About 6 months ago I totally changed my strategies on a lot of my sites focusing much less on search engines and I have seen a dramatic INCREASE in traffic. I did a lot of analysis on MySpace and other sites and why they are so successful. Its really very easy.
So many people have focused so hard now on SEO and traffic from the search engines that we have all forgot the basics or at-least I forgot some of them.
Just by giving people a easy option to make my site there startup page I have seen a 60% increase in traffic to the root of my sites. Some people leave right away, but those that do, leave by searching google through my adsense for search link.
You can also build more website integration into your applications. A great example of this is Wordpress. Every-time I log into my wordpress blog (shoemoney.com) I am presented with a admin dashboard that also contains links to the newest blog posts from some of the … well I am not sure if they are developers or friends or what but it has links to the newest posts from these guys.
Some of them like this site pretty much look like a MFA (made for adsense) website where its very hard to even find the content that you just read about in your wordpress admin panel. I bet this guy is making a grip. I talked to him once about running shoemoneyads and I forget why we didn’t agree. I think I dropped the ball on getting back to him. Anyway this is a great example of building in links to your applications and I bet these guys are making a killing without search engine traffic.::
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May 4, 2007 at 4:40 am
Do you mean adware of what? Startup page changing without user confirmation is forbidden
February 25, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I’ve been pulling my hair out lately doing SEO and was hoping to find a good excuse to quit. I’ll continue doing SEO, I guess.
August 16, 2006 at 2:14 am
It’s true that you do not need to submit your sites to the SE’s. But, you also don’t have to submit to directories either, although it is an easy way to get IBL’s. It is, however, very important to get as many quality IBL’s to your site as you can possibly get. Not just for the sake of the SE’s, but for the sake of getting any traffic to your site at all. But it should be said that the most important aspect, other than relevant IBL’s, is quality content.
July 26, 2006 at 5:18 am
Excellent Post. I always put Google Search on my sites. If they are gonna leave my site and not use an affiliate link, might as well get a few cents for them searching…
July 14, 2006 at 12:20 am
Hey guys!
Someone told me that you need not submit to a SE actually but you still have to submit to a directory. How true is this with regards to traffic?
July 12, 2006 at 2:01 pm
I like what your saying, its going back to basics to get traffic
July 11, 2006 at 11:17 pm
nice, i’ve implemented this on a few of my sites and we’ll see results in a few weeks!
July 11, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Sure, you can get traffic a million different ways. Is the traffic quality traffic though? Without a doubt, targetted keyword traffic from SEs to your site are the best converting visitors you could wish for – especially when you are trying to (up)sell.
July 11, 2006 at 11:00 am
Interesting, Shoe. Can’t wait to hang out with you at Havokfest!
July 10, 2006 at 11:29 pm
Thanks John.
That’s the same what I forget to mention in my previous comment!
Jeremy: If you don’t concentrate anymore on search engines, where is your traffic coming from then?
July 10, 2006 at 6:23 pm
The traffic you’ll get from search engines is easily acquired. You try to match it from any other source, and unless you’re lucky enough to be in a demand niche, (or are willing to throw great gobs of money at it), don’t get your hopes up.
The majority of my traffic comes from volume organic distribution in the serps. It’s the only way to scale without spending bucket loads. As soon as you start paying for your exposure (ie driving via PPC) you have a management nightmare if you’re working with hundreds (or thousands) of sites. Just a few sites aint so bad..
Must agree though that there’s always new ways to get IBLs and traffic. Hell, just hold a competition nowadays and voilla – not only do you get instant (temporary) traffic, but a handy way to grow a community etc.
Not that it matters. Google has just started putting the blinkers on Adwords landing pages – I don’t think they liked missing out on the earnings.. Either way, paid or stayed, people end up right back at the SEs for traffic.
July 10, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Wow, never even thought of that idea. Thanks Shoemoney.
July 10, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Ahh Mr. ShoeMoney you have finally come around to my preaching point for the past few months. Check my sermon here: http://www.georgeboone.com/why-seo-is-fast-becoming-irrelevant/ Good reading I promise
July 10, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I was guessing that he puts a button or a link to make this site the default startup page for it’s visitors but i can’t find it =S
July 10, 2006 at 2:37 pm
One happy thing about traffic from busy sites that like you is that it doesn’t go away when a search engine changes the algorithm. Of course that does require that you have something interesting or amusing to say.
July 10, 2006 at 1:31 pm
do you mean you concern on usability now?
July 10, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Cool post Jeremy!
Though I didn’t understand what you mean by the following:
“Just by giving people a easy option to make my site there startup page…”
Can someone explain?
Thanks!
July 10, 2006 at 11:08 am
I think you are right, I run a website for a car rental company and most of the traffic comes from one link, and 95% of the total reservations are made from visitors who arrived from that link =D
July 10, 2006 at 11:05 am
Hello, i think you are right on this, i run a website for my company (not the one published on this comment) and most of the traffic and the revenue (car reservations) come from another portal, I can tell you that 95% of the revenue of our website is generated from 1 link! but sometimes is hard to get a site like that, for my blog I payed the link from BOTW blog directory and so far I haven’t received any traffic from it not even 1 =S