Lost all your Google traffic? This is what you need to do…

I may get paid commission for purchases made after clicking a link in this post.

Have you lost all your Google traffic? I have bad news for you. It’s only going to get worse. Here’s what you need to do…

Google has made a lot of changes recently… the HCU, big core updates, spam updates, AI Overviews…

And a lot of bloggers have been hit hard.

Really hard.

Even bloggers who were seemingly doing everything ‘right’.

Even bloggers who had been doing this a long time and were earning 6 figure incomes from ads and affiliates.

Perhaps that’s you?

Perhaps until recently you had a thriving blogging business… and the recent updates have taken that all away?

If so, you have my deepest sympathies. That’s just awful.

Or perhaps you’ve looked on in horror as your fellow bloggers have seen their livelihoods evaporate into thin air and you’re scared that’s going to happen to you in the next update?

Either way, I am afraid I don’t have good news about Google…

It’s only going to get worse…

Like it or not, the fact is this is the new environment we have to work in. And it’s only going to get worse as Google roll out more and more updates and AI features.

Do I think Google will still send us traffic? Yes.

Do I think this traffic will be enough to monetize exclusively with ads and affiliates? No.

The problem with monetizing via ads and affiliates is you need enormous traffic volumes to earn a decent full time income – the kind of traffic volumes that only Google can send.

Now that Google traffic is no longer anything like as reliable as it used to be, I believe the SEO+Ads model of blogging is super risky.

Relying on Google for your entire livelihood is now an extremely precarious place to be, and getting ever more so

Blogging is not dead, but it is changing…

So what is the solution?

Cut your losses and give up now?

Absolutely not!

Blogging is not dead, but it is changing.

Those who survive and positively thrive in the future will be those who recognize this and pivot accordingly.

I believe the future of blogging is selling digital products.

One of the reasons I am so enthusiastic about digital products is because you don’t need such huge traffic volumes… and if you don’t need such huge traffic volumes, that opens up a ton of alternative traffic sources.

For years (during the SEO+Ads boom!) I was saying on repeat ‘the only place to get traffic that’s worth your time is Google’ and that was true for a really long time… An hour spent on SEO or creating new blog content was worth 100 hours on social media.

But that was because you need such huge traffic volumes to deliver a full-time income with ads. And Google was the only traffic source that sent enough traffic to make the monetized-solely-via-ads model of blogging work.

If you sell digital products, you need a lot less traffic because the RPMs are so much higher, which means suddenly all sorts of alternative ways of getting traffic are opened up…

And not just social media… I mean podcasts, summits, bundles, webinars, collaborations, guest posting… even paid ads.

Google can and should still be in the mix, but you have so many other options – which leaves you much less exposed to future algorithm changes and Google’s increasing focus on AI assisted search.

Miniature trolley sitting on a laptop keyboard. The trolley contains a red sign saying 'sale'.

But how?

But maybe you are wondering how to make the move into digital products? There are essentially 4 key steps:

Step 1: Double down on email marketing

Email marketing is absolutely foundational to the success of a digital product based business. I literally cannot emphasize this enough – if you get your email marketing wrong, your digital product business will almost certainly fail.

Email marketing runs through EVERY ASPECT of a successful digital product business… It will help you do market research, validate your ideas, nurture cold traffic into warm leads and nurture warm leads into customers.

It will also help you onboard your new students, get good testimonials and success stories, and turn happy customers into advocates and high performing affiliates.

Step 2: Build a product ladder

One of the biggest mistakes I see with digital products is not building a product ladder. I explain why in this post >>> Why you need a product ladder

Step 3: Build a sales funnel

But just having a product ladder is not enough, you also need to build a sales funnel. I explain what a sales funnel is and why you need one in this post >>> How to build an evergreen sales funnel (sell more, work less!)

Step 4: Pour traffic into the top of your sales funnel

Finally, when you have Steps 1 – 3 in place, all you need to do is pour traffic into the top of your funnel and, if you’ve done everything else right, sales will come out of the bottom of your funnel.

This can be Google traffic, but this can also be social media traffic, podcasts, summits, bundles, webinars, collaborations, guest posting… even paid ads.

And because of the nature of digital products, your focus is much less on the QUANTITY of traffic and much more on the QUALITY of that traffic. 100 highly targeted ‘perfect customers’ are worth far more to you than 100,000 Google traffic randoms.

Miniature trolley containing dollar bills, resting on a laptop.

But there are a lot of moving parts!

As you can see, diversifying into digital products is the smart move right now. But the problem is running a successful digital product business involves a lot of moving parts…

Email marketing
Digital product specific SEO
Nurturing new leads
Market research
Picking the right topic and format for your digital product – something your audience will actually want to buy!
Lead magnets
Product creation
Launch strategies
Sales pages
Tripwires
Building sales funnels
Getting testimonials
Word of mouth marketing
Launching your own affiliate program
Building authority
Running flash sales and Black Friday sales
Running beta launches
And more…

If that list is making you feel slightly dizzy and somewhat overwhelmed, I hear you! And that is why I have turned all of this into a step-by-step roadmap…

The Digital Product Success Academy

The idea is that you let me worry about all of the moving parts, and you just focus on following the next step on the roadmap, knowing I’ve got everything planned and happening at exactly the right time.

DPSA is for you, if you want to…

👉 Earn more from the traffic you already have: Digital product RPMs are considerably better than RPMs from ads, affiliates and sponsored posts.

👉 Stop worrying about whether you’ll be wiped out in the next Google algorithm update: Because you don’t need those crazy-high pageviews, selling digital products makes you A LOT less dependent on Google.

👉 Be ahead of the curve: If future Google updates are bad for bloggers, guess what every blogger will be doing to try and get back the income they have lost? Get ahead of the curve by starting NOW!

👉 Have a less precarious business: If you get the majority of your traffic from Google and the majority of your income from ads, you don’t need me to tell you that is a very precarious place to be… Diversifying into digital products reduces risk and increases income – so it’s a win-win!

👉 Have a lot of fun along the way: Join a community of like-minded bloggers and online business owners who are all working towards the same goal!

If that sounds like something you’d love to be a part of, head here to find out more >>> Digital Product Success Academy

Don’t miss a thing!

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or why not subscribe to Productive Blogging and get blogging and productivity tips straight to your inbox every week?