Alternatives to relying solely on Google SERPs for traffic

[klickman]

I have a question for experienced Webmasters who already have very good SERPs for their 1,2,& 3 positioned Keywords.

My website is ranks pretty high for all of our major keywords on Google. Actually 90% of them are located within the TOP Results with 4 or 5 in the #1, 2, of 5 positions. My page rankings are either 6 or 5 depending on the page. We received decent traffic from Google which provides approximately 80% of our Traffic. We have over 600 link recorded by Google and a total of 2,700 links internet wide.

What I am interested in is trying to find other alternative advertising solutions. I want to advertising on other effective medians. I would like to get away from the dependency of Google for traffic and want to start focusing on other ways to promote my site incase Google traffic somehow starts to head in a different direction due to the algorithm changes.

I guess what I am asking is what are other Webmasters using to promote their websites other then SERPs, and Google Ads and PPC's. Are then any genuine advertising companies out there that can help us do this.

You can reply by stickmail if you want. However, I am sure other webmasters will be interested in the recommendations as well as provided feedback on what other webmasters are recommending.

I am extremely frustrated at the quality or my lack of finding quality resources to help us promote our business.

I look forward to your replies and recommendations.

Regards,
Terrance

[Shak]

Are then any genuine advertising companies out there that can help us do this.

is there such an agency ;)

on a serious note, if you do NOT want PPC, then here are a few suggestions:

PFI (pay for inclusion), 1 time yearly payments to people such as Position Tech for inclusion into places such FAST, MSN and AskJeeves.

Affiliate Program where you pay on performance.

Offline and Online PR, where you could get mentioned in newspapers etc etc, this can sometimes drive 10000s of visitors at a very low price (subject to an interesting story and a connected PR company).

I have YET to find an advertising agency who actually know what they are doing, most deals they broker can be negotiated a lot cheaper if done direct, and they will be a lot more of partners than 1 time hitNmiss types.

Shak

[txbakers]

Hi Klickman. I guess I'm an anomaly in that I don't rely on Google at all for my traffic.

I feel that a web site/software needs to be marketed just as if I provided it in a box or in a catalogue. I make targeted emailings, attend trade shows, and pro-actively approach potential customers.

Any traffic I get from a SE I consider gravy. Just a good salesman doesn't wait for a customer to show up, I feel that the webmaster (or owner if not the webmaster) needs to treat the site just like a real business, and not solely rely on Google or other search engines. There are just way too many websites out there today to base your marketing plans on 1, 2, or 3 keywords.

[Krapulator]

Traditional advertising. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, direct mail. They're all effective way of generating online traffic.

[gramski]

I use some very specific online classified ad placements. They do generate traffic and sales. One of them even gets visited by freshbot so the ads are newer and rate higher than my site!

There are lots of sites with classified ads that seem a bit suspect to me - who knows if they really do generate sales? I'd be interested if anyone knows of any reviews or ranking services of that type of site.

[martingj]

I use SERPS PPC and buy yearly inclusions often for localised directories depending on the actual site.
The most valuable "off SERPS" for me is recommendation / editorial links either by my own sites or "friendly" sites. (this is one up on the standard links page) It tends to give highly rated traffic not allways first time buyers but if a user can easily bookmark they are back (directly). Also not to forget affiliations. A rarely mentioned litle gem are pres releases.