If you’ve been online long enough, then you may already be aware of the risk of relying on the SEO for website traffic.

What if one day Google decides to ban your website from appearing in the search results?

For many of us who rely on Google to drive traffic, that can be the worst thing that can happen to you.

Sure, you can say that you don’t give a hoot about it since Google isn’t the only player in town.

And with the rise of generative AI search, you have more options to drive traffic to your website.

So, it doesn’t have to be Google per se to drive the bulk of the traffic to your website.

If there’s one thing we all should do is to diversify our traffic source and rely less on Google.

What spurs the thought of relying less on SEO for website traffic

I’ll be honest here – I have no idea when such an event took place considering that I was still green when I dipped my toe into the online business foray.

But I remember back then when people made a fuss about Google banning John Chow’s website.

So, who is this John Chow guy, you ask?

If you go to his website, he will say that he’s a dot com mogul who makes a living from blogging.

The amount of money he made from blogging isn’t a small chump either.

Believe it or not, he made a 6-figure income with blogging.

And the kicker about this John Chow guy?

He was an immigrant from China who moved to Canada when he was a child.

I will say that everyone who was into making money online would know this guy considering that he was the poster child in that niche.

Imagine when Google banned a well-known guy like John Chow.

I can’t say for sure what crime he committed that caused Google to ban him.

But the fact that someone like him got banned by Google made most of us think twice about relying on Google for website traffic.

Social media to the rescue

The good news is the beef between John Chow and Google was resolved not long after that.

How the issue between them got resolved is something that I’m not sure of.

But thanks to what happened to John Chow, the ship already left the harbor at this point.

The fear of getting banned by Google causes many of us to find salvation in social media.

Well, social media was in the rage back then even though it was in its infancy.

And it was hard to ignore it too when you heard people claiming they made sales or generated leads through social media.

That seemed like the pipedream for many since you can get all these without having to spend a dime acquiring those leads and sales.

Thanks to social media, now you can have a peaceful goodnight sleep, knowing that you no longer succumbed to Google ban hammer.

Fast-forward to today, we realize that social media isn’t what it seems.

Not only does it zap our time and energy in exchange for such a pitiful result.

But the more eyeballs that we’re hoping for never come materialized.

And having the social sharing button on the website doesn’t work either. The only thing it does is it slows down your website, reducing your good grace with search engines even further.

It’s okay to go all in with SEO for website traffic

I admit I found it nerve-wracking when I made the conscious decision to quit social media.

What if my website traffic tanked as soon as I quit social media?

Is it okay to fully rely on SEO now that I have abandoned social media for good?

What if my website traffic is on a free fall because of changes to Google’s algorithm and generative AI search make search engines a relic of the past?

While I only have a vague answer for the third question, the answer for the first and the second question is pretty straightforward to me.

For one, it’s fine to rely on SEO when the bulk of my website traffic is coming from search engines.

I barely generate any traffic from social media, anyway.

So, there’s no reason for me to keep going when I can’t make social media work for me.

And the best part of all?

My websites are doing just fine even after I quit social media.

There will always be a dip in my website traffic once in a while, of course. But I don’t see that as a deterrent for me to rely on the search engine to drive traffic to my website.

The best thing you can do for your author business

If you have a website, have a look at your website analytics and identify your traffic source.

Once you identify which ones that drive the biggest bulk of the traffic, then do more of them and ditch what don’t.

What if companies are reaching out to you, promising you they can make your website rank first on the search engine?

Just delete those emails and move on with your life.

If there’s one thing that will get Google to ban you for real, it will be you using grey and black-hat techniques to generate traffic to your website.

Even if Google doesn’t ban you outright, it can still be hard to clean up the mess these companies made to your website.

So, it’s not worth the risk no matter how tempting it sounds.

Also, don’t forget to build your email list. That’s by far the best way you can do to secure another traffic source coming to your website.

Learn everything you can about SEO

SEO can be a tough nut to crack. But it doesn’t have to be that way when there are plenty of resources out there that can help you learn more about SEO.

One such resource I highly recommend is Neil Patel’s free SEO course, SEO Unlocked.

The course covers everything you need to know about SEO, from the basic stuff to the advanced stuff.

Do what the course suggests you do and you will see a difference in your website traffic.

And once again, stay away from companies that promise to generate hundreds of traffic coming to your website overnight.

They will only cause you more problems down the road.

This is what I’ll be focusing on

Let’s be real here, Google can have a nasty mood swing, just like what Leslie Samuel always said in his podcast intro.

But even so, I don’t see it as anything bad when it’s the one that generates a huge chunk of the traffic coming to my websites.

I certainly won’t remain complacent either considering how things can change over the next couple of years.

But when you only have a few things to focus on, you don’t feel like you’re being pulled in many different directions.

Simplify things to make your life easier.

In my case, my focus will be on SEO in addition to my usual shticks such as content marketing and building an email list.