A Wake Up Call For All Who Want to Hear

[Berkinb]

Time and time again I see people complaining about Google updates and talking about how G devastated their businesses.

And yet again, we all seem to be chasing the same things without thinking outside the box for a moment.

Now, this year's frequent and devastating updates can be either your doom or your wake-up call.

Let me tell you one thing: Everything works!

Blog commenting works, forums work, article syndication works, social bookmarking and networking works!

Just not the way they are used in the IM world.

Now, ask yourself one thing: how much time and money did you spend on your own site? How much time did you spend to research your market, to understand what your potential customers need, ask, are worried about?

To how many of these questions, needs and worries your site provides answers/solutions?

Do you know where your potential customers hang out? Which forums? Which social sites? Do you follow people from that niche on Twitter or Facebook?

Did you ever create (our outsource) a piece of really outstanding content for your visitors/readers? Did you ever try publishing/sharing such content in places/sites where your potential customers are?

Did you ever create a video for people to actually watch and enjoy? Or learn from? Or get a solution to their problems?

How much money did you spend trying to rank on Google? Could you use that money to create outstanding content or quality videos or renting advertisement space on sites/forums your potential customers hang out?

How many real posts do you have on those forums? Did you ever help anyone there? Answer any questions? Offered something for nothing?

I could go on and on forever, but I hope you get the point.

Why are we all so obsessed about rankings? Isn't the end goal to have a real business and earning money after all?

If I make enough money, why in the world would I care about Google's SERPs?

So, please, stop chasing Google's tail, give them the boot and get your eyes on the real prize.

I'd love to see this thread turn into a giant brainstorming session with the contributions of anyone feeling/thinking this way.

Here's to a change of perspective for all!

[bb785]

Good post. Life is a lot easier if you focus on traffic and ROI rather than your position in the SERPs.

[TheSeoGuy89]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

Time and time again I see people complaining about Google updates and talking about how G devastated their businesses.

And yet again, we all seem to be chasing the same things without thinking outside the box for a moment.

Now, this year's frequent and devastating updates can be either your doom or your wake-up call.

Let me tell you one thing: Everything works!

Blog commenting works, forums work, article syndication works, social bookmarking and networking works!

Just not the way they are used in the IM world.

Now, ask yourself one thing: how much time and money did you spend on your own site? How much time did you spend to research your market, to understand what your potential customers need, ask, are worried about?

To how many of these questions, needs and worries your site provides answers/solutions?

Do you know where your potential customers hang out? Which forums? Which social sites? Do you follow people from that niche on Twitter or Facebook?

Did you ever create (our outsource) a piece of really outstanding content for your visitors/readers? Did you ever try publishing/sharing such content in places/sites where your potential customers are?

Did you ever create a video for people to actually watch and enjoy? Or learn from? Or get a solution to their problems?

How much money did you spend trying to rank on Google? Could you use that money to create outstanding content or quality videos or renting advertisement space on sites/forums your potential customers hang out?

How many real posts do you have on those forums? Did you ever help anyone there? Answer any questions? Offered something for nothing?

I could go on and on forever, but I hope you get the point.

Why are we all so obsessed about rankings? Isn't the end goal to have a real business and earning money after all?

If I make enough money, why in the world would I care about Google's SERPs?

So, please, stop chasing Google's tail, give them the boot and get your eyes on the real prize.

I'd love to see this thread turn into a giant brainstorming session with the contributions of anyone feeling/thinking this way.

Here's to a change of perspective for all!

Good thread. Although a few "seo gurus" will be here shortly to try and debunk this thread entirely lol

[Berkinb]

Yeah mate, one thing I don't understand is why people keep focusing on things that are not in their control.

I mean, the amount of information we provide, conversions, etc. are things that we can control (or at least tweak).

And it has never been so easy to reach potential customers through a myriad of platforms and sites, yet people are complaining about ruined businesses just because some rankings are lost.

I'm not against SEO at all, I just wanted to remind warriors that there are lots of other ways to skin the cat.

Originally Posted by bb785

Good post. Life is a lot easier if you focus on traffic and ROI rather than your position in the SERPs.

[JSProjects]

I keep telling people that most of the methods that worked years ago still work today. Just differently. Blog commenting still works great if you're not blindly blasting junk comments to a ton of blogs, forum posting is a great source of ridiculously targeted traffic, etc.

[Berkinb]

I'm not against SEO at all mate, I'm just saying that there are other ways. SEO is just one tactic, not a business and not a strategy

Originally Posted by HenrySEO89

Good thread. Although a few "seo gurus" will be here shortly to try and debunk this thread entirely lol

[Oranges]

I smell SEO gurus ready to attack the thread with their as usual gloating.

[Berkinb]

That's exactly what I mean mate

A lot of opportunities open up the instant people stop worrying about Google for a moment and start thinking about where the actual customers are.

Valuable comments and contributions to relevant blogs are sucking traffic like there is no tomorrow. But no, we all must focus on PR6-Dofollow-AutoApprove blogs that are spammed to death.

Forums are full of people looking for solutions to their problems, but no we have to open fake accounts, blast 100000000 forums with profiles, etc. Far be it from us actually getting targeted traffic from 1 of those forums.

On and on

Again, I'm not saying that SEO is bad or unnecessary... I just want people to understand that they can screw Google and yet make money.

Originally Posted by JSProjects

I keep telling people that most of the methods that worked years ago still work today. Just differently. Blog commenting still works great if you're not blindly blasting junk comments to a ton of blogs, forum posting is a great source of ridiculously targeted traffic, etc.

[MikeFriedman]

I think a lot really depends on the niche and scope of the project you are talking about too.

A local dentist is not going to hang out on dental forums answering questions looking to attract local patients. People are not searching for a new dentist on Twitter or even on Facebook really. Now they might ask their Facebook friends for a recommendation of a good local dentist, but there is nothing a dental practice can do to try to capture those people other than provide great service and hope that their patients recommend them if the opportunity arises.

I also think it looks a little spammy and even unprofessional for them to use blog comments to boost their rankings. That is just my opinion. Others might think differently and they are free to run their business however they choose.

I personally do not believe there is really one SEO or traffic generation plan that fits all businesses. It's a little different for each business/niche.

[twilightofidols]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

Time and time again I see people complaining about Google updates and talking about how G devastated their businesses.

And yet again, we all seem to be chasing the same things without thinking outside the box for a moment.

Now, this year's frequent and devastating updates can be either your doom or your wake-up call.

Let me tell you one thing: Everything works!

Blog commenting works, forums work, article syndication works, social bookmarking and networking works!

Just not the way they are used in the IM world.

Now, ask yourself one thing: how much time and money did you spend on your own site? How much time did you spend to research your market, to understand what your potential customers need, ask, are worried about?

To how many of these questions, needs and worries your site provides answers/solutions?

Do you know where your potential customers hang out? Which forums? Which social sites? Do you follow people from that niche on Twitter or Facebook?

Did you ever create (our outsource) a piece of really outstanding content for your visitors/readers? Did you ever try publishing/sharing such content in places/sites where your potential customers are?

Did you ever create a video for people to actually watch and enjoy? Or learn from? Or get a solution to their problems?

How much money did you spend trying to rank on Google? Could you use that money to create outstanding content or quality videos or renting advertisement space on sites/forums your potential customers hang out?

How many real posts do you have on those forums? Did you ever help anyone there? Answer any questions? Offered something for nothing?

I could go on and on forever, but I hope you get the point.

Why are we all so obsessed about rankings? Isn't the end goal to have a real business and earning money after all?

If I make enough money, why in the world would I care about Google's SERPs?

So, please, stop chasing Google's tail, give them the boot and get your eyes on the real prize.

I'd love to see this thread turn into a giant brainstorming session with the contributions of anyone feeling/thinking this way.

Here's to a change of perspective for all!

I've been saying this forever. Your position in SERPs is correlated with your ROI, but it isn't where the focus should be.

I'd rather have a site at #15 making $100 a day, then a site at #1 making $5 a day. As a matter of fact my most profitable keywords have only 500-1000 visitors a day in spite of the fact I rank page 1 for a 45k exact global KW.

Increasing your SERPs should be secondary to increasing your ROI

[YasirYar]

thanks for the great post.

As an SEO company owner, I have an obsession about my websites rankings. I used to check the rankings once every 2 days and now have finally decided to totally stop doing that since even the slightest variation in the rankings would upset me :-)

now, I am focusing more on contributing to various forums and blogs in order to receive direct and referring traffic to my website which normally converts at a fairly high percentage.

The moral of the story is do not go crazy over rankings.

After the Penguin update, we lost a couple of rankings but apparently our business increased :-)

[twilightofidols]

Originally Posted by YasirYar

thanks for the great post.

As an SEO company owner, I have an obsession about my websites rankings. I used to check the rankings once every 2 days and now have finally decided to totally stop doing that since even the slightest variation in the rankings would upset me :-)

now, I am focusing more on contributing to various forums and blogs in order to receive direct and referring traffic to my website which normally converts at a fairly high percentage.

The moral of the story is do not go crazy over rankings.

After the Penguin update, we lost a couple of rankings but apparently our business increased :-)

I have seen days where my sites DECREASED in ranking and my sales actually INCREASED that same day. Crazy eh?

[mosthost]

Originally Posted by twilightofidols

I have seen days where my sites DECREASED in ranking and my sales actually INCREASED that same day. Crazy eh?

Not really. Maybe Google was a lot more targeted on those days. If someone is Googling in the 8 spot they probably are serious about comparing and buying.

[Berkinb]

Hi Mike,

Of course there is no one size fits all solution. The situation is a lot different for local businesses and professionals (yet there are other places where they can successfully promote their businesses and those places are not very open to affiliates/small publishers).

By the way, I wasn't talking about spamming blog comments for rankings; I was talking about real comments on relevant posts aimed to interact with others (just to clarify).

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

I think a lot really depends on the niche and scope of the project you are talking about too.

A local dentist is not going to hang out on dental forums answering questions looking to attract local patients. People are not searching for a new dentist on Twitter or even on Facebook really. Now they might ask their Facebook friends for a recommendation of a good local dentist, but there is nothing a dental practice can do to try to capture those people other than provide great service and hope that their patients recommend them if the opportunity arises.

I also think it looks a little spammy and even unprofessional for them to use blog comments to boost their rankings. That is just my opinion. Others might think differently and they are free to run their business however they choose.

I personally do not believe there is really one SEO or traffic generation plan that fits all businesses. It's a little different for each business/niche.

[Berkinb]

The thing I'm surprised at is that everyone whose rankings drop say that their traffic is decimated. That's why I opened this thread.

I understand people's drive for rankings (I rank my own sites too), but I'd expect people to say something like "my traffic dropped by 50%-60%, whatever". And even when they are hit by an algorithm change, people still do not seem to look for any alternatives. All they do is to try and rank again... until the next update.

And in the meantime, 99% of the people do nothing to increase the content quality, make their sites more engaging, work on their conversions, etc. It all puzzles me

Originally Posted by YasirYar

thanks for the great post.

As an SEO company owner, I have an obsession about my websites rankings. I used to check the rankings once every 2 days and now have finally decided to totally stop doing that since even the slightest variation in the rankings would upset me :-)

now, I am focusing more on contributing to various forums and blogs in order to receive direct and referring traffic to my website which normally converts at a fairly high percentage.

The moral of the story is do not go crazy over rankings.

After the Penguin update, we lost a couple of rankings but apparently our business increased :-)

[Tspringer]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

And in the meantime, 99% of the people do nothing to increase the content quality, make their sites more engaging, work on their conversions, etc. It all puzzles me

Content quality is a long ways behind many other factors that are far more important to Google. What factors? I dont know... but they are clearly more important that quality of content.

I have pages on my site that do not rank in google at all that have 1500 word professionally written absolute BEST content out there on the subject... and the page that ranks #1 for the best keywords for the topic is a deep WebMD page with 250 words of crap and a zillion ad links all over the place.

Sorry, but content is NOT king. Google is simply not good enough to be able to really tell good content from crap. Putting up a site with the best content ever devised for the topic will get you exactly nowhere with Google without SEO efforts of some sort. That is not to say that crap content is easy to rank... unless your WebMD or Oprah or some other gigantic brand with 500K indexed pages and $$$ millions in revenue generated annually for Google - then CRAP IS KING.


Terry

[Sarevok]

Never put your eggs in one basket.

I don't care if you're a car salesman, or a rodeo host.

You need to diversify in your marketing. Especially your website marketing.

[Becker13]

NO! SEO IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET TRAFFIC AND MAKE SALES

Lol. Good post OP. It is always weird to me that people don't try to get traffic from everywhere.

Usually when you start generating natural traffic, Google comes in and backs you up anyways!

[TomerN]

so many people forget that getting real, natural backlinks is the best way to SEO. of course, this means creating good content that people WANT to share, and not some spammy spun article that is overoptimized.

[Berkinb]

Mate, again, I'm not talking about Google here. The whole point is to target people (real people, who want and need your content/products/services).

This is not a "write content and you will rank" thread (although I also do that, but for long tail keywords that do not require a lot of links (actually no links at all).

Originally Posted by Tspringer

Content quality is a long ways behind many other factors that are far more important to Google. What factors? I dont know... but they are clearly more important that quality of content.

I have pages on my site that do not rank in google at all that have 1500 word professionally written absolute BEST content out there on the subject... and the page that ranks #1 for the best keywords for the topic is a deep WebMD page with 250 words of crap and a zillion ad links all over the place.

Sorry, but content is NOT king. Google is simply not good enough to be able to really tell good content from crap. Putting up a site with the best content ever devised for the topic will get you exactly nowhere with Google without SEO efforts of some sort. That is not to say that crap content is easy to rank... unless your WebMD or Oprah or some other gigantic brand with 500K indexed pages and $$$ millions in revenue generated annually for Google - then CRAP IS KING.


Terry

[Berkinb]

YES! That's all about it. When your site gets real attention, Google has no choice but to rank you actually.

Can you imagine them not showing a really hot website on their results? People would need to go elsewhere if they can't find what they're looking for.

But again, this is not about Google

Originally Posted by Becker13

NO! SEO IS THE ONLY WAY TO GET TRAFFIC AND MAKE SALES

Lol. Good post OP. It is always weird to me that people don't try to get traffic from everywhere.

Usually when you start generating natural traffic, Google comes in and backs you up anyways!

[Becker13]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

YES! That's all about it. When your site gets real attention, Google has no choice but to rank you actually.

Can you imagine them not showing a really hot website on their results? People would need to go elsewhere if they can't find what they're looking for.

But again, this is not about Google

Exactly, the only sites I have personally owned that never budge is sites that get just as much traffic from other places as google

Sure I have a ton of smaller sites that are doing great right now...but after this last week I am not really planning on them being ranked next year =P

[nik0]

Pfff, do we keep duplicating threads? First it's Nest, then it's Mike, now it's you. This section is getting pretty boring.

[PerformanceMan]

Originally Posted by nik0

Pfff, do we keep duplicating threads? First it's Nest, then it's Mike, now it's you. This section is getting pretty boring.

I'm glad someone has the courage to tell it like it is!

This section is repetitive.

[Becker13]

Originally Posted by PerformanceMan

I'm glad someone has the courage to tell it like it is!

This section is repetitive.

Dude if your forum does not have 40 threads on the EMD update then your forum aint informed!

[nik0]

Originally Posted by Becker13

Dude if your forum does not have 40 threads on the EMD update then your forum aint informed!

Looool, true fact

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by nik0

Pfff, do we keep duplicating threads? First it's Nest, then it's Mike, now it's you. This section is getting pretty boring.

Thats because the revolution is spreading son. By the time it is complete you might finally have reached Thailand

[nik0]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Thats because the revolution is spreading son. By the time it is complete you might finally have reached Thailand

Heck I just bought 6 EMD domains and 6 pieces of crappy content. I am gonna proof 1 page crappy sites still work

[Becker13]

Originally Posted by nik0

Heck I just bought 6 EMD domains and 6 pieces of crappy content. I am gonna proof 1 page crappy sites still work

Not really the point. The real question is are you confident they will still be ranking a year from now?

I don't know about you but I like to plan my finances =P

[nik0]

Originally Posted by Becker13

Not really the point. The real question is are you confident they will still be ranking a year from now?

I don't know about you but I like to plan my finances =P

6 .us domains for $27,-
6 articles for $21,-

What finances?

Okay this is not 100% fair of course cause it's a matter of clicking a few buttons to send out 400 web2.0 links and 100 private blog posts (my new network that I just completed and I use ArticleWyz for that to post to it), but will be interesting to see how it works out.

[kennykjtan]

I ranked a site for 3 months..... it shot up to page #1 Google. 2 weeks after that Google introduced Panda and pushed it down to Page #3

Again, I did some repairing and ranked the same site for another 1-1/2 months and amazingly it shot up to Page #1. 1-1/2 weeks later Google rolled out Penguin. and again it is pushed to Page #3

Again, I managed to fixed some damages and bring the same website back to page #1 after 2 months of sweating. 3 weeks later Google Rolled out EMD. Phew! it did not effect the website and NO! minor Panda update did not effect the website!! Yeehaaa!!!!! I'm spared!! Thinking that what I did must be very right this time.

10 Days later Google did a Penguin refresh.... Now this time the same website is pushed to page #4!!

Tired of doing SEO!? LOL...... Haven't this taught you a lesson?

I was so depress that Google is playing such a game with me and I told my great grandmother about this. She said "Look at all the health KW, from Diabetes to how to lose weight fast" WEBMoD is all over the places providing you with all the information which you did not understand or which you already know with adsense block way up on the top. She further advise me to follow what WEBMoD did and I will definitely be Google poster child.

So now I built a new website and structure it exactly the same as what WEBMoD did and apply for adsense. Oh...uh...... adsense reject my application saying that your website either did not comply with adsense TOC or webmaster guideline but....but... my set up is exactly the same as WEBMoD!!! and my website did not rank at all!!

Ah...hhh..... maybe my website is new that is why the Google trust is not there so I borrowed some money from my Great Grandma to purchase a 15 years old domain and built the same knowing for sure it will rank as well as WEBMoD or better because this website is a 15 yrs old website and the content is much better with no advertisement and take a step further by listening to Brother Matt's advise by not doing SEO!!!! Is my website ranked on to 100? You've guessed the result

Lesson Learned:
1) SEO is not DEAD! If it is dead, why would Google Penalize or discount backlinks and did a massive Public blog network de-indexing? They even took further steps to flag some other backlinking criteria.
2) EMD still works!!! if it doesn't work why would they announce the EMD update and not the Panda Update when they are rolled out at the same time? Confused? and further did a Penguin refresh 10 days after that.... More confusion!! Sneaky eh?
3) Content is King? I doubt so! Traffic is King? I doubt so! BUT I'd write for both my visitors AND for SEO. Why not enjoy the best of both world and enjoy what really is King? What is King? MONEY!!!
4) My last and final advise! Listen to Brother Matt and you will be DOOM! most of the time. Use what makes sense and ignore that are fairy tales. Simple as that.

Everyone welcomes some nice organic traffic but solely depending on them will be a disaster unless you are wikipedia. You definitely need the organic traffic in the begining but once you've hit the jackpot, utilize the free traffic for future in case Brother Matt is coming up with some funny animals that is black and white so that your income will not be equal to zero.

[dennis09]

Originally Posted by nik0

6 .us domains for $27,-
6 articles for $21,-

What finances?

Okay this is not 100% fair of course cause it's a matter of clicking a few buttons to send out 400 web2.0 links and 100 private blog posts (my new network that I just completed and I use ArticleWyz for that to post to it), but will be interesting to see how it works out.

lmao niko you're hell bro

[XenG]

I think i needed this reminder. Though I am still doing SEO stuffs, I am really dismayed of how Google has changed recently. Our site got hit by the change. Now, were trying to climb up back again, using the usual methods you've mentioned and doing some tweaks when it comes to linking. However, it has been quite tough getting back to where it was. I just hope everything goes well in time.

[YellowGreenMedia]

This method only works in a view niches, most of the niches you still need SEO for your traffic

[Berkinb]

It may be boring for some mate, but I don't think it's repetitive enough just by looking at the number of threads whining from each update.

I'll repeat what I said again: I'm not against SEO, I'm doing SEO for some of my sites and I have small sites that rely on nothing but SEO.

However, it saddens me to see a lot of people losing heart and quitting just because their sites have lost their rankings on Google. That's not the way to do business.

Starting something without a contingency plan or an alternative plan of attack is doomed to failure and a lot of people don't have the money or the means to start over and over again.

1 page sites still work, 5 pages still work, etc. But not everyone has the knowledge/finances to support creating 100s of sites every year/month.

If people started to look for alternative means of traffic and get some traffic and earnings from other channels, they could at least survive these updates and changes instead of failing and quitting.

Originally Posted by nik0

Pfff, do we keep duplicating threads? First it's Nest, then it's Mike, now it's you. This section is getting pretty boring.

[nik0]

Originally Posted by dennis09

lmao niko you're hell bro

I just love to spam when it are sites of my own.

What the heck with offering value to the internet, no freaking way, I'm gonna pollute it BIG TIME

[nik0]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

It may be boring for some mate, but I don't think it's repetitive enough just by looking at the number of threads whining from each update.

I'll repeat what I said again: I'm not against SEO, I'm doing SEO for some of my sites and I have small sites that rely on nothing but SEO.

However, it saddens me to see a lot of people losing heart and quitting just because their sites have lost their rankings on Google. That's not the way to do business.

Starting something without a contingency plan or an alternative plan of attack is doomed to failure and a lot of people don't have the money or the means to start over and over again.

1 page sites still work, 5 pages still work, etc. But not everyone has the knowledge/finances to support creating 100s of sites every year/month.

If people started to look for alternative means of traffic and get some traffic and earnings from other channels, they could at least survive these updates and changes instead of failing and quitting.

Obvious I agree that it's terrible to see the side money disappear for many (as I assume most people do this as a part time job).

But well nothing comes for free in this world. Even if you work for a boss you can lose your job any day any time. Part of life. Doesn't take away that it's better to get some additional traffic indeed. However additional traffic can take a lot of effort and most people join IM cause of this passive dream concept. In my case posting at IM forums is my hobby, and at the same time I make money from it so that's one lucky thing. However it's hard to find something you really like, 3 years ago I would have never though I would run an SEO business so imo you really have to run in certain things and can't always force it.

Sure you can like cats or dogs, but that doesn't mean you also like to post at pet forums, know what I'm saying, so people are real easy on the thing: "Do what you like" but often it just doesn't work that way.

[Nelapsi]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

If people started to look for alternative means of traffic and get some traffic and earnings from other channels, they could at least survive these updates and changes instead of failing and quitting.

But this is like saying, if people created better backlinks update X wouldn't have effected them or if people put better content on their site update Z wouldn't have slapped them or if people didn't spin then update Y wouldn't have bothered them. You can't make people smarter as much as you might want or try especially when it comes to easy/lazy methods. It takes work to build a good solid site. The problem isn't the source of traffic, it is the person running the site.

Unless you have a WSO for curing stupidity, your pissing in the wind.

[Berkinb]

OK you got me there Of course I (or anybody else for that matter) cannot make people do something they don't want (or won't bother) to do.

It's just that the easy/lazy way is not the easy/fast way as a lot of people think when they start their IM efforts.

Even those of us who manage to use SEO successfully have reached that position after months/years of learning and failing. 99%, on the other side, never reaches that point as they give up after the first failure.

And if we are dealing with Google, we are all meant to fail occasionally. No matter how smart we act, they will do something that will send our sites through the drain. Then we'll learn and adapt again. And on and on.

But like I said, most people don't have the means/resources to keep playing that game. I'm trying to reach those people and remind them that there are other ways.

My hope here is that at least 1 out of 100 people will see that there is something outside the box. And if they care to think and do something about it, it'll be good for them

Originally Posted by Nelapsi

But this is like saying, if people created better backlinks update X wouldn't have effected them or if people put better content on their site update Z wouldn't have slapped them or if people didn't spin then update Y wouldn't have bothered them. You can't make people smarter as much as you might want or try especially when it comes to easy/lazy methods. It takes work to build a good solid site. The problem isn't the source of traffic, it is the person running the site.

Unless you have a WSO for curing stupidity, your pissing in the wind.

[MrDougJay]

Thanks for the wake up call. It's just hard to come up with new things to recover from Google updates. Honestly, I'm sick of Google. I'm always open to try new things.

[Berkinb]

Mate, there are ways for almost all niches. Just not the same for each.

Some work better with videos, some respond well to Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

Some are very popular in Stumbleupon, Tumblr, etc.

And there are forums, popular blogs, directories in almost every niche where you can rent ad space and banners, etc. There are ezines and mail lists where you can buy clicks, etc.

Yes, some of these require time and/or money, but doesn't SEO too?

Originally Posted by YellowGreenMedia

This method only works in a view niches, most of the niches you still need SEO for your traffic

[Nelapsi]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

OK you got me there Of course I (or anybody else for that matter) cannot make people do something they don't want (or won't bother) to do.

It's just that the easy/lazy way is not the easy/fast way as a lot of people think when they start their IM efforts.

Even those of us who manage to use SEO successfully have reached that position after months/years of learning and failing. 99%, on the other side, never reaches that point as they give up after the first failure.

And if we are dealing with Google, we are all meant to fail occasionally. No matter how smart we act, they will do something that will send our sites through the drain. Then we'll learn and adapt again. And on and on.

But like I said, most people don't have the means/resources to keep playing that game. I'm trying to reach those people and remind them that there are other ways.

My hope here is that at least 1 out of 100 people will see that there is something outside the box. And if they care to think and do something about it, it'll be good for them

Google has nothing to do with failure, this is more like blaming someone else for your problems. The same point yesterday is true today, if you build a quality site the rest will take care of itself. This means being smart enough to not be tempted to build that link wheel because you know it is just a matter of time before Google decides to slap it. This means not writing an article that looks like a dog wrote it. This means something inside screams no when you read that fiverr gig that states 50k comment posts will rank you #1 within a week.

If you do not treat your website like a business then odds are you are going to make some very critical mistakes along the way. This does not mean you fail, but you are vulnerable to something happening. You talk about relying on Google is bad for business but Google is easy, it is just code. Interacting with a niche's community and being able to establish yourself as a source for information and an authority, that's difficult. This is why you see so many people on here crying because their 5 page MNS site just got slapped down by Google. They were taking the easy, lazy, stupid route to success. I have yet to hear of anyone with 1000 pages of content being slapped down or someone with an established expertise in their niche taking a reduced rank hit.

The problem is not Google, it is the user.

[Berkinb]

All valid points mate. And I have tried to ask some questions in the OP to get people thinking about them:


To how many of these questions, needs and worries your site provides answers/solutions?

Do you know where your potential customers hang out? Which forums? Which social sites? Do you follow people from that niche on Twitter or Facebook?

Did you ever create (our outsource) a piece of really outstanding content for your visitors/readers? Did you ever try publishing/sharing such content in places/sites where your potential customers are?

Did you ever create a video for people to actually watch and enjoy? Or learn from? Or get a solution to their problems?

Originally Posted by Nelapsi

Google has nothing to do with failure, this is more like blaming someone else for your problems. The same point yesterday is true today, if you build a quality site the rest will take care of itself. This means being smart enough to not be tempted to build that link wheel because you know it is just a matter of time before Google decides to slap it. This means not writing an article that looks like a dog wrote it. This means something inside screams no when you read that fiverr gig that states 50k comment posts will rank you #1 within a week.

If you do not treat your website like a business then odds are you are going to make some very critical mistakes along the way. This does not mean you fail, but you are vulnerable to something happening. You talk about relying on Google is bad for business but Google is easy, it is just code. Interacting with a niche's community and being able to establish yourself as a source for information and an authority, that's difficult. This is why you see so many people on here crying because their 5 page MNS site just got slapped down by Google. They were taking the easy, lazy, stupid route to success. I have yet to hear of anyone with 1000 pages of content being slapped down or someone with an established expertise in their niche taking a reduced rank hit.

The problem is not Google, it is the user.

[Nelapsi]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

All valid points mate. And I have tried to ask some questions in the OP to get people thinking about them:


To how many of these questions, needs and worries your site provides answers/solutions?

Do you know where your potential customers hang out? Which forums? Which social sites? Do you follow people from that niche on Twitter or Facebook?

Did you ever create (our outsource) a piece of really outstanding content for your visitors/readers? Did you ever try publishing/sharing such content in places/sites where your potential customers are?

Did you ever create a video for people to actually watch and enjoy? Or learn from? Or get a solution to their problems?

1. Yep, I know exactly where they are and an active member of those forum communities. I generally don't use facebook ( my wife uses mine for farmville) and don't use twitter.
2. I create outstanding content each week! I am published in both of my niches
3. I don't video.. unless of course they were twin cheerleaders but that would be for another site.. not mine.

Now for my niches, I don't think you can lose organic traffic and survive (it would be a slow death). I have so many people getting to my site from search engines because they are looking to solve a problem and that's what search engines have turned into in this day of age. So fighting organic traffic or dismissing it as not part of a solid business strategy is rather foolish. WebMD went through this I think it was back in 2008, Google starting something called Google Health. Look who is standing today and look at where WebMD ranks. WebMD understood the value of organic traffic even though they have a budget that allows them to run TV commercials.

It is just my opinion but following your suggested path is a very poor business decision. Any business that thrives off a constant revolving user base needs to be open every source possible.

[Berkinb]

Nelapsi, I agree that SEO and organic search traffic should not be dismissed or ignored.

This is all about people getting fixated on one thing in the expense of ignoring everything else.

Once again, I'm not against SEO at all and by no means am I here to defend the "Google wants quality" crap.

I've been involved in SEO for about 8 years now. My first few years involved SEO'ing my own business site and then I started creating and ranking Adsense/affiliate sites.

With all the successes and failures in all those years, one thing I learned is that organic search traffic is slippery. You have to constantly learn and adapt, create new strategies to cope with all the changes.

When you are in the later stages of your IM career, with a lot of experience under your belt and a decent monthly income, it gets easier to cope with them (or at least recover from them). But most people don't have the means when they're beginning.

And of course people should be open to all sources of traffic (as you mention in the part I highlighted in bold) and that's exactly what I'm saying here. If you are just starting out and base everything on something that could be gone tomorrow, it just doesn't make sense.

I can't see how it's foolish to suggest that people should look beyond Google and be open to all possible sources of traffic and income.

Originally Posted by Nelapsi

1. Yep, I know exactly where they are and an active member of those forum communities. I generally don't use facebook ( my wife uses mine for farmville) and don't use twitter.
2. I create outstanding content each week! I am published in both of my niches
3. I don't video.. unless of course they were twin cheerleaders but that would be for another site.. not mine.

Now for my niches, I don't think you can lose organic traffic and survive (it would be a slow death). I have so many people getting to my site from search engines because they are looking to solve a problem and that's what search engines have turned into in this day of age. So fighting organic traffic or dismissing it as not part of a solid business strategy is rather foolish. WebMD went through this I think it was back in 2008, Google starting something called Google Health. Look who is standing today and look at where WebMD ranks. WebMD understood the value of organic traffic even though they have a budget that allows them to run TV commercials.

It is just my opinion but following your suggested path is a very poor business decision. Any business that thrives off a constant revolving user base needs to be open every source possible.

[Nelapsi]

Originally Posted by Berkinb

So, please, stop chasing Google's tail, give them the boot and get your eyes on the real prize.

No offense but in your original post you basically go on about look at all this other stuff and forget Google.

Originally Posted by Berkinb

I can't see how it's foolish to suggest that people should look beyond Google and be open to all possible sources of traffic and income.

No one should look beyond anything, they need to learn how make smart "business" decisions and how to include everything. Let me give you an example perhaps you can actually sink your teeth into. Look at most of the posts you see around this forum, look at the ones that were slapped by updates because this is actually who you are speaking too. Most fit into this area:
1. English is not their native language.
2. They cannot seem to form a sentence.
3. They do not have a clear line of thought.
4. Rather then solve problems themselves, they ask for help first.

Now do you really see these people engaging a niche's community and demonstrating themselves to be an expert/authority, then finally getting users to come to their website without being booted for spam?

I also should state don't get me wrong, I do agree in part with you. I do think people that are building websites, especially authority websites, need to engage the community they deal with. Eventually you might form your own of course but during the first few years, you will need to engage it else where. How you engage it and the tools you use can vary and should be based on what your community uses.

[Geekgirl01]

Really good thread.....me and Mike F were talking the other day about this.
People give the same old answers - write content, ping it for google to notice it etc
Nobody every gives unique and creative ways to get your website out there and to interest your visitors - im pretty sure many on here dont give two sods about INTERESTING their visitor with really unique stuff that even their competitor doesnt have!

[JabMonkey]

I'm just glad none of my online income depends on Google. I dropped them punks a long time ago.

Worst company in America: Google - non-existent support, god-like attitude and "wrath of god"-like policies.

Don't want em. Don't need em.

[Nelapsi]

Originally Posted by Geekgirl01

Really good thread.....me and Mike F were talking the other day about this.
People give the same old answers - write content, ping it for google to notice it etc
Nobody every gives unique and creative ways to get your website out there and to interest your visitors - im pretty sure many on here dont give two sods about INTERESTING their visitor with really unique stuff that even their competitor doesnt have!

Believe it or not you actually have something here that I feel is the indicator of where your website is in the scope of things. If you have to ping your content, you are failing. Think about it for a second, it is nothing more then a automated spider that roams the internet eating content to be ranked. What people fail to grasp it is learns and is trainable, if you update content once a week it will figure that out and only come to your site once a week. Also if you can't get a script to come to your site, how are you going to convince a reader who is actually looking for something to come?

People need to learn to look at their site stats everyday and based on what they see figure out what they need to do next to improve those. Now you can't get so bogged down in stats which is easy to do but it does give you a window into what your users are doing and if they, as a group, seem to be happy. If you are in this to make money then the wake up call should be this is a business, treat it as such.

[Berkinb]

None taken mate

I can see why it sounds like that. But I was actually addressing people who get burned again and again by these updates. Most of them give up before trying anything else.

It's like saying: "if you can't play the SEO game, don't play it." For instance, if they had an affiliate site that made good money but lost rankings (and if they don't know how to get it back), they can try and produce good quality videos that link to their site (or directly to the offer) before giving up.

Or they can create a massive list of resources or Q/A that helps people in that niche with their most common problems and try to make it viral.

These are just small examples to show the game doesn't end when G slaps them.

I didn't say that people didn't need to learn SEO, but as long as they think it's only about blasting links left and right, they won't survive for too long.

And yes, getting in touch with the audience is the 1st rule of successful marketing. And although I agree with you that all of this will sound like "too much work" for most people, again, my hope is that someone will care to think about these things and get something out of it

Originally Posted by Nelapsi

No offense but in your original post you basically go on about look at all this other stuff and forget Google.