennesmith40
on October 2, 2012 at 11:36 am said:
Hi Liz,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I was reading another post today of more changes that Google is doing so I checked my stats. I only get about 15% of my traffic from the search engines and over 55% is from referral traffic. My top two sites are Facebook and Twitter so for anyone who thinks social won’t get you visitors is wrong.
It’s all about building those relationships with your friends and followers so that’s a very important thing to remember. Guest posting is good but I don’t do a lot of that. Just putting yourself out there and being all over the place will definitely attract attention. That’s the way to do it.
Great tips, thanks for sharing these. Hope you’re doing well.
~Adrienne
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Hey Raj,
I Know! I love social marketing, it gives us some much more of an opportunity to connect with our target market individually, but it can be a bit much with all the choices. I find that if you know what you want to accomplish with social marketing, you can easily narrow down the social marketing tools you use, and that keeps it manageable
Hey Vinita, Using social media according to your goals can really help with overwhelm, and so glad you found the ezine advertising info helpful.
Thanks for your feedback Vinita!
Blessings,
Liz
Twitter: vzutshi
on October 2, 2012 at 9:29 am said:
Liz, thanks so much for a mine of information packed into this very concise article! I truly appreciate the way you’ve divided up social media sites depending upon one’s goals.
And thanks for ezine advertising info – I’d never even heard of it! Look forward to reading more from you! – am signing up right away!
Vinita Zutshi recently posted..Violent Children: What if Your Child Hits You?
Hi,Liz I completely agree with you because practically see that technique works well.I also thinks in between 2-4 years we are having so many more social media option to drive traffic to websites.
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Thank you Jacqui. BTW, I accept guest posts, so if you want to try your hand at it, I love to read it
This is refreshingly USEFUL!!
I especially like the hints on making social media effective. This goddess spends waaaaay too much time chit-chatting ~ definitely need to put my focus on building those relationships into something more.
And thanks for the tips on guest posting. That’s something that I’ve been dithering about, but will definitely give it more serious thought now.
Much admiration and gratitude!
the goddess known as Jacqui
Hey Nicholle, Precisely! By going around Goolge and finding your own traffic and followers you CAN write for your readers, and you’re content is likely to be better because you’re not worrying about whether an algorithm likes you or not.
I want to stress that basic SEO is still important, after all you want your pages to be indexed, but hussling for your own traffic makes a lot more sense.
Thanks for your feedback Nicholle
Yes I also believe that you can have traffic even without the help of Google. There are so many ways one of the most effective thing to do is through blog commenting, blog posting and a lot more. I guess it would be great if you concentrate on making post for your readers and not for Google!
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