Viability of a Non-Google Reliant Authority Site?

[Jasonz]

Hey,

So basically, I want to make my first authority site. Although, I want to make it on topics I am actually passionate about, which happen to all be pretty saturated with plenty of big blogs and news sites already. I have a very low chance of ranking for any related keywords.

Has anyone here tried making a blog, and having it be profitable (Enough to justify the work put into it) off 100% social media/bookmarking traffic? Of course traffic from these sources is kind of luck based, but there are ways to improve the chances of getting big traffic :1bluewinky:

 

[Phear]

I wouldn't rely on big traffic unless you're writing some real sensationalized content that attracts visitors. Just look at the front page of Reddit for a while and look at the things people are interested in. Juicy content trumps informative and well researched content every time, unless you're rank dependent. That's just my thoughts and opinions, I'd like to see what others have to say about this matter.

 

[xha44a]

Hi,

I suggest you go to the Enlightened Members section and look up CCarters' piece on Traffic leaks. If I'm remembering the right one, that write up showed a million different ways to get traffic all Google independent. If I'm not mistaken I think I saw a chart on one of the posts from CCarter showing something like 10% of 10k visitors came from search - or something like that. Not putting all your eggs into one basket is a great idea and one I'm trying to learn more about.