In business, diversification means allocating your investment among a variety of assets. Diversification is a strategic approach that helps reduce risk because different investments will fluctuate independent from each other. The combinations of these assets more often than not will cancel out each other’s fluctuation, therefore resulting to the reduction of risk.
In blogging, the same principle of diversification can be applied to traffic. In today’s post, I will be discussing three core issues relating to blog traffic, namely;
- The sources of blog traffic.
- Why the need to diversify our sources of traffic?
- And how can we diversify it?
Sources of Blog Traffic
When we speak of online traffic, we refer to the number of visits to your website on a given period of time. While traffic in the real world is abhored and avoided by people, traffic online is valuable such that some bloggers/webmasters are willing to do just anything to drive more traffic to their websites.
Generally, there are two categories of traffic; paid traffic and free traffic. These sources are further classified into search engine traffic, traffic from advertisements and traffic from other websites.
Traffic from search engines is generated when pages of your website are included in their index and appear on strategic locations in their result page. SEO or search engine optimization is the product of recognizing the importance of search engines in bringing traffic to a website. Considered by many as the most valuable and best in quality, search engine traffic remains to be the major source of blog traffic.
Paid traffic on the other hand are traffic generated from paid advertisements like PayPerClick and banner ads. Adwords and Overture are some examples of companies that provide paid traffic.
Another source of traffic is traffic from other websites. This is generated when other sites link to your pages, hence giving you free advertisement. This kind of traffic includes traffic from social bookmarking / networking websites, directories and other related sites. You can read my post on “Blog Traffic For Beginners” for a more thorough discussion of the sources of blog traffic.
Why The Need To Diversify Traffic?
Diversifying your traffic sources enables your blog to continue receiving traffic in case one of your sources encounters a problem. Imagine if you rely entirely to Google for traffic, then all of a sudden, Google altered its algorithm. Or for some reasons, Google banned your website from its database. Where will you get traffic now? Losing traffic is an online marketer’s worst nightmare as it could mean the beginning of the end of your online business.
Diversifying your traffic sources helps improve your traffic quality and will result in an increase in traffic in the long run. Let’s assume that all your traffic are coming from Entrecard. Given the nature of Entrecard and its users, your blog will probably end up with a high bounce rate. But by diversifying your blog traffic, you will be able to offset your high bounce rate with your traffic from other sources like search engines.
Diversifying your source of traffic will help expose your blog to a wider and a new audience. Your new audience can be a great source of fresh ideas and perspectives for your blog. They are also potential business partners who can help you to promote your blog resulting to an increase in your blog traffic.
Lastly, diversifying your source of traffic makes you less dependent to your sources, which gives you more freedom and control over your blog. Bloggers who heavily rely for traffic from Google tend to be constrained by Google’s policies, which is often times limiting their earning potentials.
How To Diversify Traffic?
Diversifying your sources of traffic might be a time-consuming task but a rewarding one. Here are some ideas that will help you diversify your source of traffic.
Use social networks and bookmarking sites.
Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit are just a few examples of social bookmarking sites that can help bring traffic to your blog. Previously, I compiled the largest list of social bookmarking sites where you can submit your posts for extra publicity and additional traffic.
Optimize your blog for other search engines.
Google may be the largest search engine but it’s not the only one. In fact, a large number of online surfers also use Yahoo, MSN and Ask. You can start optimizing your blog for these search engines to accumulate a more diversified traffic from search engines. You can watch the Search Engine Optimization Video to undestand how to optimize your blog for search engines.
Start your own group and community.
If you don’t belong to any group or community, it’s about time you find some to join. Communities and groups are great sources of support and traffic for your blog. I have 3 groups at Blogcatalog (Bloggers and Blogging, Entrecard and Alexa) and all of them have been helpful in building my readership. I recommend you to join BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog and Bumpzee. To get the most out of these communities, you should become an active member.
Start networking with other bloggers.
Making friends with other bloggers is an effective strategy to promote your blog. Most of my buddies online have been very helpful in the promotion of my blog. They link to my blog from their sidebar or from their posts, which is not only good for Google Page Rank and Technorati but it’s also a potential source of traffic.
Consider buying traffic.
If you have the financial resources, you might want to consider buying traffic from services like Adwords or StumbleUpon. I’ve used StumbleUpon before to drive traffic to my blog and I’m quite satisfied with the result. John Chow, despite the heavy traffic he receives everyday, is still using Adwords to drive some more traffic to his blog. There are a lot of available cheap advertising online to choose from. You might want to check Entrecard and Project Wonderful for some really cheap advertisements. Besides, their are always bloggers offering 125X125 banner ads for a very cheap cost.
What other ways can be done to diversify blog traffic? Share your recommendations through the comment. 
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