I am WORN OUT and tired of SEO

[jordanwarrior]

I've been in the employment niche for a couple of years now, and at this point, all I can ask is, "what happened?" At first things were going fine and my sites were actually earning something. However, ever since the first Panda update came along, everything has been going downhill. Nothing I try has had any positive effect whatsoever. I've worked with a couple of SEO consultants on JV deals, but these petered when they weren't making a million dollars in 3 months. Basically, I'm at a point where I'm pretty much convinced that a very, very small percentage of IM'ers are actually making a living online anymore.

Before you start bashing me, the content I've written, and had written by others, is absolutely freakin' excellent. There has been no imported work, and I managed to keep my nose clean for the most part in regards to linking, etc. Efforts included guest posting, videos, some social bookmarking, tried forums, etc, etc. Even tried blog commenting, and by that I mean it would take a good 5 minutes to write a comment. However, these didn't yield anything either. Honestly, I'm ready to get a job and live the rest of my miserable existence like the rest of society; going to work everyday and doing my best to keep up with the Jones's.

I'm wondering if anyone else is actually having success in competitive markets these days. If so, what general strategy are you using. Also, is anyone actually making any money, and if so, how much are you earning. BTW, please keep all theoretical seo BS away from this thread. I don't need to be sifting through poorly worded responses about "making Google rankings is easy," etc, etc. Please excuse the tone, I'm like the guy who bought the tractor with no seat or steering wheel.

[Moriarty]

It strikes me that you are experiencing what many offline businesses are experiencing: margins are getting tighter. People have to do more and usually earn less as thanks.

A question: are your backlinks getting you quality traffic? As mentioned elsewhere, Google has stated that their aim is to provide quality answers to their searcher's questions. That goes for your sites too. In terms of backlinking, good quality traffic means people who come to your site and stay around. Oh, and buy too.

What are your thoughts on this?

[yukon]

There's defiantly more to life than SEO, SEO is a single source of traffic. You said you did the forum thing, not sure what you did but there's money in forum traffic (not talking IM forums). You said your in the employment niche, what does that mean, is your traffic looking for an employer because that would probably never be able to get repeat traffic. Usually when someone has a 9-5 job they stick with it until forced to look for another job, not the ideal traffic source IMO.

[PerformanceMan]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Basically, I'm at a point where I'm pretty much convinced that a very, very small percentage of IM'ers are actually making a living online anymore.

Whoa. Careful of generalizing. Your lack of success does not translate to anyone other than you.

It's important to blame yourself for your failure. When you assume it's part of a worldwide trend - you're letting yourself off the hook.

The bottom line is it takes more effort than ever to make money online. I blame it on the recession. As more people lost money offline they turned to the Web to make ends meet. Most of these people learned the same 'IM tricks' that were making all of us easy money.

That means it's time to adjust.

You're running a business online. Businesses advertise. Forget 'pure SEO' and build a profitable sales funnel that uses multiple traffic sources - including paid ones - to make money.

As to your question about whether people still make money. Yes, my 'pure SEO efforts' still bring $60K yearly - down from a 2007 high of $230k.

[nik0]

You can build a site with 5 great articles, fact remains that it's still a very thin affiliate site, no matter what quality of the content, not sure if that's the case but sure to consider.

Besides that I miss quality links in your back link profile. Ranking based on some video submisison, blog comments, bookmarking and forum posting won't get you far. And the guest post sites that you used, we need numbers to say anything usefull about that. If you just did 2 guest posts at PR1 sites that get spammed all day long cause they are in some guest post network then it still equals close to nothing.

[jaisonjohn]

First of all cross check the activities done for your website related to offsite for which you have to cross check your webmaster tools of your account, list out keywords in the notepad and upload it in disallow option of webmaster tool. At the same time, you need to cross check for content in your website and review title, description and keywords for website and thoroughly work on onsite changes.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Basically, I'm at a point where I'm pretty much convinced that a very, very small percentage of IM'ers are actually making a living online anymore.

Actually, it has always been that a very, very small percentage of IM'ers are actually making a living online. That has never changed.

[trafficmasters]

I would recommend out sourcing your SEO to a local company near you, a company with a building and employees - that way you will know that your site is at least in good hands and you should see some improvement

A lot of sites got hit because of poor seo, too much focus on anchor keywords and less focus on natural looking profiles

Its easy to get sucked into a sales page on these forums. Promises of hitting page one in a few months. Your niche is pretty competitive and will need constant, high quality work.

You could always try looking to setting up a different domain it may be easier to rank than your current one, however this is something to discuss with your SEO company

Good luck, stay positive

[11811]

How are your social media efforts? Are you engaging users on Facebook and Twitter?

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by Moriarty

It strikes me that you are experiencing what many offline businesses are experiencing: margins are getting tighter. People have to do more and usually earn less as thanks.

A question: are your backlinks getting you quality traffic? As mentioned elsewhere, Google has stated that their aim is to provide quality answers to their searcher's questions. That goes for your sites too. In terms of backlinking, good quality traffic means people who come to your site and stay around. Oh, and buy too.

What are your thoughts on this?

The problem with the backlinks is that they do not provide much traffic, no matter where they're at. Conversions aren't too bad at around 3%, but average time on site has never been above 2.60. I did have a 4% bounce rate about two years ago.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by nik0

You can build a site with 5 great articles, fact remains that it's still a very thin affiliate site, no matter what quality of the content, not sure if that's the case but sure to consider.

Besides that I miss quality links in your back link profile. Ranking based on some video submisison, blog comments, bookmarking and forum posting won't get you far. And the guest post sites that you used, we need numbers to say anything usefull about that. If you just did 2 guest posts at PR1 sites that get spammed all day long cause they are in some guest post network then it still equals close to nothing.

I had one site with 350 or so good articles, and another one with 150. Tried all manner of getting quality backlinks , but getting even just one can take months. Another issue with the niche is that there isn't a ton of visitor interaction with any of the competitor sites. Guest posts were on reputable sites, and the links were in-context.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by 11811

How are your social media efforts? Are you engaging users on Facebook and Twitter?

Trying to as well, but man it's tough getting people excited about something they're going to spend a couple of hours doing and forget about.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by PerformanceMan

Whoa. Careful of generalizing. Your lack of success does not translate to anyone other than you.

It's important to blame yourself for your failure. When you assume it's part of a worldwide trend - you're letting yourself off the hook.

The bottom line is it takes more effort than ever to make money online. I blame it on the recession. As more people lost money offline they turned to the Web to make ends meet. Most of these people learned the same 'IM tricks' that were making all of us easy money.

That means it's time to adjust.

You're running a business online. Businesses advertise. Forget 'pure SEO' and build a profitable sales funnel that uses multiple traffic sources - including paid ones - to make money.

As to your question about whether people still make money. Yes, my 'pure SEO efforts' still bring $60K yearly - down from a 2007 high of $230k.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not blaming anyone else, but more so my seeming lack of being able to make any progress. Also, I would say dropping from 270K down to 60K is a pretty good indicator of the state of the web, and illustrates just how difficult everything has become.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by trafficmasters

I would recommend out sourcing your SEO to a local company near you, a company with a building and employees - that way you will know that your site is at least in good hands and you should see some improvement

A lot of sites got hit because of poor seo, too much focus on anchor keywords and less focus on natural looking profiles

Its easy to get sucked into a sales page on these forums. Promises of hitting page one in a few months. Your niche is pretty competitive and will need constant, high quality work.

You could always try looking to setting up a different domain it may be easier to rank than your current one, however this is something to discuss with your SEO company

Good luck, stay positive

In this niche I haven't seen a new domain actually rank anytime in the past couple of years. I think I'm better off trying to improve rankings for my PR3 site, than spending 2 years trying to get a new site going from scratch. In fact, I don't think I could do it, and outsourcing the project would be extremely cost prohibitive. There are still black-hat masters getting sites ranked quickly for a couple of months, but these never last.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by yukon

There's defiantly more to life than SEO, SEO is a single source of traffic. You said you did the forum thing, not sure what you did but there's money in forum traffic (not talking IM forums). You said your in the employment niche, what does that mean, is your traffic looking for an employer because that would probably never be able to get repeat traffic. Usually when someone has a 9-5 job they stick with it until forced to look for another job, not the ideal traffic source IMO.

Can't specify the exact nature of the niche, but depending on who I target it can be a one-off or recurring market. It all depends on the customers preferences. As far as forums are concerned, there just aren't any relevant, high traffic forums. I tried to start one, but it just didn't fly. There is a lot of money in it, but as usual brand names are taking over the SERP's.

There has been one bit of consolation, however warped. A major company in the niche bought an EMD right before Penguin came along and jumped from a thousand visitors to >50,000 within 2 months simply because everyone else was getting de-ranked. However, as soon as they had the rankings, they turned what had been a great blog into a commercial site, and promptly lost the rankings again. Don't know who was managing the decision making, but it must hurt to watch a $45,000 project going down the drain. Don't actually know what it cost, but judging by all the content they had and buying the domain, etc, it must have been expensive.

[adeptbob]

No job will ever guarantee you stability, ever. Businesses fire people all the time, and industries shift just the same.

Never put all your eggs in one basket, utilize multiple forms of traffic. Do some research on targeted media buys...

And just and FYI, SEO still works amazingly well. You just have to read past the white noise everyone spews out there. The same methods to rank have remained the same year after year. You need HIGH PR DO-FOLLOW links with diverse anchor text. Everything I know I learned from spending countless hours researching. If you want to build anything in life you must invest time and effort.


Never make fear based decisions. If you do, you'll never succeed in life.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Can't specify the exact nature of the niche, but depending on who I target it can be a one-off or recurring market. It all depends on the customers preferences. As far as forums are concerned, there just aren't any relevant, high traffic forums. I tried to start one, but it just didn't fly. There is a lot of money in it, but as usual brand names are taking over the SERP's.

So your problem is traffic, where's the traffic for your niche (besides SEO)?

I don't recommend depending on SEO 100% for anyone, the SERPs will never be guaranteed positions. The SERPs are good traffic but you have to look out for yourself, nobody else will. Create multiple sources of traffic.

[SearchEngineNerds]

what are your revenue streams? Ads? Affiliate income? Selling your own stuff?

Also, you say you have 150-350 quality articles. How is the internal link structure? Are you focusing way too much on getting backlinks and not enough on internal link structure?

Also, have you ever tried analyzing the quality of the incoming traffic?

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by SearchEngineNerds

what are your revenue streams? Ads? Affiliate income? Selling your own stuff?

Also, you say you have 150-350 quality articles. How is the internal link structure? Are you focusing way too much on getting backlinks and not enough on internal link structure?

Also, have you ever tried analyzing the quality of the incoming traffic?

It's all commission based affiliate relationships, which included both traditional streams using a network and working directly with companies basically as a sales rep. The traffic I was getting in the niche was pretty much all worth something, even the less targeted keywords. Point is, my traffic is about gone at this point.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by yukon

So your problem is traffic, where's the traffic for your niche (besides SEO)?

I don't recommend depending on SEO 100% for anyone, the SERPs will never be guaranteed positions. The SERPs are good traffic but you have to look out for yourself, nobody else will. Create multiple sources of traffic.

The plan was to diversify into PPC, but at $7 per click, I just never had the capital to really get it going. Offline advertising would also work well, but the money just wasn't there either. I also had plans for hiring sales reps, which would have been extremely effective, but once again...Basically, the online aspect was to help get things going so I could expand offline, which others in my niche have done.

[dburdon]

There's no two way about it. SEO is getting tougher. Google's algorithms are getting smarter. Translating effort into results requires increasinly acute strategies and tactics.
Essentially there's more data out there, more SEO software out there, more content out there and therefore, many more optimised sites.
In some categories everyone in the top 20 rankings will be optimised. So its effectively a zero sum game. Its especially tough for small websites and small SEOs as Google's latest algorithm changes appear to favour the bigger sites with more domain power behind them.
However, what's the alternative. More PPC? Yes, PPC has a role. But would you want to be entirely dependent on paid search? Social media. Hmm. I've yet to see anything coming out of social media that compares with the results of SEO.
Its about getting smarter and smarter. Refining and focusing your efforts to concentrate on the stuff that makes a return.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by dburdon

There's no two way about it. SEO is getting tougher. Google's algorithms are getting smarter. Translating effort into results requires increasinly acute strategies and tactics.
Essentially there's more data out there, more SEO software out there, more content out there and therefore, many more optimised sites.
In some categories everyone in the top 20 rankings will be optimised. So its effectively a zero sum game. Its especially tough for small websites and small SEOs as Google's latest algorithm changes appear to favour the bigger sites with more domain power behind them.
However, what's the alternative. More PPC? Yes, PPC has a role. But would you want to be entirely dependent on paid search? Social media. Hmm. I've yet to see anything coming out of social media that compares with the results of SEO.
Its about getting smarter and smarter. Refining and focusing your efforts to concentrate on the stuff that makes a return.

I was wondering if you have any input on that. I'd be really interested to know what's working for you, as I'm up against a brick wall. PM me if there is anything you don't want to post here on the thread.

[wwhitley]

I have the answer that you are looking for. The program get your articles ready with SEO and help you get on the first page of the search engines. Go to my traffic website and read the article On-Page SEO to learn how the plugin works.

[RedShifted]

I agree don't be consumed in fear.

Instead, become consumed in anger. Thats what I typically do.
A week ago I made a thread about how I was getting tired with SEO and was close to giving up.

But then I got angry (like usual) and that anger always keeps me motivated.

For instance. The top competitor in my niche is a scam artist. He has ripped off hundreds of clients in my industry, has a terrible reputation, has had cops called on him just to get him out of peoples houses, but has 2 different sites ranking on page 1 of google. One in position 1 for various keywords, another in position 3.

It makes me laughably angry to see this type of crap.

We own a solid business, have a great reputation, and have to compete with dirt bags like this because google doesn't give a damn. He started SEO 3 years ago and that was a smart decision on his part, regardless of how much I hate his business practices.

But it is stuff like that which really motivates me to keep going. It motivates me to get better backlinks, and do everything in my power that he skipped when he started SEO years ago.

The fact is, I can outrank him, and I will. It will take a lot of time, but in the mean time we have other ways of keeping business rolling in.

With that said, this is what I truely believe is most important.
And that would be 100%, without a doubt, 2 things.

1) The niche you're in.
2) Your own personal definition of "working smart".

Regardless of how strained the economy is, there are still niches that are highly profitable, and not very competitive. And I knew when coming into this I would have some serious disadvantages considering I was a newbie to seo/online marketing in general.

So I knew how important it would be to pick a great niche, that I could monetize really well. And even till this day I can say that has helped me more than anything else I can think of. My marketing works, because there's just not a lot of people targeting this niche. I make decent money, because I'm not competing with too many people.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still love to rank #1 in google for a dozen or so keywords, but for now, I'm able to survive on other abilities. And that is whats really the most important.

Here's a quick story -

My brothers friend lost his business 4 years ago (was in a rare home improvement niche) and wound up getting a divorce with his wife. He started drinking, complaining about how things were getting tougher, how it was so hard to run a business, how the economy sucked etc etc.

Well for 2 years he didn't do much of anything, except drink and complain, and it was really sad to watch his life spiral downward. But he had learned a lot by failing so terribly. For one, he told himself he would never bother with SEO again. Even though that wasn't the main reason his business failed, he just didn't want to touch SEO ever again. What really happened was people were stealing from inside his company, and this was going on for a solid year.

When he found out what was going on, it completely dissolved his entire company.

Long story short, he started a new business in the same exact niche, because he KNEW the niche was a good one, but he never really leveraged his strengths the way he needed. He always thought it was important to become better at things he sucked at, rather than focus entirely on things he was good at. But when he made that 1 simple change, he was able to double the size of his business in only 2 years.

Last year, he took home $250,000, which thoroughly impressed me. And he did all of this without relying one bit on SEO.

His entire sales funnel became:

PPC
Local Search
Direct Mail

Now he's got 5 guys working under him, which has really motivated me to take full control over my own life.

And seeing all this happen, has really made me realize, that if you are failing at ANYTHING in life, that doesn't mean its the end of the world. It probably just means you need to work smarter. As vague as a lesson that is, its probably the most important thing any person can get through their heads.

Myself included.

Sure its tough out there... but what does that mean? Has life ever really been easy?
When things change, you adapt, you work smarter, you become the exception, or you spend the rest of your life complaining about what could have been, what you should have done... if only..

-Red

[Anoosh Kashefi]

There are ways to get your SEO done for you so you can do some of the things mentioned here like :

--> building a sales funnel and sending paid traffic
--> check out CPV marketing
--> give up and work a dead end job forever

Unfortunately, if you do option c you'll never get anywhere. Just don't give up, it's tough but if it wasn't everyone would be rich. Innovate, test, keep moving forward... Good luck!

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by wwhitley

I have the answer that you are looking for. The program get your articles ready with SEO and help you get on the first page of the search engines. Go to my traffic website and read the article On-Page SEO to learn how the plugin works.

I'll sue you for wasting mine and everyone else's time.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anoosh Kashefi

There are ways to get your SEO done for you so you can do some of the things mentioned here like :

--> building a sales funnel and sending paid traffic
--> check out CPV marketing
--> give up and work a dead end job forever

Unfortunately, if you do option c you'll never get anywhere. Just don't give up, it's tough but if it wasn't everyone would be rich. Innovate, test, keep moving forward... Good luck!

If I could get someone reputable to actually do the SEO in an effective and sustainable manner, they'd be very handsomely paid based on performance, and I'd be golden. That's no joke. Unfortunately, the only SEO offers I can find are either the spammy $300/month deals, or the professional $7,000/month services. There seems to be little in between, and to this point, JV deals have been utter garbage despite a lot of big talk by the "experts."

[yukon]

How do you JV SEO?

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by yukon

How do you JV SEO?

Haha, was wondering when someone would ask. Well, it's part trust, part competition, and a little bit of greed. You could get into the niche yourself once the JV deal has been finalized and you know what's going on, but to get to the point where my site is would take a couple of years. On the other hand, you can partner with someone who's already got some rankings and split the profits with them when your efforts start paying off in a couple of months.

I know a very good SEO who generally keeps two JV SEO deals going in addition to his other stuff. BTW, he runs an agency. He would have taken this on, but is booked up indefinitely. The concept takes a little getting used to, but when you're making $60,000/month as an SEO consultant, one niche doesn't matter so much anymore. The nature of the web has also made JV deals more feasible as of late. Everything is that much harder, and this niche especially is about as brutal as they come.

[Cash37]

OP I agree. It angers me seeing people ask you about quality links, etc. IT DOESN'T MATTER. WHEN GOOGLE DECIDES YOUR SITE ISN'T WORTHY OF TRAFFIC, THAT'S IT.

I'm going through the same thing. I'm running around trying to get "bad" links removed, hired a staff writer, and still post at least one unique article per day myself. For some reason Google penalized me from ranking #3 to unranked and everything has stopped. I don't wish this on my worst enemy.

Just take it easy OP, and realize it might be time to move to a different time in your life. Google seems to only be wanting to rank brands and running behind "penguin" and "pandas" to wipe out the little guys. Quite frankly it makes me sick.

[PerformanceMan]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Haha, was wondering when someone would ask. Well, it's part trust, part competition, and a little bit of greed. You could get into the niche yourself once the JV deal has been finalized and you know what's going on, but to get to the point where my site is would take a couple of years. On the other hand, you can partner with someone who's already got some rankings and split the profits with them when your efforts start paying off in a couple of months.

I know a very good SEO who generally keeps two JV SEO deals going in addition to his other stuff. BTW, he runs an agency. He would have taken this on, but is booked up indefinitely. The concept takes a little getting used to, but when you're making $60,000/month as an SEO consultant, one niche doesn't matter so much anymore. The nature of the web has also made JV deals more feasible as of late. Everything is that much harder, and this niche especially is about as brutal as they come.

What is your monetization scheme for the website?

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by Cash37

OP I agree. It angers me seeing people ask you about quality links, etc. IT DOESN'T MATTER. WHEN GOOGLE DECIDES YOUR SITE ISN'T WORTHY OF TRAFFIC, THAT'S IT.

I'm going through the same thing. I'm running around trying to get "bad" links removed, hired a staff writer, and still post at least one unique article per day myself. For some reason Google penalized me from ranking #3 to unranked and everything has stopped. I don't wish this on my worst enemy.

Just take it easy OP, and realize it might be time to move to a different time in your life. Google seems to only be wanting to rank brands and running behind "penguin" and "pandas" to wipe out the little guys. Quite frankly it makes me sick.

Thanks for the post, that's kind of what I've been wondering about. Who else has had their @$$ blasted to Timbuktu. Your experience sounds like mine, and if I were you, I would either find someone who very good at SEO to give it one last shot, or get out like you suggested. I've been trying to recover for almost a year and it's no go. The reason I've stuck around this long is because of the massive earning potential. It's around $xx,000/month for a site that has decent rankings across the board, and I've known a few that were making that much. Problem is, big brands and sites like wikipedia are taking over that have absolutely no business there simply because they're not what people are looking for. I know because I've done the research, etc, etc.

[Doug Pretorius]

Jordan, since you mentioned that you're in the 'employment' niche you might be interested in doing some research on James Clear of PassivePanda. I came across him on a youtube interview with Corbett Barr

here

. I mention him because one of the niches he writes about on his blog is employment.

I agree with you though. SEO sucks. You work hard hoping something will stick, but even if it does it could (probably will) be wiped out by the next G update. I've decide to abandon SEO altogether and focus on SMM.

I launched a new blog on the 7th and my goal is to keep search traffic as low as possible. Like yukon said, SEO is only one search of traffic.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by PerformanceMan

What is your monetization scheme for the website?

Affiliate and direct sales. The affiliate sales are the jackpot and you can pull in massive numbers, but the direct sales are where the money is at long term. Unfortunately, around the time I was starting to really get into working directly with companies, everything took a dump.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by Doug Pretorius

Jordan, since you mentioned that you're in the 'employment' niche you might be interested in doing some research on James Clear of PassivePanda. I came across him on a youtube interview with Corbett Barr here. I mention him because one of the niches he writes about on his blog is employment.

I agree with you though. SEO sucks. You work hard hoping something will stick, but even if it does it could (probably will) be wiped out by the next G update. I've decide to abandon SEO altogether and focus on SMM.

I launched a new blog on the 7th and my goal is to keep search traffic as low as possible. Like yukon said, SEO is only one search of traffic.

He does have some great points, but his website traffic is also decreasing. Hopefully the guy has enough subscribers, partners, etc to make his business self sustainable.

[Suir1980]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Basically, I'm at a point where I'm pretty much convinced that a very, very small percentage of IM'ers are actually making a living online anymore.

Look at the WSO sellers. Emulate them and take advantage of newbies. That's how ppl earn $$$ online these days. Either hire someone to write a program for you or release a "ground breaking" eBook.

[Slin]

Hey Jordan, me and you have talked before, I don't think you should give up at all.

You are targeting an extremely competitive niche, which is good in one way, because that means that there is money to be made.

It's tough taking a hit, especially when your sites drop, and your income goes with it. I would suggest starting out small, target long tail keywords with your seo, and target forums advertising your website.

The great thing about having a webpage is that it costs next to nothing to keep it going. So you don't have to worry too much about the upkeep.

I promise man, that you can start pulling in a good income, it just takes some patience and hard work. Keep trying, stick at your one project, unless you find it impossible, then change to something else, and stick to it.

SEO isn't easy, it's constantly changing, what I would suggest is try to make some income right now (off of forum advertising and things) and then hire some help with the backlinks or SEO.

Just take it one bite at a time, you'll be fine in the end

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by Slin

Hey Jordan, me and you have talked before, I don't think you should give up at all.

You are targeting an extremely competitive niche, which is good in one way, because that means that there is money to be made.

It's tough taking a hit, especially when your sites drop, and your income goes with it. I would suggest starting out small, target long tail keywords with your seo, and target forums advertising your website.

The great thing about having a webpage is that it costs next to nothing to keep it going. So you don't have to worry too much about the upkeep.

I promise man, that you can start pulling in a good income, it just takes some patience and hard work. Keep trying, stick at your one project, unless you find it impossible, then change to something else, and stick to it.

SEO isn't easy, it's constantly changing, what I would suggest is try to make some income right now (off of forum advertising and things) and then hire some help with the backlinks or SEO.

Just take it one bite at a time, you'll be fine in the end

Hi Slin,

Things got a little out of hand here. I mainly wanted to see if anyone else was having similar issues in their niche, and it does seem many people are struggling with getting traffic these days.

[inetguru_987]

Post your website and I'll tell you if you should give up or not.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by inetguru_987

Post your website and I'll tell you if you should give up or not.

Not sure about that. I'm still actively working on it.

[SearchEngineNerds]

Without actually taking a look at your site and getting more stats, here are a few ways you could improve things.

The fact that your traffic took a nosedive recently suggests that your SEO strategy may have been more of a "one trick pony" sorts. Try to take a step back and build a stronger base.It looks like you are putting in a lot of effort, but I am not sure if there is a strategy behind that effort.

You are trying to build your livelihood around this, so you gotta be more proactive and creative.

1. Analyze where your traffic is (was) coming from: Search engines? (if yes, what were the popular search terms?); Social Media ? (which ones?); Other blogs? (who??). Repeat visitors? Bottom line is figure out WHICH is the most popular source and them optimize around that source. Also, try to build a balance

2. Keyword research: You operate in a competitive niche. Spend maximum effort on keyword research. I mean MAXIMUM. you might have great articles (350++) but are they keyword optimized w.r.t competition? are you attacking high traffic/low competition keywords?? Keyword research is art and science combined. Get this right and you will be gold.

3. Try to build a loyal base: Do you have a mailing list in place? what are the stats? (e.g. # of subscribers? ). What is your bounce rate? Is your internal link structure strong enough to keep a visitor hooked and slowly inch towards that sale?

3. Spend some money on paid traffic: This might hurt in the beginning and requires deeper pockets. Google is making it increasingly difficult for small operators like you. The only way out is to invest in paid traffic. But do this only when you have your sales funnel figured out. You can get burnt pretty quickly if you don't know what you are doing.

[allsystems]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

I've been in the employment niche for a couple of years now, and at this point, all I can ask is, "what happened?" At first things were going fine and my sites were actually earning something. However, ever since the first Panda update came along, everything has been going downhill. Nothing I try has had any positive effect whatsoever. I've worked with a couple of SEO consultants on JV deals, but these petered when they weren't making a million dollars in 3 months. Basically, I'm at a point where I'm pretty much convinced that a very, very small percentage of IM'ers are actually making a living online anymore.

Before you start bashing me, the content I've written, and had written by others, is absolutely freakin' excellent. There has been no imported work, and I managed to keep my nose clean for the most part in regards to linking, etc. Efforts included guest posting, videos, some social bookmarking, tried forums, etc, etc. Even tried blog commenting, and by that I mean it would take a good 5 minutes to write a comment. However, these didn't yield anything either. Honestly, I'm ready to get a job and live the rest of my miserable existence like the rest of society; going to work everyday and doing my best to keep up with the Jones's.

I'm wondering if anyone else is actually having success in competitive markets these days. If so, what general strategy are you using. Also, is anyone actually making any money, and if so, how much are you earning. BTW, please keep all theoretical seo BS away from this thread. I don't need to be sifting through poorly worded responses about "making Google rankings is easy," etc, etc. Please excuse the tone, I'm like the guy who bought the tractor with no seat or steering wheel.

People do make money from SEO and IM man. I think you are giving up too early. SEO is something you have to constantly keep updated with. The industry can change overnight and what worked yesterday may not work tommorrow.

Start from the basics, analyse your website, on-page optimization, website structure, page load times, landing pages quality, the aesthetic look of the website, conversion rate etc.

Analyse the backlink profile. Where are you getting your links from? It is important these are from relevant sources. Don't do anything stupid like using automated software for your money site. It is better to source web masters who are looking for unique content. Write something engaging for the reader and you should see an increase in traffic which can affect your rankings. You can almost always get a link for these blog posts.

Again go for quality over quantity.

SEO is not the be all end all. Have you look in social media? Create your facebook, twitter, pinterest profile. Get your Google + page profile.

Use analytics. I have found that creating unique content for pages that have high visitors AND HIGH BOUNCE RATE can greatly increase rankings.

Just some things for you to think about. Start from SEO 101.

[F1SEO]

One has to adapt to conditions. Relying on SEO is a losing battle. Google wants it out!

Move into marketing, where SEO is just one arm .. PPC, Video, Email marketing.

It's a good time to branch out

[ProSence]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Not sure about that. I'm still actively working on it.

Can you imagine how much money these sites are making:

Ezinearticles
articlesbase
goarticles
About.com
hubpages
squidoo
ehow

?

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by ProSence

Can you imagine how much money these sites are making:

Ezinearticles
articlesbase
goarticles
About.com
hubpages
squidoo
ehow

?

Well, the article directories are on the way out, but yes I can very well imagine how much bling About and eHow are banking each month.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by allsystems

Use analytics. I have found that creating unique content for pages that have high visitors AND HIGH BOUNCE RATE can greatly increase rankings.

I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about all the various aspects of SEO (application is a different story), but that's an excellent tip to keep in mind, thanks.

I know all about the money making side of things, and know folks that have pulled in $60,000/month. However, that was two years ago, and it seems everything is in a steady decline.

[nik0]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

I had one site with 350 or so good articles, and another one with 150. Tried all manner of getting quality backlinks , but getting even just one can take months. Another issue with the niche is that there isn't a ton of visitor interaction with any of the competitor sites. Guest posts were on reputable sites, and the links were in-context.

If it often takes you months to get one quality link then you're definitely doing something very wrong.

Why don't you build your own network or utilize others by buying blog posts from them. Plenty available that will help to rank your site, just avoid the 400 blog posts for $50 in tier 1.

[andrewkar]

Hey JordanWarrior,

I have site in employment niche also. It's jumping between 1,3, 8,14 position but mostly I'm first one. I don't have a lot of local searches for my main keywords but niche is new to the public. So it has potential to go viral (if I will decide to push it. I'm still not sure about real value I can bring to the people so I don't monetize this site yet).

Maybe you should try to change your angle a bit?

For me employment niche is f*** boring but... there is a lot of desperate people out there, which is good for us of course. However, I don't want to sell crap, especially those guys and gals who need their jobs ASAP.

I don't know your niche exactly but in my opinion if you can't give them something really new, there will be problem to outrank competitors. Let's face it, all job and employment sites are virtually the same.

So I think that getting more links, even high quality links won't do it this time. There must be something what will make people actually talk about your site, your solution.

EDIT: this is good position. Especially important in employment niche which is f**** boring. If you haven't read it yet...

Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of...

[jazbo]

If you are sick of SEO< then don't do it. I declared on my site a few months ago I was through with it. I now focus on social media. It's bringing more traffic and it's more rewarding to actually connect with other people.

[JensonChong]

Originally Posted by jazbo

If you are sick of SEO< then don't do it. I declared on my site a few months ago I was through with it. I now focus on social media. It's bringing more traffic and it's more rewarding to actually connect with other people.

Of course, if SEO is not suitable for anyone then there are unlimited avenues, you need to search and always go according to your skills, it would help for sure!