How To Generate Targeted Site Traffic Without Search Engines
“If search engines were never invented or they ceased to exist tomorrow, how would you build traffic to your website in a searchless world?”
That’s the first question each of us search-addicted webmasters should ask ourselves every morning. While search is really hard to beat in terms of cost-of-traffic and its targeting, don’t leave these other options out of your Web Promotion Playbook. Learn how to thrive on the Internet without having to worry about the unpredictable algorithm changes of search engine algorithms and you’ve created a truly defensible audience.
In no particular order, each of these methods of engaging the Internet will deliver to you targeted, monetizable web traffic:
1. Blogging. There are a hundred good reasons as to why you should be blogging, but in terms of building a web audience, the two best reasons are A) It gives you near immediate time-to-market with your message and B) It’s a great way to put a face behind your message. Popular blog services like Technorati can deliver great traffic. If we take our search engine blinders off, blog search engines are now reaching high enough adoption rates to send over great traffic, too. Ok, search blinders back on. Don’t forget to be an active and valuable commenter on the blogs of other key influencers in your business.
2. Podcasting. I don’t have any specific stats on podcasting, but just ask yourself, “Do I or anybody I know listen to podcasts?” I’m betting the answer is, “Yes!”, and the number is higher than it was a few years ago. Like blogging, Podcasting is a great way to control your message and bring it to market quickly.
3. Link buying. Search engines turn up their noses at link buying, but I have been buying links long before they were used to juice link popularity scoring. A good link can deliver tons of targeted traffic. Some Wikipedia links deliver way more benefit from their traffic than they ever did from their link authority. See: Text Link Ads.
4. TV Buys. It turns out TV time really isn’t that expensive in local markets. Check out Spotrunner. You can buy great air time for a whole lot less than you probably expected.
5. Web Directories. This is how the Internet used to be organized and the genesis of Yahoo. While most fly-by-night directories won’t ever send you enough traffic to merit the fee, take a look at Aviva Directory’s List of the Strongest Directories. Work your way down this list and you’ll see targeted traffic.
6. Ad Networks. One of the things I always try to do is buy ad inventory on any pages that rank above me. Many of the most trafficked sites on the Internet sell ad space or let ad network services like AdBrite or IndustryBrains resell the space. There is gold in some of them hills!
7. Online Forums. Like web directories, online forums can trace their history back to the earliest days of Internet traffic. But like blogging, it’s a great way to personalize your interaction with your audience while building traffic.
8. Social Media. Aside from search engines, this is the motherload of traffic. Whether you’re building a large Myspace and Facebook presence, establishing yourself as a thoughtleader on linked in, or seeing your content promoted on Digg, Netscape, and Reddit…this is probably the largest yield of any audience building effort
9. Email List Rentals. This is a huge driver of traffic in the B2B and direct marketing worlds. If you can get the right cross section of traffic in a list, it’s very profitable. Just make sure the provider of the list is in compliance with all the laws regarding this activity.
10. Webinars/Video. Webinars just might be the hottest audience building tool in the B2B world. Like podcasting, you can really go the extra mile in personalizing the message and interaction with your audience. Video communities like YouTube are a great source of traffic. What the audience lacks in buying intent, it makes up for in the ability to take your content viral. See: LonelyGirl15.
11. Online Press Releases. Maybe the oldest and most resilient of the traditional media promotional tools, the online version is also effective. You’d be surprised how many news outlets rely on newswires. Take advantage of that through online press release agencies like PRWeb.com.
12. PR Firm. A PR firm won’t pull a rabbit out of a hat, but the good ones are amazingly good at creating inertia behind your product or service. Their Rolodexes will make it easier to do everything else on this list.
13. Event Media Sponsorships. If you are a news blogger…or your site can pass as a news site…this is an amazing source of traffic and branding that most online publishers have overlooked. Just about every major conference, seminar series, or symposium is looking for media sponsorships. You’ll get a valuable link on the event website plus you can market to eventgoers with other materials in the registration bags, booths at the show, and email blasts. The results of doing this in the B2B world are nothing short of amazing.
14. Sponsored Reviews. There are a million bloggers out there who are looking for topics to write about and get paid. The concept of the sponsored review was designed by firms like ReviewMe and PayPerPost to solve this problem. Many of the Technorati Top 100 blogs can send you thousands of visitors.
15. Syndicate Your Content. There are thousands of other businesses out there who are unable or unwilling to create their own content. For example, many Fortune 500’s display third-party content to aid their audience in buying decisions. There are also a ton of article sites with active audiences and/or good traffic. Make sure you require a link back to your original source, though. You know…to establish canonicalization for those search engines we are trying to ignore.
16. Streaking. I may only be halfway joking here because I don’t think I knew about Golden Palace before a dozen of their best Brits went Frank the Tank on various sporting events I had the misfortune of watching. If there’s any chance I can convince just one web marketing team to adopt this strategy, this is me hoping that ends up being the folks who handle Jessica Alba’s online promotion. That is one server crashing I can guarantee.
I agree with the strategies you’re recommending. However, when it comes to getting the message across to small-medium sized businesses that this is what they need to be doing, it’s extremely hard to persuade them
At least here in Sweden there are a myriad small businesses that still think web-marketing means having a website that isn’t updated more than once a year. Good-old fashioned networking and word of mouth seems to bring in the business still.
I think the kind of strategies you’re outlining are taken onboard by internet marketers, probloggers, etc, but it’s interesting to see how we can get the message out to those that really need this.
Great list…it’s easy to forget that there are traffic sources besides SE’s. I also appreciate your Frank the Tank reference (esp. since I just had a nice little Saturday at Home Depot and Bed Bath N’ Beyond).
Indeed, most of these tactics can be extremely effective. But the message must be authentic and not overwhelming.
http://www.buzztone.com
I have to say your list is one of the better one’s I have seen in a while.
I think you might be missing a couple that we are looking at with our RevGenetics brand, but overall, you have many more than we are using at this time.
Will definitely use and bookmark this site.
thanks
Anthony Loera
RevGenetics
2. Podcasting. I don’t have any specific stats on podcasting, but just ask yourself, “Do I or anybody I know listen to podcasts?”
Answer: No.
A lot of my customers think of my business as a ‘web design business” but that is only partially true. Most of our customers are small businesses and organizations who have a very limited P.R. budget and a web site and only a part of the way we can get out the information for them. In fact we are refining our business to place a greater emphasis on blogs, podcasts and other “portable media”. We are tranistioning from saying we do web and “print” work to web and portable media. The reason for this is in addition to print items people now carry podcasts on their iPods or other mp3 players, videos on DVD’s, etc. Quite a few of our clients are in the construction industry we we always make a big point to tell them to put their web address on their trucks, yard signs and other media. I’ll be mentioning your article on my business site’s blog a little later.
Good list. I’ve used the majority of these and found they work to some degree. What was really helpful to me were the links to Aviva, Adbright and PRWeb which I have not used. Thanks.
I just started buying text links so I have not yet proven whether these will be worth the investment. Anyone else have good or bad experiences buying text ads? And what services did you use?
Great list.
I would add to the blogging entry that it’s important to take full advantage of trackbacks and pingbacks. These are tools that the amateur blogger may not be aware of.
As a podcaster and social media producer, podcasting is doing quit well. Interviews (a podcast I produce) has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Everyone from Craigslist’s Craig Newmark to Digg’s Kevin Rose have appeared.
And everyone is listening: Microsoft, GE, IBM, etc.
Grammar Girl: She was recently covered by the AP and CNN. Her podcast has been downloaded 1.3 Million times. Unlike the Interviews Podcast, her segments are under 5 minutes. It’s a clear indication that “less is more”, and I’ve decided to put this to work to appeal to listeners who may not have 15-30 minutes to listen a podcast.
There are many podcasts people can take advantage of for getting the word out about their blog, website, etc. Just find one that is relevant to you and introduce yourself to the show’s host. I’d suggest using e-mail, as it seems to be the contact method of choice. After all, it’s the same method I’ve used to secure great interviews.
Good tips for those who really want to get a lot of traffic in short order.
Definately a lot of good ideas and links here, thanks!
I agree on what you’re calling Webinars - I created a video up on YouTube a while ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9idS-P875j0) and it’s driven a lot of traffic - users start question out by saying “I saw your Video, and want to know about X”.
If there wasn’t a search engine named Google I wouldn’t even bother.
Great list but a hell of a lot of work and no thanks, I am sticking with the organic serps as long at the algorithm allows me.
Also choosing domain names with consistent inherent traffic eg common descriptive terms like (at the top end) cars.com.
Good tips. Another one is to have a good mail list with valuable information on your site. In the case of my job board, we use a job alert.
This is a great list and we are starting to use a lot of these for our website a href=’http://www.promisesofthefather.com’ rel=’nofollow’>www.PromisesOfTheFather.com. Using Television Ads on something like SpotRunner is something we hadn’t thought of!
This is a great list. I’ve been doing number eleven (press releases) for many years now and it works very well. Just started recently doing number 8 and have been overwhelmingly successful at number 13 (media sponsorships) which kind of fell into my lap: have had some news sites for a while now and those news sites have been successful because of media sponsorships at events, trade shows, and conferences worldwide.
The blogging is doing well, although that’s something that you have to work at for and keep up; the other things are mostly one-time deals where you can put out a press release or get listed in the strongest link directories/sites.
I would also mention that you should research your industry thoroughly, as you can get some visibility by forming partnerships with other sites in your industry, even if you might be competitors.
Very good list!! I don’t know about the streaking part… well…. why not!!!
well thats really interesting especially that i got a point that search engines arent the only place to get traffic and there is a lot more places to get targetted traffic from.
thank you for the post
jean
http://www.jean.ghalo.com
Good advice even with search engines.
the key is to convince people that what you are doing is valid and wonderful. use whatever method you want, but if they respect you, you will have TONS of traffic.
Great read, sounds more targeted towards established bloggers and companies that have the cash to spend on ppc advertising.
It always helps to give feedback on blogs that you find interesting like this one and people will usually click through to see whats going on behind the comments if they are sound enough.
thanks
A
nice post.
funny thing is that most of the stuff you mention actually serve to increase your ranking in SE too.
that’s sure a nice point of view
The funny thing is, of course, that all of these strategies will help both your natural and paid search campaigns anyway.
After all, search only catches people that already know about your product or service, or most often your company. (Brand term searches always convert best.)
Also, some of these suggestions are about setting up search campaigns anyway - but on smaller search entities, rather than the big 3 search engines. After all, someone has to search iTunes to find your podcast, or search YouTube to get your “viral content.” (I’m really starting to hate that phrase.)
Either way, great suggestions. And certainly, the more time one has to commit to each of these, the more traffic they can generate.
The techniques listed work, but they can’t provide that amount of steady and targeted traffic that, say, Google provide.
————————————
Fate wrote:
2. Podcasting. I don’t have any specific stats on podcasting, but just ask yourself, “Do I or anybody I know listen to podcasts?”
Answer: No.
————————————
Where have you been? Just take a look at iTunes and you’ll get an idea of what’s out there and, if people weren’t listening, the selections wouldn’t be there. I listen to several and my iPod goes wherever I go.
I highly recommend podcasting. PRWeb now offers it for certain levels of press release distribution. They arrange it, record it, edit it and give you access to so that you can place it on your site or wherever you want.
Great post. I’ve had great success with many of the suggestions.
Excellent list - streaking in particular. It’s interesting to note that practicing some of these alternative methods (forums, directories, blogging) over time will actually help improve your results in natural search.
Great article, and liked the part about the streaking!
Your article is interesting because we’re charged with obtaining the best (most targeted) traffic to our clients websites, but they don’t have either the budget, patience or time to wait for the search engine placements to kick in.
So, we prefer to implement link baiting and link building campaigns and also submission to Search Directories. You mention the Aviva site above, but I also found a really good site at:
http://www.searchdirectorylist.com
It lists over 2500 directories and and has them all categorized. Really useful.
Good link to Link Buying here too:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=4399
Good stuff. If you are using #16, make sure to at least write your URL on your back with a large magic marker (flourescent if it’s gonna be dark)
Thanks, that was an interesting and to the point take. I’ve been reading up on the subject of Link-based SEO strategies and off-site optimization strategies in general and the way most of the articles just drone on is starting to make my head hurt … It was nice to read about an alternative.
Thanks again for the site traffic tips and their snap, brevity whatever you wanna call it.
Or you could try the old fashion way and just have a great product that provides consumers with benefits, or also in our case helps reduce waste.
We found that without doing any SEO our USBCELL.com site got lots of attention just with people talking about it virally via the web
e.g. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=www.usbcell.com
and it just got commended this week as a finalist for Best product design of 2006.
There is a scenario where search engines cease to exist, as they are increasingly becoming ineffective at finding new or interesting stuff as they are effectively already paid for marketing promotions, it’s practically impossible say to find a unique/quaint restaurant or hotel or place to vist with them, since sites over metatag/promote the keywords used to find these. There is a convergence in language as consumers use simpler search phrases the results become commiditized and useless, if they use complex search phrases they are great at finding things, but narrows down the audience to searchers who already have a precise idea what to look for.
One of the best and cheapest ways to get eyeballs for your web site is with the discount TV ad agency, BareNakedAds,com which produces a unique high-quality TV ad - for free - with the purchase of one of their low cost air time packages. Picture airing a quality TV commercial to 10 million or more USA households across the entire country, 3X per day for a whole month, for less than many companies spend for a good week of click-thrus.
Great list with a lot of excellent ideas; but unfortunately many of these have not worked for me. I guess it’s just the industry we’re in or the audience we’re targeting, but I’ve tried places like Text Link Ads and Adbrite, and the traffic and ROI were just not there. I suppose it’s just a matter of trying different things out to see what works.
Granted, though - many of these options are quite low-cost, especially given that keyword prices on the major search engines have shot up like a rocket.
Great and Super Ideas When you do a combination of podcasting twitter rss feeds blogs websites advertising on forums it does help with your SEO
Keep up the great writing. You can never stop learning that’s What I like about search engine Optimization. Its Constantly changing so what worked yesteryear may not work this year
Really great ideas, I have already experimented the social bookmarking idea, and i am getting arround 2000 uniques per day from stumble and netscape only. I will try other options also. Thanks for sharing…
I agree with you, but this way will not give everlasting traffic. This are temporary methods. I got arround 20K uniques for one my blogs just because of stumbleupon and netscape but that did not last for long. anyways still very usefull techniques.
thanks…
Very informative post, every point you listed is relevant. I was considering a press release but heard it does not work well for blogs. Is that true? Anyone found success from them?
Most Informative. Thanks, It is nice to know there is more then one way to skin a cat. our site, http://www.Burleightextiles.com.au can do with the extra traffic, I am thinking that maybe a streaker is in order!
from that list what i want to do is “streaking” to promote my blog hehehehe.
Hi,
Great ideas you have got there! But one thing I would like to mention is that all the ideas are meant for somebody who is loaded with money.
Can you suggest some ideas for somebody new in this business & who is not able to spend much?
blogging is agreat way to gte traffic, one of the authors on my site did an article about a product he was promoting to try to spread the word on the site…this was months ago…and it did nothing but then yesterday he went from virtually no traffic to 3,000+ vistors simply becuase google indexed the page and he ended up #2 for the name of the product.
Agree with the methods. Since podcasting is #2 any software or services (web pages) that you recommend to produce podcasts?
This is a great list of how to generate targeted traffic without spending lots of time and effort trying to rank for competitive terms. We at biotivia have utilized these very techniques for promoting our resveratrol product. We most recently used it for promoting biotivia in preparation for Barbara Walters Live to be 150 special. We saw a great increase in traffic. Thanks alot for the great list!
Good post… I’ve always been envious of Golden Palace’s ablility to get exposure!
I have been using almost above methods to drive targetted traffic. Web directories give me very less (almost 0) traffic. social bookmarking, forum posting and article submission techqniques are helpfull in my case to generate the traffic.
Thanks for all your suggestions. I’m going to try one by one, and see if my site http://nosle.com goes anywhere.
I have been looking for a list like this for promoting my site. Great post! Thanks so much!
The only thing that worked for me in this list is the link building. Remember to use keyword anchor text for your links.
Well you can do this but still the search engine will play most roll on this part because no matter how hard you promote your site through many ways, it will indirectly increase the ratio for search Engine Ranking Position
Very inspiring article. I used to promote my game site RemyArts.com through costly ppc ads. Online forums and social networking really helped me increase traffic.
You should also consider developing visitor loyalty. Gadgets like buttons or toolbars might be a good way to let people remember you.
Advertisement is best source to get traffic,however link building,blogging and online forum are all other effective source to get more traffic.
from that list what i want to do is “streaking” to promote my blog hehehehe.
This is a good list of pointers