Do you rely on search engines for traffic?

This brings up a nice little discussion, because I've seen many websites come and go throughout my webmaster career, and I've seen some websites die because of their rankings going down and such.

So, I'd love to ask all those webmasters out there if they rely on search engines for traffic or not.

As we all know, getting ranked, and ranked well on search engines can help or break a site, so I'm one to say that some of my websites rely soley on search engines and word of mouth, while I have other sites that just rely on word of mouth.

How about you?

 

well there are many ways of getting traffic on the net, but be in the top of the search engines is the best, but is not neccesary to be on the top of the seach engine get traffic

 

I agree there are a lot of ways in getting traffic it may depend on the type and content of your site. In my case 50% is coming from SE.
Good luck to all ('',)

 

I personally feel that if you continue to develop an honest legit business online with constant growth via links and content you will continue to surge to the top - and stay there unless you cross the ever so sensitive line of overdoing it.... or 'underdoing' it. The SE's notice activity and are constantly looking for real,solid, non-spammy updates. Just like you'd do if you owned a SE company and depended on good results for your customers to come back.

 

Traffic from search engines really help, but if you are an experienced webmaster, you will know that depending solely on search traffic would be foolish move. What i would do is make a site, exchange some quality links, optimise my site, add good content and then provide quality updates regularly. In this case, i wont have to wait for SE for traffic and it will automatically move my pages on top slowly. So, when i will be getting good hits from my links on other sites, SE traffic would add up to good amount of traffic.

Regards,

Admans.

 

Yes it's good to have search engine referrals all the time but you have to consider other traffic source too:

1. direct/bookmarks/offline marketing
2. blogs
3. news/press releases
4. directories

I believe there is no ideal ratio between traffic from SEs and all the rest. What's more important is that you have increased the number of your visitors and ultimately translate to more sales.

 

If you have good SEO, other traffic sources will come naturally. They will find you in the SERPs and list you on their relevant sites. I advertise my sites and my client's sites too, but SEs are my top priority

 

Most of my traffic is from SE but my sites with the most traffic also get traffic natural one way links. For example some travel sites I have give actual on the ground information about locations and events, and I get bloggers linking to me all the time as a reference.

 

I'd prefer to have everything in balance. If search engines undergo major changes that drop rankings that deliver traffic to my site, I still have inbound links from sites, blogs and directories to rely on. Otherwise if these sites remove their links, shut down or experience down times, search engines are there to provide traffic. I wouldn't under estimate offline marketing either.

 

Yeah Most of my hits come from MSN Search actually.. second from personal sites, blogs, etc...

 

How do you know if you're getting traffic from blogs?

 

I get roughly 80%-90% of my traffic from the SEs, and the remainder from other sources. I find that ranking well in the SEs (especially Google) usually yields benefits in the form of other traffic as well, e.g. backlinks from related sites, etc.

Sam

 

In your stats (Google Analytics, WebTrends, ClickTracks, etc), if you see the referal url to be from blogspot, livejournal or any other site you'd identify as a blog site, then that's traffic from blogs for you.

 

i would say mine are :

10% Search engine
40% blogs
10% email ( people email links to each other )
40% direct type ins.

Neil

 

An interesting question that needs to be answered is what percentage of your traffic should come from search engine.

 

All traffic is useful, doesn't mater where it comes from

My sites vary quite a bit, I had one that was probably 99% SE traffic not so long ago. I think all of my sites are at least 10% SE with the most at about 40% currently.

 

Oh, okay, I see now.
Thanks!

 

google and yahoo thats it!!!!!!!!11

 

I get 70 to 80% of my traffic thanks to the Search Engine (70% Google, 20% yahoo). I don't think that my website would have become so popular without SE...

Regards,
Ludovic

 

rollytan wrote:

"I personally feel that if you continue to develop an honest legit business online with constant growth via links and content you will continue to surge to the top"

I totally agree with rollytan, that is the best way to get constant traffic for your site, an honest, constant growth, and PERMANENT QUALITY CONTENT UPDATE, that way you will get traffic from either, search engines and via links.