The Dangers of Google-Only Techniques

Why Google Should Not Be Your Only Focus

Given that Google alone makes up for over 50% of all search engine traffic on the Internet, you could easily make the mistake of focusing everything on optimizing your web pages for this one source. The rewards of a high ranking in Google would result in a lot of traffic and therefore a lot of leads and sales.

So why shouldn't you just focus on Google?

Reason #1: You will be missing out on other Search Engine Traffic

First off, Google accounts for over 50%, but there is still close to another 50% of the Internet using other search engines. MSN Search comes preloaded in Internet Explorer, and most that are not internet savy don't even know how to change their homepage.

Yahoo cannot be ignored either as it is one of the most popular websites on the internet.

If you do not work to rank high in the other search engines then you will lose out on their traffic as well.

Now, if you have any Search Engine Optimization tutorials you will probably have noticed that a lot of the techniques used for Google will benefit you with Yahoo and MSN as well. This leads to the next reason why you shouldn't completely focus everything on Google (or other search engines for that matter):

Reason #2: You will be missing A LOT of other traffic

For myself, most of my traffic does not come from search engines! This may come as a shock, but there are other ways for people to find your website. In fact, links from other websites will not only generate more traffic, but it will generate more targetted traffic which will convert to more sales than those sent by search engines.

If you are not working on your link building campaigns then you are missing out on a lot of potential traffic that could benefit your site in the long run.

Reason #3: Your Google ranking can easily fluctuate

This should probably be Reason #1, but it was very hard to choose which were the most important.

You can work hard for months upon months to get your website to the top of the search engines. However, you cannot guarantee that they will stay in the top positions. Google is an ever-changing entity, and their rules are ever-changing as well.

One day you can be at #1 for a keyword, the next day your site might not even be found. If your only source of sales are search engines, then your income will ride the roller-coaster of Google-driven traffic.

Good Internet Marketing

In the end, a good internet marketer will work on several methods of traffic building, and will not hope that only one of them will work well. If you spread your traffic into several sources you will find that you will have long-term success, not just short spurts of traffic.