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Sometimes I want to curse Google with every bad word I can find in my vocabulary. But one can’t really hurt it. One can only flirt with it and find one’s own solution. Sometimes it can be found in the savvy SEO that works like SE->Traffic->Sales->Income and Traffic + Sales = Conversions. However with the algorithm and policies changes that Google frequently surprises the IT and SEO communities with, this approach might fail big time.

There are tons of examples on how quickly and inevitably websites can lose their rankings and the SEO value. So let’s take a look at what we as marketers can do to build strong online ground for our companies that would not depend on SERP and still bring revenue.

Where traffic comes from

There are organic and paid traffic coming to your site. Both are good and solid but really depend on:

1. Google Search Algorithm;
2. Google policy.

Recent Panda and Penguin changes confirmed once again how vulnerable our SEO efforts are and how quickly they can vanish into a tin air. Same with Google policy. If you are selling something like wine starting July 1st of 2012 your product will fall into a “Non-family” category and as such will have very strict rules and regulations as to the search and AdWords policies. In their efforts to improve quality of the online content Google becomes a very strict enforcer with very specific requirements. Good news is if you have a good product and you sell it through quality content chances are the almighty Google will love and bless you.

What to do to get free from the SERP dependency:

1. Find and develop new sources of traffic: increase referral traffic; 
2. Increase social media traffic;
3. Improve internal marketing efforts; 
4. Encourage recommendations; 
5. Improve quality of products/services; 
6. Work on offline presence; Develop direct traffic;
7. Work on brand awareness - people will search your brand which always have very low keyword competition;
8. Be more aggressive with social media promotion;
9. Increase and develop direct traffic;
10. Increase search traffic for brand-keywords;
11. Expand mobile traffic opportunities.

How to implement all of the things listed above:

• Integrate high quality link building technique which not only increases backlink profile but also drives traffic (connecting to referral traffic increase);
• Increase display ads which helps not only to enlarge traffic but to create substantial brand awareness (connecting to both referral and direct traffic increase)
• Strongly encourage recommendations. Everyone knows that the word of mouth is the best advertisement ever on and off line (here: direct traffic increase)
• Increase offline presence (direct traffic increase)
• Work harder on brand awareness. This will help you to increase interest to a brand and to increase search traffic for brand-keywords
• Work on products/services quality because “good product promotes itself”.

The main idea behind all of the suggestions listed above lies in the simple thought of improving common marketing approaches to discover and analyze strong and weak sides of the business. Especially it concerns ecommerce enterprises since ecommerce industry was the biggest loser in Panda update because of its heavy dependence on the organic Google traffic. Think up of your own solution and experiment on what’s working for your business and what does not. Solid competitor analysis could be a good start in finding right directions to point your strategies. But mainly think in terms “Content is a king” and “Google loves content”.


Author bio: 
I'm an Online Marketing specialist, who have been working for over than 3 years with ecommerce solution and ecommerce projects promotion. I have already formed my own view on many things in ecommerce and online marketing, which, I hope, will be appreciated by the audience of this astonishing website. However my current experience connected to B2B, I'm still keep an eye on all B2C market trends.