The sole reliance on Google for getting visitors to your site can leave your sales team vulnerable to shifts that occur in the digital arena whether due to your competitors' efforts, an algorithm update or unforeseen obstacles.
Generating a healthy stream of leads for your business requires a diversified marketing approach that includes Google optimization as well as other channel activities to support your new business goals.
There are many tools available to help your business be found and to draw people to your site. In a recent Search Engine Watch blog, Chuck Price addresses this issue head-on.
Titled The 10 Best Ways To Generate Traffic Without Google, the article reminds small and new businesses competing against established market leaders often of much bigger sizes - and budgets - of the uphill battle they face when striving for a number one position in a Google search result page. Chuck outlines several alternate ways to get more people to sites.
I agree wholeheartedly with a multi-pronged approach to traffic generation and, recommend a number of tactical approaches, including:
1. Guest Blogging
Like link building, guest blogging today requires quality connections and quality content. In addition to improving targeted visibility, establishing credibility and building brands, it can be a means of securing valuable offline relationships with industry leaders. Finding the right source for posts is integral to success with this path and starting with leaders such as iMediaConnection or readwrite can get you off to the right start.
2. Blog Commenting
Price is on the right track when he suggests readers make value-added commentary to quality blogs as a legitimate traffic-driving tactic. However, his link to Google Blogs seems a bit out of place in a blog focused on driving traffic without Google. Sites like boardreader.com, a search engine for forums and boards, could help you find the best blogs and trending topics for your industry, thus helping to cut those Google apron strings.
3. Q&A Sites
Sometimes a little free advice goes a long way. When you take the time to answer someone's question-essentially solving their problem-you showcase your authority and build some good old fashioned goodwill to boot.
4. Social Media
It's hard to group social media as a single tool because the opportunities for generating site traffic vary from one social platform to the next. Following are some of the more common and fruitful ways to help you do this:
· Unpaid posts that include photos and videos as well as text
· Promoted posts and ads
· Social "webinars" such as Twitter Chats
It is equally important to remember that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are not the only platforms available. Pinterest and Instagram offer great potential for visual content and industry-specific social sites should never be overlooked. To get more bang for your buck, create integrated social programs in which you broadcast the same topic in multiple places and ways-appropriate to the platform and audience-at the same time.
5. Webinars
As with many of the other options in our list here, webinars position you as a subject matter authority and make others look to you for leadership and guidance. When you target the right audience, the useful information you provide will resonate with viewers and you will begin seeing repeat attendees. Postin
g completed webinar videos online after a web event extends their traffic driving lifespan and serves as yet another piece of ever-green content for your digital library.
6. Content Aggregators
The myriad of content aggregators out there might initially seem overwhelming but don't let that stop you from taking advantage of these great vehicles. They have wide reach and many also feature integrated widgets or apps to further facilitate feeding your content to multiple places.
Digg and Stumble Upon are just two widely used aggregators worthy of your time. Be open to utilizing more than one aggregator at a time and also pairing your efforts here with your other vehicles such as social media, email and blogs.
7. Email
Research shows that the pendulum has swung back in the favor of email marketing as a way to drive people to your site. Your lists should be cleaned and regularly updated to maximize the ROI and positive response from your subscribers. The other important element to email that drives traffic is, of course, the right message.
Traffic generation and SEO are not synonyms and businesses that treat them as such will find themselves at a significant disadvantage down the road. We believe that these avenues should receive as much or more effort as SEO. As we all know, putting your eggs in one basket is rarely the path to success. This holds true in the world of lead generation, making a diversified approach imperative for businesses that seek a high level of success.
