Dependency + Complacency = Disaster

How dependent is your business on one particular traffic source? The greater that dependency, the bigger the risk.

If you combine dependency with complacency, the risk becomes even bigger. Below is a screenshot from one of my affiliate marketing websites.

I've been building this site since early 2016, and have grown a sizeable audience through posting nothing but helpful, informative content once every couple of weeks.

You can see a big drop off in traffic (the drop came a few months ago). This site is 95% dependent on organic/"SEO" traffic. 90% of that traffic came from a few articles on the site, each of which ranked well for a high search volume keyword.

Over the space of a few weeks, my site slid from position 1 to around position 5 for my biggest traffic keyword.

The rest, as they say, is history. I was too dependent on a small number of pages ranking for a small number of keywords.

I had become complacent and not sufficiently contemplated a scenario in which I might lose those crucial rankings.

The moral of the story?

  • Seek to reduce dependence on any one traffic source. You're always going to have sources that perform better than others, but try to diversify as much as possible. 
  • Have a plan for what you would do if your "top performer" disappeared.
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