NON Search Engine Traffic

attackdepression · #1 (**permalink**) 08-20-2007, 12:16 PM

I am a stat freak so I'm constantly analyzing my traffic and referrers. One important note about an online business is that you have to diversify your traffic sources and don't want to rely on one source (search engines, for example). So I'm curious if you guys don't mind sharing... what percentage of your traffic is from a source other than search engines.

Mine is only 5% and that is a number I am NOT happy with. That means if I dropped from the SE's I'd basically have no traffic. I would love to see that number get to about 30 to 40% because that means people are bookmarking my site or I'm getting referrers from blogs, forums, etc.

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 08-20-2007, 03:35 PM

I agree. Traffic diversification is crucial and that's one thing I'm always trying to improve. Right now my NON search engine traffic percentage is between 25 and 30%. I would love to get that number above 50%.

webdev · #3 (**permalink**) 08-20-2007, 07:04 PM

And i've been freaking out because my search engine traffic is almost the same as other site referrals traffic...lol

A month into my PHP site i was getting 80% of the traffic from google and rest from websitebabble. Then i started submitting my links to digg, dzone along with other closely related tutorial sites to PHP. Now, i get almost 40% of my traffic from referring sites. Thanks to these community based tutorial sites otherwise i wouldn't know how to build back links. I would have wasted 100s of dollars getting inbound links from paid directories. (Lisa what did you do to built inbound links to stomach exercise site besides writing ezine articles?).

I'm still getting the same traffic from google as i was getting a month ago (maybe a little more now) but my other traffic has gone up from 10% to almost 40%.

But i believe that maintaining and increasing you search engine traffic is more important than other referring traffic. To maintain your other referring traffic you need to keep building back links to get more traffic. With my niche it was easy for me to do so. I can submit my links to free tutorial sites. But my non-se traffic doesn't stay the same. I have to keep submitting my links to more and more tutorial sites to maintain the traffic.

I would also like to know how can someone with a topic such as what attackdepression has can build inbound links? Because inbound links will not only increase your non-se traffic but will also increase your SE traffic.

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 08-21-2007, 12:29 AM

Webdev, in all honesty ezinearticles is really the main method of promotion for flat stomach exercises. Oh and I did submit to 3-4 paid directories. I haven't done any "digging" or any social bookmarking sites. I really landed a gold mind with that one because I hardly did anything but kept writing content. I get a lot of traffic from stumbleupon and I never registered my site with them. It's all from others who liked the site and referred it to their friends.

While search engine traffic is important, it's also important to get more NON search engine links in order to show the search engines that people like and value your site. And more importantly, if your rankings drop for a while you (everyone encounters that at least once) then you want to be able to sustain your biz with other traffic sources. Plus having those NON SE links will give the search engines a reason to return those good rankings when SE fluctuation dust settles.

For the first 2-3 years, 2create kept dropping, gaining, dropping and gaining in the SERPS but as the content grew and my site aged it has been maintaining.

Webdev I still think the fluctuations you are seeing are due to the newness of your site. Once you've been around awhile you'll see those SE levels maintain a lot more. As I said, it took Google nearly a year and a half to start bring flat stomach a good amount of traffic.

webdev · #5 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Webdev, in all honesty ezinearticles is really the main method of promotion for flat stomach exercises.

Wow! that is really impressive. Topic such as weight loss is appealing to almost everyone. My enzine articles didn't bring any traffic. I think i has to do with the topic and also your writing skills i guess.

I think you should try social bookmarking. If one of your pages makes it onto the "popular news" pages on digg, you will get 1000s upon 1000s of hits in a span of few days. The trouble is getting to the main page.

Quote:

Webdev I still think the fluctuations you are seeing are due to the newness of your site. Once you've been around awhile you'll see those SE levels maintain a lot more. As I said, it took Google nearly a year and a half to start bring flat stomach a good amount of traffic.

I have my fingers crossed

I have started to enjoy writing content and building my site more just for the enjoyment purpose rather than making it a business. I do and hope to turn this site into a revenue stream but im enjoying the lessons im learning from it. im setting goals, tasks and deadlines. Its hard to keep up with the tasks but im enjoy completing them because i see traffic as a return for my time investment into the site.

My goal is to keep building more and more traffic to this site. Once the site is nearly complete and is on auto pilot i plan to build a community tutorial site.

I think its important to set goals like these so you that you stay motivated.

lisa · #6 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

I think you should try social bookmarking. If one of your pages makes it onto the "popular news" pages on digg, you will get 1000s upon 1000s of hits in a span of few days. The trouble is getting to the main page.

I know, I keep saying I'm going to but keep dragging my feet for some reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by webdev

I think its important to set goals like these so you that you stay motivated.

Absolutely. And even if you set a small goal like I'm going to write one article per week or increase my AdSense revenue by 5%. That really makes a difference.

Lajocar · #7 (**permalink**) 08-23-2007, 04:25 AM

Lisa made a couple of valid point
As my mom taught me "Dont put your eggs into one basket"

It is vitally important to diversify your traffic sources.

max · #8 (**permalink**) 08-24-2007, 08:00 PM

Yeah putting all the eggs in one basket is so easy to do out here. Particularly once you start getting good traffic from the search engines and money rolls in. People tend to get too comfortable. My plan is to save half of what I make no matter how little or how much it is. That way if the ride only lasts a short time I will still have something to show for it.

GreenThumb · #9 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 10:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by max

My plan is to save half of what I make no matter how little or how much it is. That way if the ride only lasts a short time I will still have something to show for it.

Such a great idea. I've heard horror stories of people making a ton of money for a few months and spending like crazy.

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