But don’t take our word for it. Let us point out the following blog post/interview from a group called GreyLock Partners. They fund many large companies and the small ones such as Linkedin, you might have heard of it.

The questions at hand is simple. “What online efforts and strategy can you implement to grow your website traffic?” From their on going series with Adam Nash, EIR and former VP Product at LinkedIn, they hit on (8) major topics. Below, we will highlight (7) we feel are relevant plus one.

1) Organic

Advantages: It’s like crack. Once you have organic traffic, you always want more. Users come come in and do more when they arrive, because “arrived on purpose” signals intent, and that makes a difference on whether they’ll engage.

 

Disadvantages: We don’t know how to get it. You can’t take a smart PM and have them grow organic traffic. They don’t know how. Is PR / Don Draper the best we can come up with?

 

 

2) Email

Advantages: The good news (and bad news for our inboxes) is that it scales. Here we mean mostly product integrated emails, like eBay’s outbid notice, not marketing emails. As it scales, it often converts back to sites through links. It can be personalized, optimized, etc.

 

Disadvantages: It’s very transactional, and often hard to turn it into something more.

 

 

3) Search

Advantages: People have realized that it’s important to make an effort to get this legitimate source of traffic. And it does scale.

 

Disadvantages: It’s now an arms race – you need to have millions of pages of content to play the game. Then the question is whether you’re really doing the right thing for that user, or just getting them to your site. Finally, it’s never perfect, never done.

 

 

4) Advertising/SEM

Advantages: BD people have found a lot of ways to buy traffic, so there are options – clever ways to find the audience you want, and convert them for a fee. You can also target and optimize. A valid example is paying to gain a critical mass at a certain time, like Zynga has done, to get the viral/social crank turning through other channels.

 

Disadvantages: It’s cash up front, for an uncertain future value. Also, you can get stuck in a total user value equation, which may be risky. One of the dangers of buying traffic is not realizing that the new users, acquired through those channels, have fundamentally different economics, not based on the original model.

 

 

5) Social Feeds

Advantages: If you do it right, you can reach a huge amount of people in a short time. It can  be personalizable. This is the primary viral channel for Instagram, for example.

 

Disadvantages: It requires the right type of content. “If your users have content that is legitimately interesting to people they know, then they’ll push it out.” And it takes iterations to get it right.

Let’s break this down simply: in order to drive self-distribution / viral user acquisition, you have to have features that let users talk to non-users. There are hundreds of features on LinkedIn, but in 2008, we realized that there were only three that ever led to non-users reaching the site, at scale. And those three feature were where new users came from: organic flows, published public profiles, and invitations through email.

 

6) Mobile (we are making it number 6)

Advantages: Do you know anyone who doesn’t own a phone? You need minimal information on a mobile site if you are just getting started. You can place simple Adsense on your mobile sites and gain revenue. Costs can be low to start and $35K plus for a complex mobile application and developer.

Disadvantage: Do you know anyone who doesn’t own a phone? If you want a truly dynamic app with flexibility you need a developer team at least.

(BBM is adding this one in as it was not mentioned and it is crucial)

7) Customer Design Experience

This topic should mentioned. World Of Mouth and referrals add to driving traffic to your site and they are the best type of the lead. The lead comes to you wanting your service and it is up to you make them feel all warm and fuzzy.

Site traffic is relevant to sales from any angle. The Penguin and Panda 3.3 updates should be identified and put in consideration along with your Content Curation. Search Traffic is no long really SEO, it is an integrated marketing plan. It’s time to  adapt all your online efforts.

Questions:

• Have you been hit by the Google updates?
• Have you reviewed and updated your Search strategy with your consultant or agency?

View Full Post

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: originalpozer via Compfight

Focus
It is simple. Happy Users convert to Happy Consumers and Happy Customers breed Eager Referrals for your business. With the evolution of digital tools as a business you lose control of your brand experience. Digital Marketing, Social Media, Mobile and Public Relations amongst other tools amplify our touch points with consumers. Unfortunately, you need to know what your user or visitor is experiencing before they are a customer. We can help.

Description: How This Benefits You

Other Popular Links:

Quick-Start Examiner Packages

Brand Examiner
Content Examiner Package
Search & Social Examiner Package
User Experience Design Package

Full Service Agency Services
Small Business Education – Start Now

Client Portfolio

(NO COMMENTS PLEASE)

Focus 

Link what? What is my Reputation? We believe strongly in the share “Link- Love” philosophy and apparently Google does as well. If you want more valuable organic search traffic you need “Content with a Pulse” and a lot of “Link-Love“. Need a clear aerial view of your Search Engine Marketing, PPC, links and Social Media efforts? This package puts all your data across several platforms that might not be at the surface. Our team of Search Optimization Analysts and our Digital Strategy Team audit, evaluate and explore possibilities for you.

Description: How This Benefits You

Other Popular Links:

Quick-Start Examiner Packages

Brand Examiner
Content Examiner Package
Search & Social Examiner Package
User Experience Design Package

Full Service Agency Services
Small Business Education – Start Now

Client Portfolio

(NO COMMENTS PLEASE)

Focus:

You spend large budget dollars on corporate communications to present to your potential customer demographic. With all communication efforts and budgets spent to perceive your brand in a certain light it can be defeating when something goes awry. We try hard to create and emotional response. Ever wonder with all the online digital tools and communication platforms out there what your target demographic actually experiences and perceives?

 

 

Description: How This Benefits You

Quick-Start Examiner Packages

Brand Examiner
Content Examiner Package
Search & Social Examiner Package
User Experience Design Package

Full Service Agency Services
Small Business Education – Start Now

Client Portfolio

(NO COMMENTS HERE PLEASE)

Two Perspectives On Search:

1> You appear in my search on Google, Bing and Yahoo because you have bought your way in to appearing in my search OR organically your SEO expert has finessed the algorithm and has worked hard over time building up your links. You see in search what they want you to see and not always the top quality nor precise information.

2> User generated approach. Others on the web have tagged, labeled, noted or book marked other sites relevant to their own search that don’t suck. The more times the item (website) has been tagged the more relevant or creditable the information is. The human element is what makes this approach to search a more viable option when searching for quality instead of quantity.

As a Searcher on the web you need to filter through all the noise and to be objective in order to find the quality information. Get off the three commonly used search engines. Be smarter in your searches!

When you have lost your keys or phone do you only look in one place? Ideally you search in multiple locations.

Here is a list of other search engines we use when we are looking for objective information for clients and reporting.

User Generated Bookmarking Sites

Delicious

Stumbleupon

Pinterest

Reddit

Technorati

Social Media Optimized – Blogs, Social Media and a little Search

Youtube

Google +

Social Mention

Who’s Talking

Topsy

PostRank

Regator

BoardReader – Forum Search

Addict -o- matic

Twitter Search

Facebook Search

Q&A and Job Searches

Linkedin Job Search

Linkedin Q&A

Straight-Up Search Engines

Crunchbase

Wolfram Alpha

Dogpile

DuckDuckGo

Joongel

NowRelevant

Search Traffic To Find “Partners” with “Audiences”

Double Click Ad Planner

Quantcast

BuiltWith

Ebooks, PDFs, Presentations, Clever documents - Great access to top minds in their field

Scribd

Slideshare

If You Must Google

Enhanced Google Search Features

Google Book Search

Google Advanced Scholar Search

Images

Google Image Search

Creative Commons

A final fun one! Check out what is wrong with your own site!

Hubspot Grader

Connect:

Know of an amazing search site we missed? Post it in comments below and we will add it to the list!