Google is throwing tantrum again. Yes…this time, it affected some of the popular blogs. Problogger, Engadgets, Andy Beard, Copyblogger are some of the few that suffered from a pagerank drop. It was rumored that this is the Google way to penalize blogs that sell links. No one has confirmed it.

While SGBlogCoach didn’t suffer from any pagerank loss, this issue does set me thinking: “how long do we have to suffer from the tyranny of Google?”

It seems that Google has a part in everything we do online. From Google Search, Gmail, Google Adwords, Adsense, Youtube, Blogger, the fate of our websites seem to lie in the hand of Google, and this is definitely not good.

The fact is, Google don’t care about the survival of Webmasters. They set the rule (and change it anytime they want, without informing you) and either you follow, or you’re out. Google lives in a completely different world from online marketers. They want to provide excellent content free of charge to the mass (Well, that’s how they make money) and expect you to do so, while the marketers want to make tons of money from excellent content. This is a total conflict of interest. Just when marketers found new way of making money while providing free excellent content, Google banned them.

Excerpts from TeachingSells:

“There’s many a “business model” that relies completely on Google—Google Search for traffic and Google AdSense for revenue. And there’s an even larger amount of so-called business models that rely almost completely on Google for traffic, even if the money comes in via other means.

I think you know what happens to the money when the traffic stops.

I use the term “business model” above loosely, because a model that is entirely dependent on an outside company, for either traffic or revenue or both, is not really sound. You’re not in charge and you have very little control, because if Google decides to change the rules, you’re out of luck. Based on that, I would argue that relying on Google is not a business at all.

I’d say you work for Google.

Even though that’s not literally true, you might as well see it that way. When one company can kill your income overnight—without notice or justification—that’s simply not a good business. They can effectively lay you off at any time, with no notice, no severance, and you never had benefits to begin with.”

It’s time we stop the Google tyranny, and the only way to do that is to stop depending on Google for survival.

How?

The answer is: diversify your traffic sources.

If Google accounts for 90% of your current traffic, then it is time you start to find other traffic sources. Here what you can do;

Marketing your website:

1. Article marketing – Submit articles to article directories is a surefire way to attract traffic. Not only can you establish your expert status, your articles will also be reprinted in various blogs or ezines, thereby increasing the number of links back to your site.
2. Syndicate content – Syndicate your content and increase your traffic with RSS feed
3. Publish a Press Release – particularly if you have an important announcement
4. Social networking – Build social communities in the various social networking sites. More details here.
5. Video marketing – Create a video on anything related to your niche and upload it to Youtube, Metacafe, Veoh, Dailymotion etc.
6. Participate in specific forums – Establish your expert status by providing help and support in forums specific to your niche.
7. Joint Venture – The best way to generate traffic is to leverage on other people traffic. Create a joint venture with the top marketers in your niche.
8. Create free stuff and give it away – Serve as a teaser for your product. Everyone just can’t resist free stuff.
9. Classified Ad– put up an classified ad at Craigslist, USFreeAds, Yahoo Classified, Oodle
10. Submit to directories – Another place to increase exposure to your site

Marketing your blog

1. Blog actively, consistently and constructively – This is really the only way to attract readers.
2. Read other blogs and give comments – You’ll be surprised how much traffic it will bring you, especially when you leave a good comment on the popular blogs.
3. Link actively to other blogs – The rule of reciprocal. People tend to link back to you when you link to them.
4. Guest blog - Invite some big names to write a post for your blog and request him to link back to your blog. It always works.
5. MyBlogLog – Register an account with MyBlogLog and start to visit other blog with the MyBlogLog widget. Your face will start to appear on their blogs. Nice traffic puller.
6. Submit to blog directories – Just another place to increase the exposure of your blog
7. Interviews other bloggers – Especially useful when there are newsworthy topic. For example, during this pagerank event, you can interview Darren of Problogger on how he feels about the drop in pagerank and ways he has come up to counter it. It is definitely newsworthy and link-worthy.
8. Accept interview by other bloggers – This only work when you have established your expert status in the field.
9. Establish good relationship with your reader – Comment on your reader’s comment and if there is any doubts, go the extra mile and provide the solution for them.
10. Pay per post – Get people to review your post.

Social Media Marketing

1. Facebook / MySpace – Invite friends, start a group, join groups, comment on friends space.
2. Yahoo Answers – Help others solve their problem and put a link back to your site in the sources field
3. Digg / Netscape / reddit / stumbleupon – Only submit your best article, do not spam.
4. Helium – Share your expertise and make money at the same time
5. Youtube – As mentioned above in video marketing
6. Wiki marketing – Start a wiki on a topic related to your niche and invite contribution from the public. Include your links in one of the contribution.
7. Flickr – take a screenshot of your site (with the url fully visible) and upload to Flickr.
8. Squidoo – Start a Squidoo lens and participate in the Squidoo community. You could easily drive traffic to your site.

Offline marketing

1. Advertise in local newspaper
2. Publish news in local newspaper
3. Get interviewed in local newspaper
4. Print your website url in namecard
5. Include signature in all outgoing mails
6. Become a sponsor in public events and activities

This is a big list of traffic generation strategy. Please put it to good use. While Google still remains a powerhouse in the Web, it is always wise to diversify your traffic sources and not depend on Google for survival.

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