RobinL - 12:55 pm on Aug 23, 2006 (gmt 0)

Okay... this is a rambling post...

I don't know anyone in my business that could really survive, at least at the smaller stage we're now in / morping out of - without natural search traffic. The nice thing is that since we're about good content, I don't think it's too much of a worry.

BUT, it is certainly something that the business types that I talked to always bring up. They're always asking what happens if we loose those number one rankings? I feel pretty safe with our rankings, but, it is a worry of course.

I think a really great side discussion for this is, what if you are truly in a business that CAN NOT exist with out free search traffic? I can think this is a huge questoin for a BIG Part of the web, really, anyone in publishing or information providing. I don't know any web publisher (I know quite a few) that I would say has "high-value" content that doesn't get at least 25% of their monthly visitors from search, and that number goes up to the 50s for refers?

I think some of the age elements that Google has introduced of late are actually a nice move for companies that are so dependent on search traffic. It's hard to knock someone who is number one. From a link perspective, the rich get richer by being number one which further solidifes their positioning.

One thing we're trying to do is develop our business relationship and paid traffic abilites. In our business model of two years ago that wouldn't have worked, but as the business has grown as has our ability to monetize our traffic, as has our ability to spend on traffic acquisition. I think this is a smart thing to try out. If you are dependent on search traffic, at least examine ways that you're only dependent for the first 3 years of your business' lifetime or something.