The latest Google Panda (algorithm) updates shook the online world like an earthquake.
I’ve heard horror stories from massive layoffs to long-time Webmasters/Bloggers having to look for 9 to 5 jobs again.
If you think about it, it’s very scary how one algorithm change can negatively impact a site’s revenue in seconds.
When I saw Ken Evoy of SiteSell on the Google Forums requesting an explanation on behalf of his customers, that really emphasized to me how widespread this impact was.
Not saying Site Build It! sites are never affected by algorithm updates. Of course, they’re often impacted like any other site.
However, I’ve been inside the SiteSell community for 10 years and it was clear from browsing their forums that this update had a bigger collective impact on websites that are often unaffected (as a whole) by Google algorithm changes.
Even if you weren’t affected this time, you could get hit with the next update, so I hope you pay attention.
The Truth Hurts
This post is going to sting a little, and I don’t mean to offend anyone. Please don’t take it personal as I’m only trying to help you get off this emotional algorithm roller coaster.
The reason why Panda crushed so many of you is because your business model was flawed from the start. (Ouch! I told you it would sting.)
Any time your traffic and business model is largely dependent upon one site you have absolutely no control over, you are playing with fire.
AdSense is not a stable income solution, and it’s even more unstable when your AdSense earnings are mostly dependent upon your Google traffic.
It always amazes me when I hear stories of people quitting their jobs solely because of their Google AdSense earnings. The main reason I continued to work at my 9 to 5 (even when I was earning six figures on my websites) was because I knew my income was relying too heavily on Google traffic.
My friends called me cheap. Some even said I was lying about my success online. I heard things like, If you’re really making that much money online then why are you still at your 9 to 5?
The simple answer was I just wasn’t comfortable with such an unstable source of traffic that was controlling my business. So I waited until I had multiple streams of traffic and residual income.
I realize it’s often difficult to recognize your Google dependence when your traffic is climbing and the AdSense checks are rolling in. Even though you know deep down nothing is guaranteed, it’s easy to fall into a false sense of security with the traffic Google is sending you.
Too many of you got comfortable and were sitting back relying too heavily on programs like AdSense and income sources that depend largely on how much Google traffic you had.
Here’s another hard truth…
Google never guaranteed you anything and they don’t owe you any traffic. They are running their own business as they see fit, and by relying on them too heavily, they are running YOUR business too.
Whether you think their practices, algorithms and models are inherently flawed or not, it’s THEIR business — period. They are never going to get that algorithm 100% right and “quality” websites will always suffer with these updates.
As long as Google remains the number 1 search engine, you should expect to see more of this going forward. Some months will be good, some will be bad.
So we can sit here and over analyze our rankings (analysis paralysis), manipulate keywords on our pages, create speculation, try to predict the future, publish articles that attempt to expose Google’s “unfair” practices, beg them to give us our rankings back…
Or…
We can restructure our business models to be more Panda-proof.
I vote for the latter. So here are some things you can do…
1) Engage Your List
It’s not enough to just build a list. A lot of people have e-mail lists, but they don’t know how to keep their subscribers engaged. And I’m talking about myself here. [raises hand]
I got so sick and tired of hearing everyone say, “The money’s in the list” because that just wasn’t my story. I went a long time just building a list and not doing anything with it because I had no real strategy and my open rates were deplorable.
I’ve spent the last year really focusing on how to get more out of my list, and Fortunately AWeber makes managing my list a breeze.
NOTE: I will be launching a WordPress guide next week that covers a lot of missing lessons with regards to building WordPress sites correctly for SEO and the user experience. I hope to see the fruits of my labor once again.
Ana Hoffman probably doesn’t even know this, but she’s a huge reason why my open rates and e-mail list engagement have improved. If you need some tips on how to polish your e-mail marketing strategies, click here. This is a page you’ll want to bookmark.
She also wrote a really useful guest post on my blog about list building.
2) Seek Residual Paying Programs
This is not always easy for everyone because not all topics have many residual affiliate and reseller programs.
Clickbank has added a lot more products that pay residual income in many different niches. When searching through their marketplace, look for the blue symbol that represents residual payments.
As many of you know, I’m a domain/hosting reseller, and the residual/passive income that I’ve built up over 9 years is enough for a medium-size family to live comfortably on.
If you target wanna-be Bloggers/Webmasters, this is something you may want to consider. However, if this is not your niche, I would not recommend it because it is a difficult space to compete in if you don’t have the right kind of audience.
3) Create Your Own Product
Not only can you generate a solid income through sales of your own product, but you can add an affiliate program to generate another level of residual earnings.
Thanks to programs like ShareaSale, eJunkie and Clickbank, setting up an affiliate program for your product is not the hassle it once was.
4) Get on YouTube
It is MUCH easier to get ranked in YouTube for competitive keywords because YouTube is not nearly as saturated with videos as Google is with Web pages. I rank well for many keyword phrases on YouTube that I would NEVER rank for on Google.com.
Embedding YouTube videos into related content may also improve the rankings for those pages. And some of your videos may also start to rank in Google by themselves.
I know I’m trying to break your dependency from Google. But aside from the Google SEO benefits of creating YouTube videos, you are also creating another traffic stream to your site from YouTube.
5) Work the Social Media Space
Social media is another avenue you can use to build more traffic and loyalty. However, it’s easy to get obsessed over your number of followers, fans and subscribers.
Those numbers don’t mean much of anything if you aren’t converting those people into customers and using that space to build up the foundation of your business — e-mail list, site traffic, sales for your product, etc.
As popular as social media is, you don’t technically own those pages and accounts. You may remember when SiteSell had their Facebook Page yanked out from under them for no known reason.
Fortunately they got it back quickly, but it’s a reminder why you should always use social media to continually promote sites that you actually own and control.
Remember to draw people back to your website and encourage them to sign up for your e-mail list so they stay engaged with your own site, not just your Facebook Page and Twitter account.
Speaking of e-mail, AWeber makes it super easy to add an e-mail sign-up form to the left navigation of your Facebook page. Here’s a tutorial that shows you how to set that up.
Diversify, Diversify, Diversify
My static site took a small hit in the September Panda update. I could sit and try to over analyze what I did wrong, but I chose to let it keep me focused on strategies that continue to build long-term income and traffic.
Yes, I’m still primarily an affiliate marketer, but I’m continuing to expand my portfolio with my own products and work on engaging my e-mail list more.
Google can take your search engine traffic, but no one can take your engaged e-mail subscribers, products and personal brand away from you. When the foundation of your business is built on solid models like that, Google algorithm updates won’t cause so much turbulence in your life.
I know I was tough on you in this post, but I have a feeling a lot of you needed to read this. If your website success is largely driven by Google traffic, you need to rethink your strategy NOW.
If you get nothing else from this, get that you need to break your dependence from the Almighty Google and learn to generate more stable sources of income and traffic.
Whether it’s social media, guest posting, a newsletter, your own product or a combination of all the above, I guarantee it will give you incredible piece of mind going forward.
I hope this post is the motivator you need to shift how you run your business.
Use the negative impacts of Panda and turn them into opportunities to build a solid foundation for your business instead of a shaky one that is dependent upon an unpredictable algorithm.
I’ve been watching the first 5 pages in niches for patterns in the google search. It’s interesting that the google side board is full of their google ads. And to the left of the google ads on the page are “stores”, “stores” and more stores. I had to go 5 pages deep before I started seeing content websites.
And to make matters worse, some of the stores are now getting into the content business. Overstock for example has pages set up to “inform and educate” about the different products. So, if for example, you wanted to write about “scarves” you now have to compete with other large stores that sell them, but then overstock, about dot com , e how (all content oriented sites) now have articles about the scarves, how to tie them and more.
I’ve checked this pattern out and see it over and over for different niches. Even in the sub category of “discussion” for various topics, you are now competing with large entities for discussion.
My take is, if you’re going to do a content site then you’ve got to beat out e how, article sites, about dot com, wikipedia. And to do that, you’ve got to do what they aren’t doing(Yet).
That is, as Lisa has done with her flat stomach site, is to give your Personal experience with whatever the topic is. Google is looking for content related to your personal experience.
Makes sense to me. I get tired of finding sites with all this information that I’ve got to read through for hours. Rarely do I read every page. Who has time? just show me what you can quick and fast and then I’ll decide to buy whatever is related to the process.
What about you? What has been your experience as a researcher? Go to your favorite niche, look up something and what do you see on search? was it what you’re looking for? what was on the first page of the SERPS? How many pages deep before you find the content you were looking for?
I really think you’ve got to step out of the box of being a “web designer” and see what you, personally, want from the web and if it is being found. The answer is not in speculating what you think people want but finding out what they really want.
Anyone up for giving examples of what you’ve found lately, not as a web designer with your own niche, but as a human being looking for something online.
I’m interested in what your personal experience leads you to. Why? because I think we can figure out ourselves what google is attempting to do.
Google has said over and over they are interested in more authority websites. I don’t see that as being a “specialist” in your field, necessarily. But I see that as showing you have experienced something and are willing to share it.
But here’s the kicker. How will you monetize this information? Well, I see that overstock ,who sells product, is now using their content pages on various topics, hoping to get you to buy the products on their site.
Remember Overstock was hit hard by the earlier panda and now they’ve obviously learned a lot and adopted a new model. Could that be telling us what google wants to see?
I think the answer is really getting in your own ‘shoes’ (smile) in regard to niches you’re personally interested in to learn what google is doing.
I’m interested in practical examples of what others think.
Thank you Lisa for presenting this post and giving us your examples.
But, from reading these comments, it seems people are still searching for other practical suggestions. I think we need to look at our own personal experience shopping online. What are we personally learning about google? What have you found? Let’s put our heads together.
Hi Sandy
Excellent point about the businesses getting into the content biz. So true. The reality is, the internet landscape is changing. Everyone is trying to present themselves as the authority so it makes it harder to compete. I am still a supporter of the keep-it-real approach and showing how you personally relate to your site — and of course providing great content as well. As content marketers, we all have to work hard at building our own individual brands.
i don’t know about Google Panda, but i must know it now, bacause veri impostant for blog,,
thank’s
Everyone, Google is out there for their business. They will do it often for rationale reasons to suppport their business strategy. You cannot rely on one business source, so try to use as many traffic sources as possible. For that reason I am moving into videos. For our SEO we look to rank on the other search engines and look for backlinking from the widest possible number of sources.
All the best
Steve
Hi Lisa. I agree that you cant make your business on Google traffic. But can you tell me who is wining on this pandas updates. We always hear lose lose lose is there anyone who win. When will the small bloggers with unique content get the peace of the cake?
Hi Lisa:
I too have an SBI! website as well as a wordpress blog that I started after reading your blog. It was only up until about 8 months ago that I was relying solely on building my google adsense and traffic. I started developing a my list which made me feel better, but the problem is that when google’s Panda algorithm penalizes your site – it’s site wide so my blog took a hit too!
I’m not complaining because this was a HUGE wake up call for me that I need to really start looking at things from a different perspective.
As usual, you are right on target!
Thanks for the ideas and motivation, Lisa. My wife and I own three SBI websites already and two of the three took 50% haircuts with the latest Panda. We’re really motivated to diversify – I’m writing software tools and my wife is working on instructional videos and starting her second SBI site on a completely new topic in her area of expertise.
Good for you, Clark. All the best to you and your wife.
Hey Lisa.
Thanks for this Post. After Panda its difficult.
But Google and Panda are the Future.
hi, its great..thanks for speaking about this particular useful information..Thanks Lisa..
Thanks Lisa, great post. But I have to say I have not had a problem so no Panda issues here. But it is good to get all the awareness about it as possible.
Thanks for posting this Lisa. Nothing I didn’t already know but it’s easy to get lost in the fog of defeat when you wake up and find all your progress swept away during the night.
This has definitely been a time of reevaluating how much more time and effort I want to invest in online business building.
Your article helped give some clarity. I wish I’d seen it sooner.
Last January when so many of my cohort got slammed by Panda I very glad that I did not get hit. I was very nervous but like an idiot I did not take the action I needed to diversify my income. I was lulled by the tremendous increase in traffic that followed believing that I was doing what Google wanted and I had nothing to worry about. Then on the morning of Oct 14th the bottom dropped out. Lost 50% of all my traffic and 60% of my Adsense income. What a dummy I was. Now I am feverishly going back to selling information products on the sites that I had sold them on before. I only hope I can survive.
Jim
Lisa, I just purchased your ebook – thanks for writing it! I am looking forward to reading it. You’ve built up a good amount of credibility in my book- and that says a lot 🙂
Joe
Thanks, Joe!!
hi Lisa
i agree with Sandy. Google is changing every day.
its not easy to blog and have a business and a family 🙂
I was kinda worried when i heard about the panda update,but after the update i have had an increase in my search traffic,and i was very much relieved.
I agree google not owe us anything, majority of websites are only depends on google traffic. They do whatever changes they want,they didn’t care if many are affected.
Although google panda is a big slap, all we can do is we should be aware for any changes that google will implement.
Great tips, thank you very much. I also learned many good life-changing tips from Ana Hoffman.
So far i wasn’t penalized by Google and i hope this will stay the same as much as possible. I wish you all the best!
Right on time as I’m investigating a niche.
As a person on the other side(a researcher) I’ve noticed on my favorite google serps that the top ten keep changing. I don’t think there will be a “static” set of top people anymore in any search.
Without to much speculation, I’ve noticed for me that in my favorite research subject areas that the websites which are now occuring on the first page of google are much more “concise” and answer the question or issue.
The reality for me is that I have a particular thing I’m looking for. If I want to know all about the different types of pillows, for example, then I go to Wikipedia or About dot com. But if I want to know how to deal with allergies of pillow stuffings, then I “google” it. Usually the answer to that question is all I want.
So why am I so picky? because of “time”. There is just to many things to do (like post in fourms…smile) and clean the house that I just can’t spend all my time on one site. There are to many distractions.
So if I have a problem, I google it. If I need a particular item, I google it. I think it is really important that your website addresses the issue. For instance if I want some comfortable sandals I’m going to zappos or sites which sell. I doubt if I would wade through a website which explains to me the nuances of buying comfy sandals. But, and this is a big but, there are people who collect comfy sandals and they may want the information. But, will they buy from your links?
Summing up, google is changing every day and so my searches have got to be more pointed, because I don’t have the time.
Thanks to anyone who took time out of their day to read this…LOL
We were oen of the lucky ones I guess. We saw some of our keywords actually improve with the Panda update. I agree with most of your points. I think the key to a successful website is to diversify. SEO, PPC from multiple sources, social media, email, etc should all be employed to be successful.
This information is right on time! I’m in the process of adapting my portfolio right now!
Thank you!
Hi Lisa,
The sting was taken out of your comments a bit as I have already been slowly coming to these same realizations over the past few weeks.
I falsely believed that as long as I was publishing the content that I thought Google wanted that I did have some control over my traffic and income. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
While I am still smarting from the Panda slap, I am extremely thankful that I learned this lesson sooner than later. My online business can only be stronger going forward as a result.
Take care,
Greg
They do owe us to follow their own rules and apply them equally to everyone Don’t they?
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=242f7b2e08946892&hl=en
G can fix easily so why don’t they? They don’t care it seems.
That’s why I am not using them for squat.
Lisa,
I would like to thank you, for all your help, you have helped me a lot. You have opened my eyes to things I was once blind to. About the Panda update, I dont believe I was affected by this at all oct. 2011 was actually my record high in unique visitors and visits in general, but I do agree about diversifying your income and traffic, I’ve only been doing this for a little under a year now and I learn more and more each day.
Sometime I find it to be a little difficult, I am signed up to a lot of sites such as bookmark sites, social media sites, blog directories. Its very hard to keep track of all this “im only one person” It can get overwhelming.
Question: What do you think about Federated Media ?? Do you think its something I should look into, Im trying to find more ways to drive traffic
Well Thank You !!!!
You are so right that Google does not owe us any traffic. People really need to wake up to that truth!
Lisa,
This post was an eye opener and explained a lot about why our niche sites where crushed by the almighty Google. We are looking at diversifying our traffic as a new business strategy.
Nice article lisa. I was hit with this update also and I’m planning to build an authority website that will help people.
Thanks for your blog. I’m inspired to pursue my passion.
Great Article. It was an eye opening article. Many of the bloggers or say almost every blogger heavily depend on Google traffic. I read your article twice and thought of myself if I am doing any mistake to put all my efforts for Google traffic. Yes, I am having other methods of traffic on my blog but I focus more on Google only. Now I am looking to change my strategy and plan for a very stable blog and a continuous source of earning other then AdSense. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and make me informed.
We were also having nightmare with panda towards few of our sites. We wonder why is it that we were having hard times ranking our sites now when we use to do it quickly before. We’ve tried so many ways, doing backlinking manually until we found out about panda. I agree that we did not took precautions that moment we heard about it because we did’t expect it could affect our rankings. So it hits us. Now we finally established few techniques on how to ride panda stream.
But we are still in continuous search on how to keep track our rankings with panda. Any share of ideas are highly appreciated.
such a nice post and a great research on Mr.Panda
he even ruined the traffic of my website but with the help of some tips i stand it again
Funnily enough I had a site dedicated to offering security services for a business of mine and that wasn’t badly hit initially. It is only recently that i have started to see a drop in serps, i think down to duplicate content. This was simply because i had a page each dedicated to optimise for a certain region. I have since re-wrote a lot of the content or spun it in order to see how that fairs. here’s hoping! (fingers crossed)
Why does everyone think google is a so great! I did for years but got tired of them being able to wipe me out in a day. I taught many how to use them(& WP) to make a few extra $ in these bad times. They are all asking me for help now after the rabid panda bit them.
I told them NOT to put all their eggs in the gogle basket but many did anyways and are in trouble now. Thier sites are ok but google just dumped them. MAny pointed out that site that STOLE thier content is now on pg1 and their original content is around pg20.
I told them how to fix it… just DUMP everything google. Use nothing google offers at all. They thought I was crazy but I did just that and have regained my ranking in google (oddly) and have seen great improvements in bing/yahoo too.
I still have to go thru my sites 300-400 photos and 150 articles and find where they have been copied and ASK the site owner to remove them. It could take months but I owe my members that much.
Anyone who get more than 20-30 % of thier traffic from any one source is not wise. Fb and twit** and all the other great social sites can easily make up the rest. I have 0% traffic from google now bc I use robot.txt to block all their bots and I am glad! Bing/Yahhoo have also rewarded me for this too, i can tell by my stats/refs my stats show.
Great site btw!
Zero Google, man you really kicked them to the curb! I on the other hand wouldn’t go that far because there are still so many ppl that use google. Instead I just balance my seo efforts by spreading tactics amongst other traffic sources and of course continually work on building my LIST 😉
Oh they do still send me traffic, just not as much. I can focus my efforts on other sources and not slave to make the “G” happy. I re-did my sites 3 times over summer and I won’t do it again. Who’s to say g wont have a panda2,3,4 ..ect. They seem to change their opinion of what is good and bad according to the way the wind blows.
An example of how messed up they are now is if u g the phrase – rockabilly tattoos – #2 ranked is a BLANK page and the cache is also so it was there for a while. #7 (for me) clearly says “Links – Rockabilly Central” and leads to a LINK FARM!.
G claims bing copies their searches but if they do at least they are smart enough to remove the crap. Bing the same term above to see how much better bing search is for that keyword.
The most upsetting thing is the copied content from my sites getting others #1 rank where (my site) the original is pg10+. If my content was so horrible then why does it rank so well for others?? Make me mad to think about it.
So Tom, do you mean you removed Google search, Adsense, analytics, Plus One button, translator, Gmail, etc?
Yes Sue I did remove all things google from ALL my sites. I must say they have enjoyed much love from bing and yahoo and prob others too. I THINK they like it…lol.
I do still use/like a wp plugin that uses google to translate in real-time on page. Click my name to see the one I mean.
I am also working more on a local level to earn from local biz to place ads on a local community site I am working on. Not easy but better than wondering what the “change of the day” google will gift me with next. I am doing more w/amazon,linkshare,cj, chitika to name a few. I try out every ad service I can find to compare to google adsense. Honestly none are as good. One good sign is that they are all saying it will take a while to get approved because they are backlogged with new publishers. Prob. coming from adsense 🙂
Soon I think there will be a smart person (or bing) to create adsense-like publisher tools for us. None look as good and are better targeted to my traffic esp on tattoos site. I miss the way they look and sizes too.
I have given up on trying to get my content removed from the copy sites, google OR the host dont seem care, SAD.
Good luck to you Sue! 🙂
I must admit that what you have cited with all of your discussion his me. I understand that we are too dependent with traffic , adsense and we do not over think of making something which will be very much beneficial like creating our own business strategy. Google panda really made my life as well as an SEO quite difficult since it puzzles my brain on the changes it has done to push my clients website so hard. This post is a very good reminder which I am very much considering. THanks.
Hi Lisa,
I’m in the process of deciding to use a WP blog or sbi for my fitness and weight loss authority site. Can one still engage enough with an audience using sbi compared to a blog?.(i want to build a follwing so I don’t have to rely on the search engines too much in the long run). I already have a mbshp site done which I can use to build a list (my personal training clients are using it; it has not been sent traffic online). With an evergreen sbi site do you think I just have to work to get visitors a) ‘like’ me (facebook) engage users to add pages c) get visitors on an email update for recently added content etc? The site is going to be an authority site not a faceless cheap ‘click me weight loss pills’ affiliate site. Any suggestions? Thanks (keen to start this long term project).
Like a lot of people, some of my sites were hit by Panda…at least I think. One of the most frustrating things about Google is that it’s really hard to tell exactly what might have caused your site to lose rank.
Was it something you did on the page? Was it your backlink strategy? Was it the content? Was it an algorithm change or a penalty of some sort? Was it because of something you did yesterday or 3 weeks ago?
Even when you do everything the way Google says you should, your site can still get hit. And anyone who tells you they “KNOW” what happened is lying to you in my opinion.
Yes, you can do some research, take a close look at your site, and make an educated guess, but only Google KNOWS and they aren’t going to tell you. So you can spend hours and hours trying to guess, tweaking this and that, or you can just keep moving forward.
Chances are you’ll tweak things that don’t need tweaked if you try to analyze everything too much.
Lisa, you hit the nail on the head with this post. People need to stop worrying about Google and expand their businesses beyond just one search engine.
Oh, and stop complaining if your site suddenly drops out of Google. It’s Google’s search engine. It’s Google’s business. They make the rules. They can do what they want. They don’t owe any of us anything.
They can’t come into your bricks and mortar business and tell you how to run it, so don’t expect Google to let any of us run THEIR business either.
Excellent article as ever!
When the quality of the content is not compromised, I feel that there is no need to worry about anything. Informative and quality articles take care of the traffic (as in your sites) and the rest follows.
regards………
You know its true what you said in that Google is running many online businesses by default. Ppl are relying too much on them so building a massive engaged list with a builtin residual money maker is a MUST. This is how smart online marketers weather the Google storms and economic downslides.
Thanks for the tips provided through this blog post. These tips are really helpful to develop online business and earn more money. The different types of programs will encourage the customer to go through the website, which will increase the ratio of income.
Great truths but like you warned some are hard to swallow! Thanks.
Lisa, I hadn’t known about a September Panda update until reading this post, and now it makes some sense to me. One of my sites was generating a nice monthly figure, and I noticed this month that it was going to come in around 33% less than normal. I hadn’t overly worried since it’s not liveable income, but I wondered what was going on. After reading this I went to check my analytics and saw that my traffic has dropped 21% this last month; that’s not good at all.
As you said, gotta diversify the update and spread out some more. At least now I have an idea why, so thanks for the post.
Hi Lisa,
Painful but so true. What people forget is that a website is like a magazine, you can read info, do some crosswords, look at the ads or even colour a picture. But google and the readers who decide what people want to read.
People invest in their magazine whilst they should invest in their processes and people that produce these. If the magazine falls out of favour, …, you know what to do.
And once you have these processes imagine what else you can produce!
Nik
Yes, I too diversify. I once learned the hard way with my ONE site. It got hacked and turned into a phishing site and I went from making well over a full time income to being black listed, losing hosting, and ultimately my whole website. I have slowly climbed back up a bit, but I now know that you should never leave all of your eggs in one basket.
Many are amazed to learn I do tree work in the day and work my business in the evenings to support my family. Like I said, I am still working my way back up the ladder I fell from.
Good advice.
Aaron Siegel
T1 Internet bandwidth costs are not based on bandwidth but rather reliability.
Thanks, Excellent post Lisa.This post is very helpful for my website.I think my sites are Panda proof, google didn’t smack my sites.
Hey Lisa,
Firstly, you have that flat stomach exercise website out there that I like. I recognized your picture. I actually drop by that website from time to time. It has good information. Also, I’ve heard about your success using site build it. Good service.
Now to the article. I agree about diversify. Relying on just one source for traffic can be dangerous. I’ve heard a lot of success stories about YouTube, but never really tried (which is stupid because they are like the 3rd most viewed site). Also, the recurring cash is great. I really never thought about it, but really makes since. Keep up the great blogging!
Lisa you hit the nail on the head with this. I saw several high traffic sites get hit with Panda and not recover. Your right when you say you must diversify.
Jerry
Hello Lisa,
This post hit home for me; my site took a hit in the rankings and I just could not understand what I did wrong. I seeked the help from others and I kept hearing the word “diversify” your linking efforts. So, I’ve been focusing on balancing my link portfolio, so when their are algo. changes, I have a better chance of standing ground. So far so good, I’m slowly regaining my rankings.
I think I’m at the other end of the spectrum because I have not seen any drop in traffic (maybe I got more). In fact many of my reviews appear at the top of Google. You are very right though about diversifying income streams.
Joe
Great post Lisa and it is an eye opener indeed. Too much relying on one business is sometimes very frustrating especially after google panda update. I think my sites are Panda proof, google didn’t smack my sites back till now..
This was so relevant to where I am right now. I am trying to build multiple income streams, both online AND offline. Relying too heavily on any one thing can be your demise. My dad has been in sales his entire life either as the salesman or as the business owner hiring the salesman. One thing I have heard him say 1000s of times over the years is not to rely on your ONE big client. You better have lots of smaller clients there to support you when that big one goes MIA. Much easier to replace one small guy here and there than a big guy! The concept is very much the same when building profitable websites, providing services, etc. Whatever you choose to do…when you are depending on other people’s money, you better be versatile in your efforts.
Interesting to find out that SiteSell had trouble with Panda. Haven’t kept up with Ken Evoy and SiteSell for quite some time.
Couldn’t agree more, best to diversify your business model. Very precarious to depend solely on Google for your traffic, even if you practice only the best white-hat strategies and give Google what they love.
Thanks for the good info.
Great Tips Thanks for Sharing! It is quite strange how things change rapidly after panda update! Agreed With you that Google is running their business and you have to focus on your business after panda! After This Algorithmic update webmasters have to rely on qualitative content and social media to increase their sites traffic!!
Thanks for this great post. Yes I know I shouldn’t be overly Google-dependent but it’s easier said than done. If not adsense than for affiliate products you still need Google traffic and if you create your own product to make it search independent you will still need to invest heavily in online marketing – adsense, FB ads. So we meet papa G again 🙂