Sorry that the first couple of posts are about link building but this is something I am passionate about. One thing that annoys me more than anything else in the world is that link building campaigns only have one goal and that is to get you higher rankings in the search engines. yes that is a pretty important goal but it is really a good thing to put all your eggs in a single basket.

I hate to say it but not all traffic comes from Google. There are other, just and big if not bigger sources of traffic for you to go after. I sat and watched the Stompernet SMARTs video last night and a few things jumped out at me. The first was the comparison of traffic between Youtube and Google. It showed that Youtube gets 2 times the amount of traffic that Google does. Facebook had more traffic that Google did in 2007. So it got me thinking…

Where else could you get good quality DIRECT traffic for your website. Now forget about No Follow Tags, redirect tags and javascript links, and other links that dont pass page rank. Think on this….

If CNN offered you a free link on their homepage but it was a no follow, javascript link would you take it? You bet your life you would! In a heartbeat, why? Imagine all those eyeballs looking at your link and clicking through, that could melt your webserver!

So thinking along those lines where else could you get some server melting traffic.

• Social Networking Sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo (If you do business outside the US you need to have a profile here)

• Business Networking Sites such as LinkedIn, Ecademy, Fastpitch

• Video Sites such as YouTube, Google Video

• Craigslist and other Classified Ad sites such as Adzooks, Gumtree

• eBay - Links on your About Me Page

• Froogle / Other Shopping Comparison sites for those with a product to sell

• Forums - What industry forums could you use even if they don’t pass page rank

• Blog Posts - What blogs could you use even if they don’t pass page rank - I’d bet a first comment post with a link on Problogger or Shoemoney would get you some traffic , unless it was something like “cool post dude!”

So why not have a think about the kinds of sites that could get you traffic in your niche and damn the google link love. Cut out the middle man and link build to get direct traffic. You know it makes sense

About the Author

I have spent the last 12 years working with Finance and Insurance companies using the Internet. I have also worked in that time or consulted with all of the major Insurance and Finance aggregators including MoneySupermarket, Confused, MoneyExtra, Moneynet and others...