The opinions expressed by Entrepreneur authors are their very own.
Whether your website is a content site, an affiliate site, or even an e-commerce enterprise, your saving grace is at all times your website visitors. Creating a great website is just the first step. It’s also your job to make sure potential audiences see your website.
As an online publisher specializing in news content, I like to think of my web sites as magazines. As publishers, we make sure to create beautiful magazines filled to the brim with useful information. But if we do not put these magazines where our readers can see them, no one will ever look at our glossy pages.
Our task is to discover where the virtual kiosks are and how to approach them so that our magazines are well displayed.
Search engines as kiosks
Traditionally, the largest and handiest “cinema” for online magazines were search engines like google and yahoo resembling Google.
Our readers actively entered the search engine and looked for the information they needed. The search engine – almost at all times Google – then checks what’s in stock and presents some good options. If your magazine was adequate, Google would feature it prominently in search results for that term.
With the advent of generative AI, this relationship is changing rapidly. Google is moving to providing generative search results. After training it to read our magazines, it now places the robot in front of a kiosk and allows it to answer people’s questions reasonably than showing them the magazines.
Google’s recent approach raises many issues that ought to hopefully be addressed by lawmakers and regulators.
Meanwhile, website owners who rely solely on Google for site visitors are facing a growing problem.
Diversification of traffic sources is most vital
The old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is truer now than ever. Over the last few years, many website owners have begun to rely on search engines like google and yahoo to generate traffic to their sites.
Google was such a solid and effective kiosk that focusing marketing efforts on search engine optimisation made sense. But now it is time to diversify your traffic sources.
Fortunately, we have alternatives. Here are some practical suggestions:
1. Social media
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (X), Pinterest and TikTok attract billions of users every day. By offering compelling pieces of content that appeal to your potential audience, you may effectively showcase your website. If your content matches their intentions and interests, some of them will visit your website.
An additional advantage is that your posts go viral, so social media can develop into a major source of traffic for many web sites.
2. Paid promoting
If you are confident that your online business will see a return on investment per visitor, paid promoting may be a viable way to sustain your online business. Whether you employ Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or one other paid channel, you may attract extremely focused users who are likely to turn into potential customers.
3. Content marketing in other channels
For some corporations, this will be a good time to explore more traditional sales channels. Possible options include sponsoring local nonprofits, networking with colleagues, and developing collaborations.
If you are looking for inspiration, let me share a story from before Google. In an attempt to promote a website with content on this topic, I created printed materials promoting spaying and neutering cats. I then encouraged site visitors to print out these brochures and place them in various places continuously visited by pet owners.
Although tracking visitors has been difficult, over the years we have heard from individuals who say they learned about our site from a brochure available at their veterinarian’s office or local pet grooming salon.
4. Bulletin
Building user emails into a solid mailing list is now an essential part of website marketing. Regardless of the traffic source, it is best to try to capture visitors’ email addresses. Then leverage these emails when sending your newsletter.
This newsletter may be a very effective way to reconnect with your visitors and get them to come back to your site. If you have an affiliate or e-commerce site, your mailing list may be a vehicle for offering discounts, coupons, and other ways to convert visitors into customers.
And if your current traffic levels are too low to effectively grow your email list, you may boost your efforts by using lead promoting on various platforms.
Search engines are not comprehensive traffic generators
Over the past few months, many website owners have been impacted by Google’s algorithm changes and its transition to an AI-powered response engine.
As an online publisher and president of the Association of Online Publishers, I feel their pain.
However, please keep in mind that Google is not the only kiosk on the market. Our audience walks past multiple kiosks every day – in the form of social media platforms. What’s more, we have the power to turn them into subscribers who deliver our magazines straight to their email inboxes.
It’s time to get creative and develop recent marketing strategies and skills to find recent and progressive ways to reach our audiences. Changing the direction of your online business is never easy, but website owners need to do it in 2024.