Why you should never put all your eggs in one basket - especially not Google's! (And what to do instead.)

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

Relying on any one channel for all, or nearly all, of your traffic and income is not a business plan. It is a gamble. Never leave yourself at the mercy of any one channel or platform – because you have no control over a third-party. Here’s why you should never put all your eggs in one basket – especially not Google’s… and what to do instead!

Relying on any one channel for all your traffic and income is not a business plan. It is a gamble. Here’s why you should never put all your eggs in one basket - especially not Google's… and what to do instead #GoogleSEO #SEOtips #blogincome #bloggingincome #digitalproducts #digitalproductsuccess #blogmonetization #makemoneyblogging #blog #blogging #bloggers #professionalblogger #problogger #solopreneur #onlinebusinessowner #onlinebusinesssuccess #bloggingsuccess #bloggingtips #productiveblogging

As a numbers geek, crunching the data from this year’s Blogging Income Survey was mostly sheer joy for me, but there was one part that had me really scared… a HUGE number of the respondents to the survey made 100% or nearly 100% of their income from ads.

You don’t need me to tell you what a precarious place that is to be! With the recent huge shakeups to Google’s algorithm, not to mention increased competition in almost every niche, and the proposed changes to third party cookies, relying on Google+Ads for almost all your income in 2024 is not a sensible business plan… it’s a HUGE gamble.

It’s not just me saying that, this is an extract of from an article I read in Search Engine Land a while back…

“Never put all your eggs in one basket. Especially not Google’s. Relying on any one channel for all, or nearly all, of your traffic and income is not a business plan. It is a gamble. Never leave yourself at the mercy of any one channel or platform – because you have no control over a third-party. If one algorithm change can wipe out your entire business overnight, you’re doing it wrong.”

But, how do you do that? How do you ensure that your eggs aren’t all in one basket? How do you stop being so reliant on Google for your blogging income? How do you ensure that you are not at the mercy of third-parties? And how do you make sure that one algorithm change can’t wipe out your entire business overnight?

There are 5 key things you need to do:

Diversify your income streams
Diversify your traffic
Build your email list
Build a brand
Focus on the only 3 assets you truly own

Let’s look at each of these in turn…

1. Diversify your income streams

The reason why so many bloggers are so reliant on Google is because they monetize mainly via ads. The only way you can make a decent full-time income from ads is if you have a huge amount of traffic. And the only place you can get that much traffic is Google.

But ads are not the only way to monetize a blog. In fact, recent research has shown that the RPMs for digital products are 10X the RPMs for ads. This is really significant. It means that if you sell digital products you don’t need the massive traffic volumes that only Google can provide in order to make a decent full-time income.

Diversifying into digital products, therefore, significantly reduces your reliance on Google.

2. Diversify your traffic

But it gets better… because diversifying into digital products opens up other traffic sources that are just not viable if you monetize with ads, but are often really excellent options if you monetize via digital products.

Things like… speaking on podcasts and at summits, participating in bundles, Facebook ads, list swaps, JV webinars… even social media and Pinterest.

By diversifying your traffic across multiple channels, you will reduce risk and protect your blog from future algorithm changes.

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

3. Build your email list

No matter whether you get your traffic from Google, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube… it’s all BORROWED traffic. You don’t own it, you have no control over it and one algorithm change could decimate it.

Your email list is the only traffic source you truly own. So, if you want to future-proof your blogging business, prioritize building a strong email list and engaging with your subscribers, so that you will always have a direct line of communication with your audience that will be completely unaffected by any future algorithm changes.

4. Build a brand

So often, bloggers build ‘commodity’ businesses.

A business built on transient Google traffic that doesn’t care who you are and probably doesn’t even know what website they are on half the time.

This transient traffic comes, gets what it wants and leaves… and never comes back.

This type of business is extremely risky – if your Google traffic dries up, you’ll be left with nothing.

Instead you need to build a ‘brand’.

Work on building up your authority in your niche. Become the go-to expert in your niche. And build a community of raving fans, happy customers and passionate advocates.

So, instead of going to Google, your people come directly to you, your website and your products for the solutions to their problems.

How do you do that?

Well, partly by converting transient traffic into email subscribers… and nurturing them into raving fans and advocates.

Partly by selling your own digital products… which leads to happy customers, success stories and word-of-mouth marketing.

But also by building up your external authority: be interviewed on podcasts, speak at summits and conferences, participate in bundles and collaborations, get featured in the press…

All of this will boost your visibility, grow your authority and help you become a go-to expert in your niche.

And make you a whole lot less reliant on transient Google traffic.

(Though the irony is that, by boosting your authority, you’re likely to grow your Google traffic too!)

Here are some easy ways to boost your authority >>> 15 easy ways to improve your website’s E-E-A-T

Miniature trolley containing dollar bills, resting on a laptop.

5. Focus on the only 3 assets you truly own to future-proof your business

The only three assets you truly own are:

Your website
Your email list
Your products

These are not subject to the whims of third-party platforms.

Invest in your website by creating high quality content that is truly helpful to your target audience, regularly updating older content and improving user experience.

Use lead magnets to convert casual visitors into subscribers and regularly send valuable emails to nurture your list and turn subscribers into raving fans.

And finally, focus on creating high-quality digital products that provide real value to your audience, and which convert fans into happy customers and advocates for your business. Advocates who will promote your business for you so that eventually this becomes a virtuous circle!

By concentrating on these 3 assets, you will build a resilient foundation that can withstand external changes.

Need help?

If you want to reduce your reliance on Google, diversify your traffic and income streams, convert borrowed traffic into owned traffic and build a strong brand – so your people come directly to you, instead of via Google – then you are in luck!

Introducing…

The Digital Product Success Academy

The DPSA will take you step-by-step along the entire journey of reducing your reliance on Google by building a successful digital product based business: building truly great products, launching properly, building evergreen sales funnels and getting your pricing strategy right.

But it will also help you further decrease your reliance on Google and increase your blogging income by boosting your email marketing, growing your E-E-A-T, doing digital product specific keyword research, boosting your traffic with a 30 day traffic booster challenge, building a tripwire and running flash sales.

And it will help with productivity because the roadmap is broken down into a step-by-step plan with daily tasks. You also get regular challenges to boost motivation, and a hugely supportive community to provide encouragement and accountability.

The Digital Product Success Academy will also help you with all the other things you need to do to build a thriving digital product based business, such as:

Doing market research
Building high converting sales pages
Doing digital product specific SEO
Harnessing the power of customer advocacy
Attracting the right kind of traffic into the top of your funnels
Converting your traffic into red hot leads with high converting lead magnets and new subscriber nurture sequences

Basically, I’ve done all the hard work for you and come up with the perfect step-by-step plan to follow, so you can just follow my roadmap and focus on one thing at a time.

Plus, the DPSA has huge amounts of support, motivation and accountability BAKED IN and a supportive community of likeminded online business owners.

If this resonates with you and you’re ready to take your online business to the next level, click here to find out more!

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?