How to Diversify Your Traffic Sources

In some cases, these changes may benefit your store and deliver more traffic. In others, the changes can be disastrous. If you operate your store for a period of years, you will encounter both sides of this double edged sword.

Many online stores depend a great deal on Google for getting their traffic — some stores receive more than 80 percent of their business through Google search results.

But store owners should diversify their traffic as much as possible because of ongoing algorithm updates. You will have less dependence on Google, and you'll likely open up alternate revenue generating traffic sources you haven’t used before.

Alternative Traffic Strategies

Google has approximately 85 percent of the global market for "search traffic" on desktop and laptop computers, according to published sources. Yahoo! and Bing have 7 and 4 percent, respectively. On smartphones and tablets, Google's share is more than 90 percent.

At first glance, it's hard to imagine a better source of visitors than Google.

But here are 12 alternative traffic and revenue sources that could lessen your dependence.

Direct traffic

Encourage repeat shoppers through targeted email promotions, blogs, weekly or daily specials, new products, and loyalty programs. Repeat shoppers should convert at a higher rate than new visitors. Invest in resources that help you encourage this traffic.

Mobile sites

If you have a mobile shopping site, you will have a huge advantage with anyone shopping online. This will provide you with an opportunity to steal customers from your competitors who are not mobile friendly. ShopFactory 10 now includes an automatic mobile build version of your site - you do not have to do anything - just publish your website as you normally do. ShopFactory takes care of it for you!

Mobile ads

This is an emerging area that will likely grow dramatically over the coming years. Banners and opt-in text-message ads will likely become popular as we see more innovation and investment by sellers and more acceptance by consumers.

Mobile apps

We’ll likely see more mobile shopping apps over the next few years. A well-designed app may provide a better shopping experience than a mobile-optimized or conventional website. You can promote your apps in Android and Apple app stores.

Retargeting advertising

This is a huge growth area and represents the ability to convert new shoppers by targeting them with ads after they leave your site. Your ads will appear on other sites where those shoppers visit, and you can present offers to bring them back to your store.

This can also reinforce your company’s name, brand and/or products in your buyer’s mind — even if the retargeted ad is not immediately noticed by them on the website they are visiting (it’s subliminal). Most of us don’t pay attention to every advertisement. But when it’s repeated, repeated, repeated and caught by your mind out of the corner of your eye - it pushes us in that subliminal direction.

Although this is somewhat of a sneaky (and spooky tactic) used in online advertising today — it works! Ever visit one site and then see the same ad show up on another site you just visited seconds later - that's retargeting at work. Cookies and other external tracking from the ad agency are playing a part to track your traffic and display those advertisements to you.

The point to remember: Retargeting Advertisements can integrate into all the other strategies in this article and further reinforce marketing activities.

Facebook

If you keep a conversation going on Facebook with your fans, you can create a lot of traffic to your stores. That usually leads to sales when the visitors are ready to buy.

Twitter

Twitter is a mystery for many online stores. It's a good place to hold a conversation with consumers, who will quickly share your offers with others. And it’s where a segment of your customers congregate online. Make sure you are tapped into Twitter to take advantage of it. Younger shoppers — 18 to 25 — are using Twitter instead of Facebook for much of their online browsing.

Pinterest

A good source of new referrals. There is much innovation happening here. Engage and see how you might leverage this platform for visitors and buyers.

Affiliate referrals

Affiliate networks may have taken a hit with the recent Google Penguin update. But there are many viable alternatives in this space for promoting your content and products within affiliate networks.

Banner ads on targeted niche sites

Most markets have industry specific media sites that publish relevant articles. Practical eCommerce is a good example of one. Invest in targeted banner or content ads on those sites to reach your target market without guessing at keywords. Your prospects are reading those sites. Make sure you have a presence.

Comparison-shopping engines

For certain products, comparison shopping engines are a must if you want to be seen by your potential buyers. Investigate carefully before you invest here — in many cases the large marketplaces, such as Amazon, will outbid you for top spots.

Marketplace ads

If you don’t sell on Amazon, be sure to run Product Ads there (if it’s within your budget). Many sellers have good results doing so. Amazon offers an ad platform that accepts your product feed and allows you to bid on pay-per-click ads that show at the bottom of its product pages. Your prospect is already shopping for that product, so you have a highly qualified shopper clicking through.

Summary

These are just some of the alternative traffic sources for online merchants. If you feel like your sales depend on Google, invest some time and money in other traffic-producing venues. Shift your Google referral traffic to the 50 percent range. Your revenue will be more diversified as you will find new consumers that don’t use Google as their primary shopping source.