For websites that are struggling to get organic traffic from Google Search, there are three main areas to focus on, according to Danny Sullivan, search liaison at Google.
- Keep creating quality content and do what you think is best for your readers.
- Diversify your traffic sources and promote your content across multiple channels.
- Build a dedicated audience that you reach out to in person, or via email and social media.
None of this is new, none of this is easy, and none of this advice is going to make people happy.
What it means. To succeed in Google Search, think beyond Google and SEO. The days of SEO hacks and loopholes are fast coming to an end. The future of SEO will be won by those who play the long game and focus on all the key SEO elements.
Why we care. Google's advice is along the lines of “create useful content,” and people still get annoyed at this. But Google can't tell you everything you need to know to create useful content, or help you evaluate it. It's your job to figure out how to grow your audience. Hoping that Google Search will send you traffic or awareness is not a strategy.
Create great content. Creating content that resonates with your intended audience is crucial, but it's not the only factor, according to Sullivan.
“As I've said before, I think everyone should focus on doing what they think is best for their readers,” Sullivan said. “I know it can be confusing when you're getting so much advice from so many different places and you're also hearing about what Google is and isn't doing, but Google just wants to focus on content. When in doubt, refocus. That's your touchstone.”
Sullivan cited advice from Mike King, CEO of iPullRank.
“Create great content and promote it well. I'm kidding, but I'm serious. Google keeps giving us that advice, but we hesitate to do it as it's not actionable. For some SEOs, it's out of our control. When we look at these features that give Google an advantage, it's clear that creating better content and promoting it to an audience that resonates with you has the biggest impact on these metrics. Link and content feature metrics certainly help a lot, but if you want to win on Google in the long run, you need to keep creating something worthy of ranking.”
Algorithm secrets: Google Search internal engineering documents leaked
Websites affected by recent Google algorithm updates may see some improvement in upcoming Google core updates. But as we've said before, Sullivan acknowledges that this could also be a Google issue: “As we've said here, it's also possible that in these cases it's an issue with us, not the site. It's also possible that some of us who release upcoming updates are doing a better job in these cases.”
Diversify your traffic sources. Don't rely on a single traffic source (such as Google Search): Having multiple traffic sources can be beneficial, but again, this does not guarantee SEO success.
“Regarding the question of off-site efforts, what I knew before I worked at Google Search and from my experience when I was part of the search rankings team, is that I believe one of the ways to be successful in Google Search is to think beyond it,” Sullivan said.
“Great sites with content that people like get traffic in a variety of ways. People come to the site directly. They come through email referrals,” he added. “They come through links from other sites. They get mentioned on social media. This doesn't mean that if you get a lot of social media or email mentions you'll magically rank higher in Google (it doesn't, as far as I know). It just means that you're more likely to be building a normal site, in the sense that it's built for people, not just Google. And that's what our ranking system tries to reward – good content built for people.”
Grow your audience. Prior to joining Google, Sullivan ran two other websites, including Search Engine Land, both of which he started from scratch, but which he built into highly visible, authoritative, trustworthy and profitable organizations.
How does this piece work? Sullivan gives a personal example: “I love hiking. A few years ago, while looking for information on a particular hike, I found a great solo hiking site and signed up for their newsletter. Now I'm a regular. … Search is a great way to build long-term relationships with my readers/customers. My main goal is to encourage them to connect with the rest of the site after they land on it – through email, feeds, social media, etc.”
He stressed the need to develop multiple ways to reach your audience, including email lists and social accounts.
Different signals. It’s the eternal chicken-and-egg problem in SEO: Google doesn’t rank your content, so people can’t find your great content.
Given the Google leak and revelations about Navboost, and user interactions (clicks) affecting rankings, Sullivan said: “If that was all that mattered, no one would be ranking in the first place. … How would new sites (including yours that was a new site at one point) be viewed? In reality, we use a variety of ranking signals, including “aggregated and anonymized interaction data,” but that's not all.”
Sullivan's post. You can see them at X – here , here , here and here .