Jentrepreneur

With all of the buzz in the webmaster community lately about Google wanting to “penalize” paid links, it’s a good time to talk about “Google slaves,” whether or not you happen to be one, and what you can do to about it if you are. So, are you a Google slave?

Google Slave - For our intents and purposes, a “Google slave” is any webmaster, blogger, or online business owner whose income potential is wholly, or very significantly, dependent on the actions of Google. That might be a site which gets 80-90% of its traffic from Google, a site that earns all or the vast majority of its earnings through Google Adsense, etc… any business that would be severely hurt if Google changed an algorithm or something else completely out of the site owner’s control.

Signs You’re a Google Slave:

• You make all or most of your money through Google Adsense.
• Most of your traffic comes from Google.
• You write content for your website or blog focusing more on how Google will view it than how readers will view it.
• You’re constantly playing “catch up” with Google; tweaking your site and code to try to improve rankings due to Google changes.
• You obsessively follow Matt Cutts’ blog.

Problem With Being a Google Slave:

If you find yourself as a slave to Google’s whims, you need to brush up on basic business. Building your own business entirely on the back of another company, whose actions are completely out of your control, is a stupid business decision to say the least. If a third party can single-handedly put you out of business overnight by a simple change in their business model, you have a problem, and you need to start diversifying ASAP.

Facts to Keep in Mind:

• Google does NOT supply 100% of traffic on the Web. If the vast majority of your traffic is coming directly through Google, that speak less to Google’s “power,” and more to your own lack of business abilities in driving targeted, quality traffic from other sources.
• Google is NOT your only website monetization option. Ad publisher networks in general are far from being your only (and oftentimes even best) route for monetizing your websites or blogs. If that’s the only way you’re earning money online, you need to broaden your potential income streams, or you’ll continue to lose out on a lot of money, and continue to keep your business at the mercy of Google’s whims.

How to STOP Being a Google Slave:

• Look for additional traffic sources, whether it be through paid advertising, other search engines, publicity opps, or an endless number of other ways to bring traffic to a website.
• Look for other ways to monetize your website(s), such as selling your own ad space, joining affiliate programs, recruiting newsletter sponsors, selling an information product related to your site, selling other products, selling services, etc.

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