An Example Of What To Do When In A Very Competitive Market

11 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Right now the market knows to some degree what seo is.

They have been contacted by many seo service providers

They are likely to have had a bad experience surrounding it.

So what to do?

Well you gather data from SEMRush and see what your client results
would of cost if they had of used Adwords to get the same amount of traffic.
Grab the dollar value and divide it by your monthly fee.

Now you have how much you have saved a business owner.

Multiply that Adwords total, minus your fee and you now have the total
per month savings. Multiply it by twelve and you have the annual savings.

Now that is the pain point.

Go to Spyfu and on the tab Leads you are able to find the Adwords spend of any market you want to go after.

Imagine talking with these Adwords advertisers and saying you can halve their cost of Google traffic to their website. And if they don't take action it's going to cost them x number of dollars by not taking action.

Now the performance metric becomes saving them money,
not amount of traffic or search placements or pricing per keyword.

You have taken yourself out of the mass metric into a new one which has a very meaningful big benefit to the biz owner.

Also we are going after those which are already proven buyers of Google traffic.
You are the guy who is selling it for pennies on the dollar.

I've seen some crazy numbers which seo are slaughtering Adwords equivalent costs.

If you round up a old book called The Feldman Method,
this will help you sell SEO to this Adwords market once you've discovered
our own case studies on how you've saved a business owner gobs of money using SEMRush.

Best,
Ewen

Dang it Ewen... How on Earth do you know about The Feldman Method?!?!?! This stuff is TOP SECRET for goodness sakes... you cant give this to the masses! How in goly gee willakers am I supposed to keep and edge if you are throwing it around like yesterdays bath water!

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ewenmack

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

Dang it Ewen... How on Earth do you know about The Feldman Method?!?!?! This stuff is TOP SECRET for goodness sakes... you cant give this to the masses! How in goly gee willakers am I supposed to keep and edge if you are throwing it around like yesterdays bath water!

Thank you.

However, having Ben Feldman on your side is not enough.
We have to have a message that will rock their world.

He doesn't supply it.

We gotta find it from somewhere.

And even when people think they've got it,
it may not be suited to a person who isn't aware of
the solution, yet it's right
for a person who has made the decision to buy,
but not from whom.

Once you have it, then having Ben Feldman helping you deliver
the message with conviction, then you have a very powerful force.

Best,
Ewen

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savidge4

11 years ago

I use basically use your math and Ben probably once a week maybe. I call the combo the "Ben-see-o pitch" (BenSEO). Once I put the 2 together it was like a match made in heaven. For me personally, I don't SEO existing pages. Its just to much work. I start fresh and develop the SEO from the ground up. Its a system that works very well for me. So my hurdlesare even greater, notonly SEO but a new site on top of it.

Until I brought the Spent vs. Savings factor into the sales equation, I was not successful in getting where #1 it was easier for me, and #2 where it would be more profitable for the customer. There was that piece missing.

Then using Ben's techniques on top of that, its just kinda silly really.

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ewenmack

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

I use basically use your math
.

Was this to Adwords advertisers?

Best,
Ewen

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Was this to Adwords advertisers?

Best,
Ewen

Yes absolutely... why pay when you can get for... uh well... for you it aint free but I can save you 50%

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ewenmack

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

Yes absolutely... why pay when you can get for... uh well... for you it aint free but I can save you 50%

It can trigger buyers remorse where you buy something and later
you found out you could of got the same item so much cheaper elsewhere.

Don't you hate that?

And it really is the same thing, it's all Google traffic.

Best,
Ewen

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

It can trigger buyers remorse where you buy something and later
you found out you could of got the same item so much cheaper elsewhere.

Don't you hate that?

And it really is the same thing, it's all Google traffic.

Best,
Ewen

Once they see it works, they get PISSED. 80% of my SEO clients with in the first 90 days will call and yell at me, because they have no one else to yell at! One not to long ago was going on about "All those years, all those houses and cars I could have bought!!"

It is crazy. but as long as people are out there using wordpress I'm golden! hahahahaha

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ewenmack

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

Once they see it works, they get PISSED. 80% of my SEO clients with in the first 90 days will call and yell at me, because they have no one else to yell at! One not to long ago was going on about "All those years, all those houses and cars I could have bought!!"

It is crazy. but as long as people are out there using wordpress I'm golden! hahahahaha

Yes, asking them what they would do with that figure
and it's that dirty rotten Google blocking him from getting it.

Now it's getting personal!

And now you are on his side
hatching a plan to get his thing what he wants to buy.

It's now bypassing his rational thinking.

Like saying to a republican those dirty scoundrel Democrats are out to grab more of your hard earned money through more taxes.

We need to build a war chest to fight this. Can I count on you to contribute to this?

In my client's case, a years worth of savings
came to $162,000 and $306,000. This is minus his fees.

You can now see how Ben Feldman would have iron clad conviction
telling about the savings available.

Best,
Ewen

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Yes, asking them what they would do with that figure
and it's that dirty rotten Google blocking him from getting it.

Now it's getting personal!

And now you are on his side
hatching a plan to get his thing what he wants to buy.

It's now bypassing his rational thinking.

Like saying to a republican those dirty scoundrel Democrats are out to grab more of your hard earned money through more taxes.

We need to build a war chest to fight this. Can I count on you to contribute to this?

In my client's case, a years worth of savings
came to $162,000 and $306,000. This is minus his fees.

You can now see how Ben Feldman would have iron clad conviction
telling about the savings available.

Best,
Ewen

I honestly cant agree with you more. GOOD SOLID SEO is where the money is at, not only for the SEO provider, but for the client.

Since you are the sales machine, I'm going to throw this out here. My LARGEST barrier to stupid silly sales, is "why fix it if it aint broke" These people think they are making money with PPC. They read on Forums such as this one SEO sucks, its not reliable, you are at the mercy of Google, and the list goes on. People are all about the "Convenience" of the PPC faucet.

I can tell a client, look here are the numbers.. this is what you are spending, this is what you are making. I can make you MORE, and you will only be spending this. But for me, its getting that slight indication of the AH HA moment, where I can then turn on the BENSEO Pitch.

I started actively posting on this Forum 1 month and 13 days ago with a mission. Share what I can, and get confrontational with everyone that brings up the topic of SEO vs. PPC, and WordPress vs. HTML.

The reasons for this was to #1 get a better understanding of the arguments #2 figure out the best answers back to those arguments #3 I figured the level of discussion on these topics here might extend from the common its easier context.

I have so far failed at all 3... using this most recent discussion as an example http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...-websites.html I posted 3 times. The 1st one was rather confrontational, but factual. The second was straight up factual. and the 3rd was factual and helpful. I will bet my post will be the last on the topic. I honestly believe there is no further argument to be made for WordPress after the second post.

I understand in this format my delivery is not smooth, but at that drop off point, ( IE the facts are right there, and all you get are glassy eyes looking back at you ) as a salesman what do you say next?

That is my disconnect. Like I said if I see the ah ha, im good, but til then, I cant figure out how to get the lights on!

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savidge4

11 years ago

Oh, my largest 1 time savings was $70,000. However, with the increased traffic, the sales from last year equaled the customers last 3 put together.

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ewenmack

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

Oh, my largest 1 time savings was $70,000. However, with the increased traffic, the sales from last year equaled the customers last 3 put together.

"Bob, would you like to hear how a person saved $70,000 on his Adwords annual costs and turned 3 years of revenue into one?

If so, how is your calander looking?"

Name
Contact

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's your bait.

Also asking how your calander is looking
is used in a cold email which went on to sell
12 million dollars worth of technology.

Send it to big Adwords spenders which don't
come onto forums like this.

Best,
Ewen

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

"Bob, would you like to hear how a person saved $70,000 on his Adwords annual costs and turned 3 years of revenue into one?

If so, how is your calander looking?"

Name
Contact

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's your bait.

Also asking how your calander is looking
is used in a cold email which went on to sell
12 million dollars worth of technology.

Send it to big Adwords spenders which don't
come onto forums like this.

Best,
Ewen

I am going to say that just about everyone that goes to PPC is due to poor SEO performance. OR their current SEO firm has them on that program. I walk in and say '"You are throwing your Money away" I can give you the same and better results with no PPC what so ever.

Lets face it SEO has a very bad reputation, and a whole lot of bad results. Most people I speak to think SEO is PPC.

I literally go into these meetings lay out the numbers, and everyone gets glassy eyed... Deer to headlights... and the whole thing just stops... They KNOW there is a better way, but they cant/wont take the next step. Better yet, I don't know the next step... how to snap them out of it and move to the sale.

Using that Html post again as an example 16 hours later no response... nothing. Did I change any ones mind about it, no probably not, but the numbers and the logic are right there. You cant argue it, yet people go right back to their comfortable ways.

For me sales is hitting that emotional cord... "Played them like a fiddle" kinda stuff. But when they drop into the emotional daze I have yet to find that way to get them out of it.

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mojo1

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

For me sales is hitting that emotional cord... "Played them like a fiddle" kinda stuff. But when they drop into the emotional daze I have yet to find that way to get them out of it.

If you haven't purchased our very own, Claude Whitacre's: Selling Local Advertising, it would definitely help you out of this pinch. Oh and please don't let the title fool you as it's very applicable to your current dilemma.

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ewenmack

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

I am going to say that just about everyone that goes to PPC is due to poor SEO performance. OR their current SEO firm has them on that program. I walk in and say '"You are throwing your Money away" I can give you the same and better results with no PPC what so ever.

Your point of entry is arguing a point that they already agree upon.

You may win the argument in a few cases,
but won't get a client.

By making your first contact all about a high performing result,
like the $70,000 worth of clicks for x number of dollars [exclude your your fees], then ask if they would like to hear about it,
this creates a qualified lead.

Once you talk to him, ask what intrigues him about the result and why it would be important to him.

That's the starting point because he is building up his reasons why he wants the same result.

Next stage in the conversation is to takeaway and qualify.

Let him know that since you both are very busy and don't want to waste each others time, you need to establish if he is a good fit
to what you offer.

You ask if he has a good reputation online.

This is an attack on his ego and he will come out defending himself.

Next part of the qualifying is to ask if he is prepared to transfer part of the Adwords budget over to you for a 90 day trial. The trial will establish if in fact you can slash his Google traffic costs without losing traffic.
Then you ask what would be a good number to cut costs by to he happy with.

See, he is telling you what he would be happy with and won't argue against himself.

That's a good framework and sequence to follow.

Best,
Ewen

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by ewenmack

Your point of entry is arguing a point that they already agree upon.

You may win the argument in a few cases,
but won't get a client.

By making your first contact all about a high performing result,
like the $70,000 worth of clicks for x number of dollars [exclude your your fees], then ask if they would like to hear about it,
this creates a qualified lead.

Once you talk to him, ask what intrigues him about the result and why it would be important to him.

That's the starting point because he is building up his reasons why he wants the same result.

Next stage in the conversation is to takeaway and qualify.

Let him know that since you both are very busy and don't want to waste each others time, you need to establish if he is a good fit
to what you offer.

You ask if he has a good reputation online.

This is an attack on his ego and he will come out defending himself.

Next part of the qualifying is to ask if he is prepared to transfer part of the Adwords budget over to you for a 90 day trial. The trial will establish if in fact you can slash his Google traffic costs without losing traffic.
Then you ask what would be a good number to cut costs by to he happy with.

See, he is telling you what he would be happy with and won't argue against himself.

That's a good framework and sequence to follow.

Best,
Ewen

Ewen,

Thanks for responding I truly appreciate it!

I happen to have a repeat meeting on Friday with a potentially huge client. They spend $250k a year on PPC. Its in front of a 12 person panel, and the in house SEO guy. The last meeting I got through my spiel, and I did not have a thread to hold onto. There were no questions, there was nothing more I could say, there was nothing. The silence was brutal. The SEO guy then got fired. and the meeting was over.

That was 6 months ago. 2 SEO guys later ( Yes I have an inside to all of this. One of the 12 on the board, and no he didn't bail me out of the awkward moment ) They invited me in once again. So maybe this time things will be different.

Thanks
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misterme

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

I happen to have a repeat meeting on Friday with a potentially huge client. They spend $250k a year on PPC. Its in front of a 12 person panel, and the in house SEO guy. The last meeting I got through my spiel, and I did not have a thread to hold onto. There were no questions, there was nothing more I could say, there was nothing. The silence was brutal. The SEO guy then got fired. and the meeting was over.

That was 6 months ago. 2 SEO guys later ( Yes I have an inside to all of this. One of the 12 on the board, and no he didn't bail me out of the awkward moment ) They invited me in once again. So maybe this time things will be different.

Don't let silence fool you. Embrace it. It means they're thinking on what you presented. And that's what you want them to do.

The result of them firing the other guy and asking you back in bears that to be true.

This is how I'd prepare for the upcoming meeting if I were you.

The last SEO guy was in that meeting maybe because they thought whatever you had to say, he could do.

OK, I'm assuming that. I wouldn't really know of course. But what I'm doing is starting with that proposition by asking myself why would they invite their SEO guy into your meeting. It gives us a starting point which we can tweak if evidence comes along which points in a different direction. But it beats being clueless and tossed about in every direction every minute.

So I assume it was to have him either point out why you're wrong and he's right or to get information from you he can use.

Well, something happened where you struck them as being right and he messed up by defending himself and putting you down, or he didn't have a satisfactory answer for them when they asked him about a point you brought up, or something like that because obviously something happened which compelled them to let him go.

So if that may be the case, you're in the running. BUT just in case they're merely fishing for more information they then intend to give someone else to do their SEO, you have to present solutions that only can be provided by YOU. Something proprietary you do, for example.

And don't trust your connection. He could be feeding you misleading information, his bread is buttered by the other side. Or he might be being fed false information to give to you.

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by misterme

Don't let silence fool you. Embrace it. It means they're thinking on what you presented. And that's what you want them to do.

The result of them firing the other guy and asking you back in bears that to be true.

This is how I'd prepare for the upcoming meeting if I were you.

The last SEO guy was in that meeting maybe because they thought whatever you had to say, he could do.

OK, I'm assuming that. I wouldn't really know of course. But what I'm doing is starting with that proposition by asking myself why would they invite their SEO guy into your meeting. It gives us a starting point which we can tweak if evidence comes along which points in a different direction. But it beats being clueless and tossed about in every direction every minute.

So I assume it was to have him either point out why you're wrong and he's right or to get information from you he can use.

Well, something happened where you struck them as being right and he messed up by defending himself and putting you down, or he didn't have a satisfactory answer for them when they asked him about a point you brought up, or something like that because obviously something happened which compelled them to let him go.

So if that may be the case, you're in the running. BUT just in case they're merely fishing for more information they then intend to give someone else to do their SEO, you have to present solutions that only can be provided by YOU. Something proprietary you do, for example.

And don't trust your connection. He could be feeding you misleading information, his bread is buttered by the other side. Or he might be being fed false information to give to you.

The interesting part of it was their in house guy never said a word at the meeting. Batted his eyes around a bit, but never said a word. What finally broke the silence was one of the partners saying "Motion to release Steve" 12 instant "I's" and another partner saying "Meeting dismissed" and everyone started walking out not saying a word. It was surreal that's for sure.

Moving forward to tomorrow, I am going to say as little as possible, refer back to the information given in the last meeting, and push the "you are the ones that invited me back" If I can just "see" a tipping point somewhere I will be all right. But if they are going to sit there stohic, I am half tempted to wait for them to speak before myself!

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savidge4

11 years ago

ok so I had the meeting today... what a flop that was hahaha they offered me a job with SEO guy #3 standing right there. My insider ( My father in law ) started laughing, and tried to control himself.... he stated that if he knew that was what they were going to offer, to forget it. I offered to be a consultant...

They weren't having that. One of the partners then says "How do we know you can do what you say you can?" I replied bring me a computer and log into your adwords account ill show you how to save money. They actually did... well actually SEO guy #3 was told to.

Right off the bat, the term "Lawyer" all by itself was right there.... I pulled out my phone was calculating what they spend... someone says its rude to text while your in a meeting. I looked at the guy. I then said you are spending $32,000 a year for the term "Lawyer" There it was.. the silence.. nothing. This time though, I wasn't grasping for strings.. I said "Meeting adjourned" and left.

My father in law called me a few moments later SEO guy #3 got fired. They didn't understand what the big deal with spending on the term lawyer was, and the SEO guy couldn't explain it either. They are still spending $32,000 a year on the term "Lawyer".

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misterme

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

One of the partners then says "How do we know you can do what you say you can?" I replied bring me a computer and log into your adwords account ill show you how to save money. They actually did... well actually SEO guy #3 was told to.

Right off the bat, the term "Lawyer" all by itself was right there.... I pulled out my phone was calculating what they spend... someone says its rude to text while your in a meeting. I looked at the guy. I then said you are spending $32,000 a year for the term "Lawyer" There it was.. the silence.. nothing. This time though, I wasn't grasping for strings.. I said "Meeting adjourned" and left.

Why the abrupt end? Did you have them understand that the keyword "lawyer" was ineffective, more costly then it has to be? Did you state what the expected savings would be? If so, did you gauge their reaction and talk more about what could be done with those funds if reapplied to other areas?

Or did all of that go on in your head alone and you walked out because they just didn't get it?

What you wrote also suggests you hadn't established enough credibility nor ease their concern about what happens if what you do doesn't work - like the last guy they feel burned by.

My father in law called me a few moments later SEO guy #3 got fired. They didn't understand what the big deal with spending on the term lawyer was, and the SEO guy couldn't explain it either. They are still spending $32,000 a year on the term "Lawyer".

OK, that answers my question. You didn't guide them toward appreciating the expense. You didn't sell.

You have people who don't blink at spending $32K on one keyword. That's probably the tip of the iceberg. I'd go back and show them an idea for making that 32K work harder and better for them and make them understand hiring you as a consultant will be more profitable. I wouldn't walk away so easily from that type of client.

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by misterme

Why the abrupt end? Did you have them understand that the keyword "lawyer" was ineffective, more costly then it has to be? Did you state what the expected savings would be? If so, did you gauge their reaction and talk more about what could be done with those funds if reapplied to other areas?

Or did all of that go on in your head alone and you walked out because they just didn't get it?

What you wrote also suggests you hadn't established enough credibility nor ease their concern about what happens if what you do doesn't work - like the last guy they feel burned by.

OK, that answers my question. You didn't guide them toward appreciating the expense. You didn't sell.

You have people who don't blink at spending $32K on one keyword. That's probably the tip of the iceberg. I'd go back and show them an idea for making that 32K work harder and better for them and make them understand hiring you as a consultant will be more profitable. I wouldn't walk away so easily from that type of client.

There is obviously more to my sales process here than what was laid out. This second meeting was 8 months in the making, it took 2 months of communication and relationship building to get to the first meeting.

I am obviously a contract for hire type of guy. In my pre sales communication I discuss what it is I do, the process, and the steps I take to ensure the cross from the direction I am taking them, and where they are at is as smooth as possible.

walking into the "first" meeting, was really the 8th or 9th time I had had meetings with these guys in smaller groups. I understand in their minds they are qualifying me to control $250,000 a year. I get it. Trust has to be earned here.

The first meeting as stated went far from stellar. They fired the in house guy, because he could not produce answers. (hind site being 20/20 this was an indicator) After 2 months of communication and relationship building I delivered my "Final" presentation to the board. I was expecting further questions... I was expecting something. Instead they fired a guy for not doing his job.

So 6 months later meeting 2. There were some questions, some discussion how disappointed they were with SEO guy #3. They offer me a JOB, not a contract. I am in front of them trying to sell them a $25,000 90 day contract and they offer me just over 3x per year as an employee. I politely refused the offer and came back with a 1 year consulting solution.

This is when the "how do we know you will produce results" came in. I showed them. Here is $32K right here. NO BODY asked a question to clarify. I don't TEACH unless asked to or paid to.

To go into a little more depth of my process. On an account such as this, there would be probably 2 weeks of a discovery process learning exactly what they are doing and why. Understand where I can cut right away vs. holding off to allow for a smooth transition. Getting a real working understanding of what the REAL target is. You cant get there until you are dealing with the folks that work with this stuff on a daily basis. The people on the front line of any organization that has a job at stake with regards to results.

These guys are not those people... SEO guy #1 #2 and #3 were, and I am sure there are a few others. There was something else going on in this situation.

So yesterday I hired SEO guy #3. We had a brief discussion about the dynamic that takes place. There are 4 on the group that believe traffic is the answer to their problems. These guys have nothing better to do than sit and look how much is floating across their page and thinking its not enough. These 4 are the ones adding to the PPC budget. NOT the SEO guys.

There is no consideration of quality of traffic vs traffic. In the 2 months prior to my first meeting I laid out and Identified the difference of Targeted and traffic. Giving them examples that applied directly to them. I again went over this In the first Sales pitch meeting. Laid out what I see as being some of their targets, but referred to the discovery process to truly evaluate what determine what direction to take my efforts.

So now going all the way back to the hind site is 20/20 comment, there has been a pattern of displeasure here in regards to SEO for 8 months that I am aware of. 1 time a guy was fired in front of me. The second was right after I left, and the one in the middle, I am not sure how that happened.

I go in trying to sell them on a contract to fix an issue they admit they have. I give them all the information needed to understand my process. They ultimately in turn disregard my value as a contractor, but understand that there is more value to THEM as an employee. I politely reject that offer but throw in I will consult using the in house efforts as the work horse to implement change in their organization. That was refused.

So why did I walk out? There are 2 things that I value in my business. Those would be integrity and my Brand. I walked away from a situation that has a pattern set to be a detriment to both. Instead of having 12 high profile guys walking around saying My brand didn't hold its promises and deliver results.

What I now have is 1 of 3 things. 12 High Profile guys that don't speak of me or my brand at all, or I have 12 guys saying me and my brand stuck to our guns and didn't give in, or 3rd I have 12 guys saying me and my brand are fools for not accepting their offer.

In the last 2 days I have received communication that 2 and 3 are for sure being played out. Out of these communications I have secured a smaller contract, and landed 2 potentials with meetings set.

I played a real big hand. I went as far as to implement are real ballsy take away. You may say I didn't sell it, I might suggest I didn't sellout. I still have my integrity, and so does my brand. If nothing else BOTH have increased through this process. And ultimately, I don't think its the last I will hear from these guys. But now, more than ever in particular with this Firm, any work will be on MY terms and on MY terms alone.

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misterme

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

There is obviously more to my sales process here than what was laid out.

Actually it wasn't obvious. I don't know you. So I can only comment on the data you provide, not on what you omit. And so I did. Bottom line,if you're good with what you did, and it sounds as if you are, that's what counts.

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by misterme

Actually it wasn't obvious. I don't know you. So I can only comment on the data you provide, not on what you omit. And so I did. Bottom line,if you're good with what you did, and it sounds as if you are, that's what counts.

You are correct sir, It wasn't obvious, I do apologize.

It appears that the looking for contractor, and offering a salary job is the pattern. That is not something that I was looking for. For me I would have had to give more than I was getting. Ultimately I am happy with the outcome. However, It would be a nice contract, worth far more than the initial 90 contract.

You win some and you loose some, hopefully you win more than you loose!

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misterme

11 years ago

All the same, I wish I could've helped you win that one.

Thanks
1 reply

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MRomeo09

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

I honestly cant agree with you more. GOOD SOLID SEO is where the money is at, not only for the SEO provider, but for the client.

Since you are the sales machine, I'm going to throw this out here. My LARGEST barrier to stupid silly sales, is "why fix it if it aint broke" These people think they are making money with PPC. They read on Forums such as this one SEO sucks, its not reliable, you are at the mercy of Google, and the list goes on. People are all about the "Convenience" of the PPC faucet.

I can tell a client, look here are the numbers.. this is what you are spending, this is what you are making. I can make you MORE, and you will only be spending this. But for me, its getting that slight indication of the AH HA moment, where I can then turn on the BENSEO Pitch.

I started actively posting on this Forum 1 month and 13 days ago with a mission. Share what I can, and get confrontational with everyone that brings up the topic of SEO vs. PPC, and WordPress vs. HTML.

The reasons for this was to #1 get a better understanding of the arguments #2 figure out the best answers back to those arguments #3 I figured the level of discussion on these topics here might extend from the common its easier context.

I have so far failed at all 3... using this most recent discussion as an example http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...-websites.html I posted 3 times. The 1st one was rather confrontational, but factual. The second was straight up factual. and the 3rd was factual and helpful. I will bet my post will be the last on the topic. I honestly believe there is no further argument to be made for WordPress after the second post.

I understand in this format my delivery is not smooth, but at that drop off point, ( IE the facts are right there, and all you get are glassy eyes looking back at you ) as a salesman what do you say next?

That is my disconnect. Like I said if I see the ah ha, im good, but til then, I cant figure out how to get the lights on!

Well I for one agree that straight HTML is way better for SEO. There is no question about it. With that said, still most of the sites I created over the last few years were Wordpress. It's just easier, and when you have a good Wordpress developer and you take 3-4 of the top themes and meld the best parts together, you end up with a really functional site. Although with the quick expansion of jQuery, I'd have to say that HTML5 can duplicate most of the functionality of a good wordpress site faster and simpler. But no question that SEO wise it's twice as hard to rank a wordpress site.

The entire which is better PPC or SEO argument is kind of silly really. Neither is inherently better. Most clients don't care about PPC or SEO, what they really want is more customers. They don't care if you do it with voodoo rituals. I think you're missing the point completely. It's about being a customer acquisition magnet for your customers. And both have their place. However, you can get access to customer eyeballs through remarketing, facebook advertising, banner ads etc that just can't get through SEO.

If however, I needed to come down on either side of SEO vs PPC. For sure I'd pick PPC though, although PPC with a little bit of a twist(read further, or read my past posts).

It comes down fundamentally to scalability. How many sites can you SEO by yourself? How difficult is it to pare down that knowledge to give to an employee or an outsourced worker. By it's nature SEO is very labor intensive. It just is, your labor or an outsourcers, somebody has a lot of work to do. No matter what you do, you can't really avoid it. You're creating a new website, starting from scratch with SEO, etc. I'm sweating just thinking about it.

Compare that to selling marketing campaigns revolving around PPC which is what I do. Basically I buy or create marketing campaigns and resell them in a vertical. This is completely different this is a create once, and resell multiple times.Now in certain instances the initial creation of the campaign can be more labor intensive and capital intensive than SEO like you mention. The benefit is you build it once(on the first client's dime) and then you have a cookie cutter for doing it over and over again, yet the time investment is minimal. I have a complete system for modifying our marketing campaigns for different clients. It basically takes Andreas 4 hours in the Phillipines at $4 an hour to create the campaign for a new client. That's it, it's done. An hour or two of monitoring a month and the system creates cash. Compare that to the effort to SEO a new client. It's not even close.

Let's talk about the money for a moment, what's the most you can charge a single SEO client? The most I ever got was $2,800 a month for a single site client. I'm open to the idea that it's possible to charge more, I didn't but I'm open to it. I moved from straight SEO to site rentals and lead gen before I got to test the top of the market. Versus I don't think I ever did a deal that I made less than $2,800/mo selling a marketing campaign, and in many instances made 3-5-10x that number.

And then finally let's talk about the sales process. I guarantee you if you had 100 prospects and I had 100 prospects, you're selling SEO and I'm selling marketing campaigns I'm going to close between 2-4x what you'll sell. Not because I'm a better salesperson, but because I did both in my company, I know the numbers and we were transitioning completely away from the SEO model as it's inefficient and not nearly as profitable. I hate to brag about the close rates because no one would ever believe it. Like Ewen talks about my entire model of selling is built on the case studies, and even better the case studies of people doing EXACTLY what they do(ie case studies of dog groomers making fantastic money with no extra work to dog groomer prospects), and the exact dollar amount they have made. I'm also not bothering them with the technical mumbo jumbo of what we are doing, it's more about the results. You're selling them SEO(which they are naturally predisposed to be against-after all many business owners have had bad experiences by now), I'm selling them a cut and paste tool to make them money. Not an idea, or a promise, but a guaranteed, proven, tested method that is close to printing money. Compare it to selling a person a car. You're selling them a cad drawing of a car, it looks cool and interesting but they are not sure you can actually build that car or what it will drive like. Versus I'm pulling up to their place of business in a Ferrari, and showing them the list of 20 other businesses who are happily driving their own Ferrari, and why don't you take it for a spin. It's real, it's tangible and proven. See the difference?

I just think SEO misses out on what a client needs on so many levels. A client really could care less what brings them more money in the door, they just want to get paid. SEO can deliver that, but I'm not sure that it's the most efficient model. First off it's slow. It's hard to do much with SEO in less than a month. I'll tell you even after years of doing this business and having a long string of success, around 2-3 months people start to get impatient. Even when you have been very clear in your communications that it will take at least 6-12 months to get lasting results. Versus I can get you customers in about 3 hours with PPC. Ideally though a well refined funnel should benefit from PPC and SEO. That was my intention but I never got around to it.

I think part of the problem is that people on this forum aren't taking a holistic view of what the customer really wants. It's not SEO or PPC or social media management, it's cash flow. The rest of it is just noise. And it takes so much more effort and work to provide that well for clients. You should be focusing on the entire experience. What does their funnel look like? How can I improve opt-ins? How can I get them to invest sooner? How can I get them predisposed to doing business with this company over any other? How can I get them to refer their friends even before doing business with me? And so on, and so on. It's about optimizing the hell out of the entire campaign so that you extract the most cash out of the marketplace as you can. And then using my model, you take that perfected campaign and resell it to other non competing vendors in the vertical. I also think Facebook for some verticals is so insanely profitable that you can make a ton of money super cheaply. Yet SEO will never get you that. Don't even get me started on remarketing, and how effective that is with the right funnel. How can you duplicate the eyeballs and impressions you get with a proper remarketing campaign?

Was this the kind of SEO vs PPC confrontation you were looking for?

If I were you, I would take on that whole client holistically. Don't try to fit your square peg into their round hole(Force your SEO into their PPC mentality). Take it all on. Build a marketing campaign that more effectively uses their PPC dollars and converts at a much higher level. Put it on a site that you control, so that you can control landing pages, and conversions. SEO that site. Make it a fully optimized customer acquisition campaign, and then once you've perfected it, then go out and resell that campaign to other companies in the same niche. Those sales are super simple to make. If you can prove that you've built a campaign that brings in around $2M in profits for a business in their niche, that directly hits their greed glands. If I understand it right and these are attorneys you can't get a percentage of profits. But you can get pretty creative in how you bill them.

It's not about PPC or SEO or SEM or QR Codes or Mobile Sites or Facebook Marketing, it's about creating profits for your clients. It's not about selling them what you do, it's about being better and keeping the end goal in mind- If I help enough people get what they want, I can get everything I want and more.

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We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. Itâ€™s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent

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9999 11 years ago

Good for you! Let us know how the whole thing works out in the end.
- Thanks
- 1 reply
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- MRomeo09 11 years ago
  
  never mind. was being rude
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  Signature
  We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt
  
  Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. Itâ€™s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
  
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  HackTheApk 11 years ago
  
  Good luck with that. High competitive markets are the best to learn and earn
  
  Thanks
  
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savidge4

11 years ago

MRomeo09: Well I for one agree that straight HTML is way better for SEO. There is no question about it. With that said, still most of the sites I created over the last few years were Wordpress. It's just easier, and when you have a good Wordpress developer and you take 3-4 of the top themes and meld the best parts together, you end up with a really functional site. Although with the quick expansion of jQuery, I'd have to say that HTML5 can duplicate most of the functionality of a good wordpress site faster and simpler. But no question that SEO wise it's twice as hard to rank a wordpress site. Savidge4: Agreed

The entire which is better PPC or SEO argument is kind of silly really. Neither is inherently better. Most clients don't care about PPC or SEO, what they really want is more customers. They don't care if you do it with voodoo rituals. I think you're missing the point completely. It's about being a customer acquisition magnet for your customers. And both have their place. However, you can get access to customer eyeballs through remarketing, facebook advertising, banner ads etc that just can't get through SEO. SEO for ME is more than getting traffic, its developing a site to perform, not only for search engine results, but for conversions as well. Basically I fix it, it searches well, and now the client has a platform to bring the other marketing to.

If however, I needed to come down on either side of SEO vs PPC. For sure I'd pick PPC though, although PPC with a little bit of a twist(read further, or read my past posts). The only thing I personally use PPC is testing, to ensure that the site/page converts correctly.

It comes down fundamentally to scalability. How many sites can you SEO by yourself? How difficult is it to pare down that knowledge to give to an employee or an outsourced worker. By it's nature SEO is very labor intensive. It just is, your labor or an outsourcers, somebody has a lot of work to do. No matter what you do, you can't really avoid it. You're creating a new website, starting from scratch with SEO, etc. I'm sweating just thinking about it.

This exactly is the inherent value in "Correct SEO" you understand that obviously. Unfortunately there have been many years and many scams made in the name of SEO, and the term SEO is right up there with ****.

Compare that to selling marketing campaigns revolving around PPC which is what I do. Basically I buy or create marketing campaigns and resell them in a vertical. This is completely different this is a create once, and resell multiple times.Now in certain instances the initial creation of the campaign can be more labor intensive and capital intensive than SEO like you mention. The benefit is you build it once(on the first client's dime) and then you have a cookie cutter for doing it over and over again, yet the time investment is minimal. I have a complete system for modifying our marketing campaigns for different clients. It basically takes Andreas 4 hours in the Phillipines at $4 an hour to create the campaign for a new client. That's it, it's done. An hour or two of monitoring a month and the system creates cash. Compare that to the effort to SEO a new client. It's not even close. You are right. That is your model and it works for you that is great.

Let's talk about the money for a moment, what's the most you can charge a single SEO client? The most I ever got was $2,800 a month for a single site client. I'm open to the idea that it's possible to charge more, I didn't but I'm open to it. I moved from straight SEO to site rentals and lead gen before I got to test the top of the market. Versus I don't think I ever did a deal that I made less than $2,800/mo selling a marketing campaign, and in many instances made 3-5-10x that number. I make more than $2800 a month. I do 90 day contracts that as an average in my market I make $5000 a month per client. I have smaller clients, and I have larger ones.

And then finally let's talk about the sales process. I guarantee you if you had 100 prospects and I had 100 prospects, you're selling SEO and I'm selling marketing campaigns I'm going to close between 2-4x what you'll sell. Not because I'm a better salesperson, but because I did both in my company, I know the numbers and we were transitioning completely away from the SEO model as it's inefficient and not nearly as profitable. I hate to brag about the close rates because no one would ever believe it. Like Ewen talks about my entire model of selling is built on the case studies, and even better the case studies of people doing EXACTLY what they do(ie case studies of dog groomers making fantastic money with no extra work to dog groomer prospects), and the exact dollar amount they have made. I'm also not bothering them with the technical mumbo jumbo of what we are doing, it's more about the results. You're selling them SEO(which they are naturally predisposed to be against-after all many business owners have had bad experiences by now), I'm selling them a cut and paste tool to make them money. Not an idea, or a promise, but a guaranteed, proven, tested method that is close to printing money. Compare it to selling a person a car. You're selling them a cad drawing of a car, it looks cool and interesting but they are not sure you can actually build that car or what it will drive like. Versus I'm pulling up to their place of business in a Ferrari, and showing them the list of 20 other businesses who are happily driving their own Ferrari, and why don't you take it for a spin. It's real, it's tangible and proven. See the difference? I can see the difference, absolutely. It in ways does not work with in MY business model. I work 'Locally'. ALL of my clients are no more than 2 hours away. I can physically reach out and discuss their concerns and answer their questions. My company produced right at 400 sites last year. We had 18 SEO contracts last year. And that is just the development side of the business. I also do offline marketing, I do large format printing, I do Vinyl. I sell and install Satellite internet systems ( Actually this is my primary bread winner ). Things are FAR from bad at my house - I have no intention of making this sound like I am bragging. I am pointing out that each of us have a system Plessard has a system, Ewenmack has a system, Misterme has a system, Jason Kanigan has a system, Claude Whitaker has a system, and You have a system.

We all do what works for each of us. If I threw you into my shoes, you would come around to it, but you might not enjoy it. If I got placed in Ewens shoes, I would straight out piss people off hahaha

I just think SEO misses out on what a client needs on so many levels. A client really could care less what brings them more money in the door, they just want to get paid. SEO can deliver that, but I'm not sure that it's the most efficient model. First off it's slow. It's hard to do much with SEO in less than a month. I'll tell you even after years of doing this business and having a long string of success, around 2-3 months people start to get impatient. Even when you have been very clear in your communications that it will take at least 6-12 months to get lasting results. Versus I can get you customers in about 3 hours with PPC. Ideally though a well refined funnel should benefit from PPC and SEO. That was my intention but I never got around to it. The downside for me with PPC is obviously not the "instant" aspect, it is over the long haul. It is continual. "A business expense" that can be projected year in, and year out. It becomes "overhead". As much as it is making you money, is it truly doing so efficiently?

I think part of the problem is that people on this forum aren't taking a holistic view of what the customer really wants. It's not SEO or PPC or social media management, it's cash flow. The rest of it is just noise. And it takes so much more effort and work to provide that well for clients. You should be focusing on the entire experience. What does their funnel look like? How can I improve opt-ins? How can I get them to invest sooner? How can I get them predisposed to doing business with this company over any other? How can I get them to refer their friends even before doing business with me? And so on, and so on. It's about optimizing the hell out of the entire campaign so that you extract the most cash out of the marketplace as you can. And then using my model, you take that perfected campaign and resell it to other non competing vendors in the vertical. I also think Facebook for some verticals is so insanely profitable that you can make a ton of money super cheaply. Yet SEO will never get you that. Don't even get me started on remarketing, and how effective that is with the right funnel. How can you duplicate the eyeballs and impressions you get with a proper remarketing campaign? I couldn't agree more with this. What I try to provide my clients with, is the Platform for all of this. I step in and work for 90 days. I provide the best functioning platform that I can. The platform in turn starts producing 'its own traffic' This moves them from wondering if this other stuff is going to work, to understanding it WILL work, and that is something they can place their efforts towards. For ME I have found that client in my area are more than happy to take on facebook and twitter and Pinterest etc knowing they don't have to worry about what their site is doing. I come in, I do my thing, I walk out. I know and the client understands that that Portion of the money machine will handle what ever they throw at it. As I tell clients, "I don't sell websites/SEO I sell piece of mind"

Was this the kind of SEO vs PPC confrontation you were looking for? Yes intelligent thoughtful discussion, thank you.

If I were you, I would take on that whole client holistically. Don't try to fit your square peg into their round hole(Force your SEO into their PPC mentality). Take it all on. Build a marketing campaign that more effectively uses their PPC dollars and converts at a much higher level. Put it on a site that you control, so that you can control landing pages, and conversions. SEO that site. Make it a fully optimized customer acquisition campaign, and then once you've perfected it, then go out and resell that campaign to other companies in the same niche. Those sales are super simple to make. If you can prove that you've built a campaign that brings in around $2M in profits for a business in their niche, that directly hits their greed glands. If I understand it right and these are attorneys you can't get a percentage of profits. But you can get pretty creative in how you bill them. Again, I understand what you are saying. But for me personally it is about doing what I enjoy. If I am not doing that, what's the sense? Just the other day I spent 16 hours straight throwing down CSS for a site I'm building. I enjoy it ( Yes I am a geek ) If you read any of the 300 posts I have left around this forum in the last 50 days you will see that I tell people all the time, do what you love. That is what has created success in my life, and that is what I will continue doing.

It's not about PPC or SEO or SEM or QR Codes or Mobile Sites or Facebook Marketing, it's about creating profits for your clients. It's not about selling them what you do, it's about being better and keeping the end goal in mind- If I help enough people get what they want, I can get everything I want and more. I can agree with this to a point. Like I have said I develop the foundation for that client to succeed. As with your vertical model, you have the foundation and the vehicle. I personally am not interested in dealing with the vehicle. Do I use these techniques personally? well not really. Do I use PPC? to test only, but that's it. Do I use SEO? well of course. Do I use Facebook? don't even have an account. I do use pinterest however.

the bottom line is we are both going to agree to agree and disagree on points. We both in the end have the same results in our own personal lives, we like what we do, and we like how much we make. It sounds as if both of us can easily put our heads down and sleep at night.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

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MRomeo09

11 years ago

First off brother, I'm going to give you some tough love. I hope you're ok with that. And I'll tell you my friend, you don't value yourself highly enough. You just don't. If you're really good at SEO then the only client you should EVER take is yourself and your businesses. No one can pay you enough money to do SEO for them.

Understand I'm not really talking about what we do, I'm actually talking about the monetization of it. That's what I've gradually changed over the years. I did exactly what you did for years. I started doing SEO in 2006. You can find some of my philosophies here: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html

Here's my progression that I put in another post:
Here are 4 deals I did in the same niche, across the years.
2006- SEO deal. $3k. As far as I can tell the biz owner made around $200k a year from my work.
2010- Site Rental- $750/mo. Now this was more like it, better than owning actual real estate.
2011- Lead Gen- Charged $45/phone call. Generated roughly 20-30 calls per month($900-1350/mo)
2012- Licensing- Put together a complete marketing funnel. From lead-gen to appointment set. Charged $25k setup fee. And $10k a month. Generated $40k a month in revenue.
2013- Sold the entire business.

I'll tell you that I completely dropped SEO as an offering because it wasn't fair to me. I literally created $1M increases in profits yearly and got paid $10-20-30k. Not cool. Not enough. I wanted more. And this is the thing your clients will gladly pay you more. But you have to ask for it. Sure they'd prefer to pay you $15k to make an extra $200k a year. But what if you could get paid more? The only reason you aren't making more is because you haven't gotten over the hump to start asking for more.

I started to delve into site rentals and lead generation like many when I read Shoemoney's lead generation post. How To Make Money Setting Up Your Own Local Affiliate Program - ShoeMoney. I realized that THIS was the future. No longer would I get paid peanuts while my clients became rich off of my efforts.

I honestly don't care whether your system is PPC, SEO, Facebook or radio ad campaigns, it's about how you monetize it. I can absolutely guarantee you that you are not getting paid what you're worth, or what the clients would pay. Take your same campaign, and build it into a lead gen site and monetize it better. If your clients are paying you $15k to set it up. They'd probably pay you $10k a month FOREVER to build them a funnel of paying customers. Forever my friend, say it with me, forever. Maybe that day for you is not today. Someday though you'll ask yourself. When do you deserve more?

Let me ask you do you think it's unfair that I asked for this much money? Do you? Actually don't answer me, you should probably look deep into yourself and answer that to yourself. I think it's criminal that you've produced $50-100-500k a year in extra profits a year and you get paid a whopping $15k. I decided to not undervalue myself, and found ways not only to produce more value to my clients but to demand that I get paid that value. When I did site rentals and lead gen that was a way of upping my value. I evolved into marketing it a little differently. I started to understand that companies needed more than just SEO, they wanted the peace of mind of knowing their marketing was taken care of. I'll tell you that I had clients proud that they had written me very large checks. Because they understood that everytime they can trade me $20 for $100 we both win.

The problem with your model is the constant churn. You have to always have new clients coming in to make money. And then the work you do is labor intensive. If you get sick like I did last year, what happens to your cash flow? Get put in the hospital for three months unable to work, and does your business keep churning on? Why not take your SEO knowledge and your conversion knowledge and build a lead gen campaign. You build up a portfolio of sites that bring you $500-5k a month, and now it's YOU who have peace of mind. It's not changing what you do to what I do, it's changing how you make money off of it. I could care less if you ever do facebook or linked in marketing. But I would love it if you would make what you're worth.

If you really examine what you've built, you've just built yourself a job, albeit a good paying one. You can't travel for a month with no cell phone. You can't spend the winter in Vail or the summer in Peru. It's time to think about how do you build this thing into a business. You build a real business when you have either very good systems that produce cash, or reoccuring cash flow. Now some of that can be done if you're good at marketing your SEO services.

I would say one of your problems is you lost focus on the reason why businesses succeed. A business succeeds when it delivers what a customer needs, and makes it easier and pleasant to do business with you. You're banging your head on brick walls attempting to sell SEO. Most customers don't really need SEO, I mean some would like to have it, but they don't need it. What they do need is more customers. Which do you think is easier to sell? Spend some time with your customers, find out what they really need, what keeps them up at night, what is the first thing they think of when they wake up, and the last thing right before they go to bed. You're not going to find many who are thinking of SEO or PPC.

And this is what you'll find my friend. Your sales job gets much easier. You are already facing the fact that most of your prospects are very wary of the term SEO. So don't sell them SEO, sell them cash. You own the site, you SEO it, you set it to convert. They pay you monthly an agreed rental amount, a dollar amount per lead or a percentage of the profits. You'll close more business, much easier, make more money, and still have very happy customers. They do want the peace of mind, the closer you get to a completely done for you system, the better off you are. I would say you're providing more peace of mind because they are partnering with you. You won't make any money unless they make money too.

I think your mindset is all wrong:

"The downside for me with PPC is obviously not the "instant" aspect, it is over the long haul. It is continual. "A business expense" that can be projected year in, and year out. It becomes "overhead". As much as it is making you money, is it truly doing so efficiently?"

It's not a business expense it's an investment in higher returns. Again the same analogy, would you trade $20 for $100 and how often? If I can take your client that spends $250k on PPC, and show them a verifiable, and completely tracked income stream of at least $1M in profits are you saying they shouldn't do it? Wouldn't you do it my friend? If I could build up a marketing funnel for you where you pay me $20k every month, but I give you $200k in sales and $100k in profits(websites and SEO and printing or whatever you do)? How long would you want to pay me that $20k?

I started making markedly more money when I turned my focus outwards instead of inwards. Do you know what thought I think of first thing in the morning, and last thing at night? I think of how can I make more money for my clients. When you have that mindset, it just bleeds out of you. My clients sense it. I'm not trying to sell them one thing or another thing. I can go with complete integrity to them, knowing that I won't benefit unless they benefit first and hopefully massively. Last week I was taking a shower and thought up a way to build a slipstream JV for a client who was about to shutdown one of his smaller businesses. He had a meeting on friday and he went from shutting down a division, to an expected contract worth $300k PROFIT a year. Because I was thinking of him, not about me. If you want to talk about the fundamental difference in our system. My system is 100% client centered, I want them to experience massive success, ecstatic happiness and joy, confidence and pride in their business. When I make that happen, I generally get paid big bucks as well. Sometimes not, but that's ok. In the example above I didn't get paid a dime, because it wasn't about me. But now I have a case study where I have a client who can say a 5 minute phone call from me changed a business that was losing $50k a year into a business making $300k profit. Plus he owes me, eventually I'll call in a favor.

I couldn't agree more with this. What I try to provide my clients with, is the Platform for all of this. I step in and work for 90 days. I provide the best functioning platform that I can. The platform in turn starts producing 'its own traffic' This moves them from wondering if this other stuff is going to work, to understanding it WILL work, and that is something they can place their efforts towards. For ME I have found that client in my area are more than happy to take on facebook and twitter and Pinterest etc knowing they don't have to worry about what their site is doing. I come in, I do my thing, I walk out. I know and the client understands that that Portion of the money machine will handle what ever they throw at it. As I tell clients, "I don't sell websites/SEO I sell piece of mind"

To be honest, I'm a little wary of someone who tells me they can SEO a site and get it converting in 90 days. It just takes longer than that, especially if you want it to last. It's very hard to SEO a site in 90 days. For instance your attorney above, most attorney niches in decent sized cities already have pretty good competition. If you can SEO them in 90 days, I'll pay you to fly to Atlanta and teach my team how. And I would say one thing that we've seen over the last 5 years is that SEO results are fluid, it's not likely that you can rank it once and then forget it. It needs maintenance in most cases. Even with PPC, it takes us longer than 90 days to get the conversions maximized. We've taken a site that converted 1% and gotten it to over 30% but it took us over a year of testing, and probably $200k in ad spend. It made money at around 2-3%, and made just stupid money at 30%.

To recap here are my concerns:
1. You've got a job, not a real business.
2. You aren't delivering what the clients want, you're only trying to sell them what you offer.
3. You're not getting paid nearly enough for your work
4. You're letting your clients down, you have so much to offer but because you don't package it right, they are turning you down, and they are losing out of geometric growth in their business.

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We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

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maxrezn

11 years ago

Originally Posted by MRomeo09

First off brother, I'm going to give you some tough love. I hope you're ok with that. And I'll tell you my friend, you don't value yourself highly enough. You just don't. If you're really good at SEO then the only client you should EVER take is yourself and your businesses. No one can pay you enough money to do SEO for them.

Understand I'm not really talking about what we do, I'm actually talking about the monetization of it. That's what I've gradually changed over the years. I did exactly what you did for years. I started doing SEO in 2006. You can find some of my philosophies here: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html

Here's my progression that I put in another post:
Here are 4 deals I did in the same niche, across the years.
2006- SEO deal. $3k. As far as I can tell the biz owner made around $200k a year from my work.
2010- Site Rental- $750/mo. Now this was more like it, better than owning actual real estate.
2011- Lead Gen- Charged $45/phone call. Generated roughly 20-30 calls per month($900-1350/mo)
2012- Licensing- Put together a complete marketing funnel. From lead-gen to appointment set. Charged $25k setup fee. And $10k a month. Generated $40k a month in revenue.
2013- Sold the entire business.

I'll tell you that I completely dropped SEO as an offering because it wasn't fair to me. I literally created $1M increases in profits yearly and got paid $10-20-30k. Not cool. Not enough. I wanted more. And this is the thing your clients will gladly pay you more. But you have to ask for it. Sure they'd prefer to pay you $15k to make an extra $200k a year. But what if you could get paid more? The only reason you aren't making more is because you haven't gotten over the hump to start asking for more.

I started to delve into site rentals and lead generation like many when I read Shoemoney's lead generation post. How To Make Money Setting Up Your Own Local Affiliate Program - ShoeMoney. I realized that THIS was the future. No longer would I get paid peanuts while my clients became rich off of my efforts.

I honestly don't care whether your system is PPC, SEO, Facebook or radio ad campaigns, it's about how you monetize it. I can absolutely guarantee you that you are not getting paid what you're worth, or what the clients would pay. Take your same campaign, and build it into a lead gen site and monetize it better. If your clients are paying you $15k to set it up. They'd probably pay you $10k a month FOREVER to build them a funnel of paying customers. Forever my friend, say it with me, forever. Maybe that day for you is not today. Someday though you'll ask yourself. When do you deserve more?

Let me ask you do you think it's unfair that I asked for this much money? Do you? Actually don't answer me, you should probably look deep into yourself and answer that to yourself. I think it's criminal that you've produced $50-100-500k a year in extra profits a year and you get paid a whopping $15k. I decided to not undervalue myself, and found ways not only to produce more value to my clients but to demand that I get paid that value. When I did site rentals and lead gen that was a way of upping my value. I evolved into marketing it a little differently. I started to understand that companies needed more than just SEO, they wanted the peace of mind of knowing their marketing was taken care of. I'll tell you that I had clients proud that they had written me very large checks. Because they understood that everytime they can trade me $20 for $100 we both win.

The problem with your model is the constant churn. You have to always have new clients coming in to make money. And then the work you do is labor intensive. If you get sick like I did last year, what happens to your cash flow? Get put in the hospital for three months unable to work, and does your business keep churning on? Why not take your SEO knowledge and your conversion knowledge and build a lead gen campaign. You build up a portfolio of sites that bring you $500-5k a month, and now it's YOU who have peace of mind. It's not changing what you do to what I do, it's changing how you make money off of it. I could care less if you ever do facebook or linked in marketing. But I would love it if you would make what you're worth.

If you really examine what you've built, you've just built yourself a job, albeit a good paying one. You can't travel for a month with no cell phone. You can't spend the winter in Vail or the summer in Peru. It's time to think about how do you build this thing into a business. You build a real business when you have either very good systems that produce cash, or reoccuring cash flow. Now some of that can be done if you're good at marketing your SEO services.

I would say one of your problems is you lost focus on the reason why businesses succeed. A business succeeds when it delivers what a customer needs, and makes it easier and pleasant to do business with you. You're banging your head on brick walls attempting to sell SEO. Most customers don't really need SEO, I mean some would like to have it, but they don't need it. What they do need is more customers. Which do you think is easier to sell? Spend some time with your customers, find out what they really need, what keeps them up at night, what is the first thing they think of when they wake up, and the last thing right before they go to bed. You're not going to find many who are thinking of SEO or PPC.

And this is what you'll find my friend. Your sales job gets much easier. You are already facing the fact that most of your prospects are very wary of the term SEO. So don't sell them SEO, sell them cash. You own the site, you SEO it, you set it to convert. They pay you monthly an agreed rental amount, a dollar amount per lead or a percentage of the profits. You'll close more business, much easier, make more money, and still have very happy customers. They do want the peace of mind, the closer you get to a completely done for you system, the better off you are. I would say you're providing more peace of mind because they are partnering with you. You won't make any money unless they make money too.

I think your mindset is all wrong:

It's not a business expense it's an investment in higher returns. Again the same analogy, would you trade $20 for $100 and how often? If I can take your client that spends $250k on PPC, and show them a verifiable, and completely tracked income stream of at least $1M in profits are you saying they shouldn't do it? Wouldn't you do it my friend? If I could build up a marketing funnel for you where you pay me $20k every month, but I give you $200k in sales and $100k in profits(websites and SEO and printing or whatever you do)? How long would you want to pay me that $20k?

I started making markedly more money when I turned my focus outwards instead of inwards. Do you know what thought I think of first thing in the morning, and last thing at night? I think of how can I make more money for my clients. When you have that mindset, it just bleeds out of you. My clients sense it. I'm not trying to sell them one thing or another thing. I can go with complete integrity to them, knowing that I won't benefit unless they benefit first and hopefully massively. Last week I was taking a shower and thought up a way to build a slipstream JV for a client who was about to shutdown one of his smaller businesses. He had a meeting on friday and he went from shutting down a division, to an expected contract worth $300k PROFIT a year. Because I was thinking of him, not about me. If you want to talk about the fundamental difference in our system. My system is 100% client centered, I want them to experience massive success, ecstatic happiness and joy, confidence and pride in their business. When I make that happen, I generally get paid big bucks as well. Sometimes not, but that's ok. In the example above I didn't get paid a dime, because it wasn't about me. But now I have a case study where I have a client who can say a 5 minute phone call from me changed a business that was losing $50k a year into a business making $300k profit. Plus he owes me, eventually I'll call in a favor.

To be honest, I'm a little wary of someone who tells me they can SEO a site and get it converting in 90 days. It just takes longer than that, especially if you want it to last. It's very hard to SEO a site in 90 days. For instance your attorney above, most attorney niches in decent sized cities already have pretty good competition. If you can SEO them in 90 days, I'll pay you to fly to Atlanta and teach my team how. And I would say one thing that we've seen over the last 5 years is that SEO results are fluid, it's not likely that you can rank it once and then forget it. It needs maintenance in most cases. Even with PPC, it takes us longer than 90 days to get the conversions maximized. We've taken a site that converted 1% and gotten it to over 30% but it took us over a year of testing, and probably $200k in ad spend. It made money at around 2-3%, and made just stupid money at 30%.

To recap here are my concerns:
1. You've got a job, not a real business.
2. You aren't delivering what the clients want, you're only trying to sell them what you offer.
3. You're not getting paid nearly enough for your work
4. You're letting your clients down, you have so much to offer but because you don't package it right, they are turning you down, and they are losing out of geometric growth in their business.

Hollllyyy shit.....

That has to be the most prolific post I've read since joining WF way back when.

I have a page full of notes from what you've just wrote.

[ 1 ] Thanks

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savidge4

11 years ago

MRomeo09: First off brother, I'm going to give you some tough love. I hope you're ok with that. And I'll tell you my friend, you don't value yourself highly enough. You just don't. If you're really good at SEO then the only client you should EVER take is yourself and your businesses. No one can pay you enough money to do SEO for them. Savidge4:I give tough love and expect tough love in return. You may notice that in the last post I did give a glimpse into what I do for myself. However, overall I have not mentioned my own projects.

Understand I'm not really talking about what we do, I'm actually talking about the monetization of it. That's what I've gradually changed over the years. I did exactly what you did for years. I started doing SEO in 2006. You can find some of my philosophies here: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html

Here's my progression that I put in another post:
Here are 4 deals I did in the same niche, across the years.
2006- SEO deal. $3k. As far as I can tell the biz owner made around $200k a year from my work.
2010- Site Rental- $750/mo. Now this was more like it, better than owning actual real estate.
2011- Lead Gen- Charged $45/phone call. Generated roughly 20-30 calls per month($900-1350/mo)
2012- Licensing- Put together a complete marketing funnel. From lead-gen to appointment set. Charged $25k setup fee. And $10k a month. Generated $40k a month in revenue.
2013- Sold the entire business.

I started my path into SEO back in 1996. I have a few years on you. However, the first few by todays standards were straight out black hat. Stuffing and spam linking were then allowed.
1997 Me and a few friends started a start up The first year that grossed very high 5 figures.
1998 Grossed right at 7 figures. we build a better mouse trap. the programming was the trap, and my SEO was the bait.
1999 Gross was at 7 figures per month
2000 we sold to expedia
2002 I was contracted by a major record label to go through and SEO every single signed artist site, and developed related cross linking (Might note that related cross linking was not a thing to do back then) These pages to this day still function nicely.
2004 switched my efforts to assisting local markets specifically. Started a firm in Myrtle Beach SC built and SEO'd somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 sites in 3 years
2007 Moved to West Virginia and took a break from clients and focused on self promotion.
2010 Missed the client interaction and started a new local targeted firm which brings us to today in a rough kinda way.

I'll tell you that I completely dropped SEO as an offering because it wasn't fair to me. I literally created $1M increases in profits yearly and got paid $10-20-30k. Not cool. Not enough. I wanted more. And this is the thing your clients will gladly pay you more. But you have to ask for it. Sure they'd prefer to pay you $15k to make an extra $200k a year. But what if you could get paid more? The only reason you aren't making more is because you haven't gotten over the hump to start asking for more. I would say that the person that under values their worth is you and not me. If I have a client that stands the potential to million dollar gains rest assured I am not getting 10 to 30K.. 30K might be my starting point. You need to look at my model. I redesign an existing platform or I build a new one in 90 days. That platform is functioning and performing to everyone's expectations in that 90 days. I am done. Or am I? This is indeed a stepping stone for some of my clients, not many but some.

I started to delve into site rentals and lead generation like many when I read Shoemoney's lead generation post. How To Make Money Setting Up Your Own Local Affiliate Program - ShoeMoney. I realized that THIS was the future. No longer would I get paid peanuts while my clients became rich off of my efforts.

I honestly don't care whether your system is PPC, SEO, Facebook or radio ad campaigns, it's about how you monetize it. I can absolutely guarantee you that you are not getting paid what you're worth, or what the clients would pay. Take your same campaign, and build it into a lead gen site and monetize it better. If your clients are paying you $15k to set it up. They'd probably pay you $10k a month FOREVER to build them a funnel of paying customers. Forever my friend, say it with me, forever. Maybe that day for you is not today. Someday though you'll ask yourself. When do you deserve more? I honestly don't know how to answer this. Can I do this, with no question yes. is it something I want to do? no not really. I have reached a point in my life where in a way I am giving back. I am supporting the community in which I live, AND I am making money doing it. I enjoy what I do, and I feel I am making a difference in peoples lives. I supply a service that these people could not afford . (So yes I understand that I sell short of value ) But to be honest the general level of SEO I do in a local market, is not the same that is done in say a fortune 500 environment. Do I have the ability to step up and play with the big boys? sure been there done that got paid REAL well for it. but that is not what this about for me. I know you are reading this and thinking I am crazy. And by all means that is fine.. I'm wasting my talent... I don't think so I am sharing my talent with those that NEED it vs. those that can truly pay for it.

Let me ask you do you think it's unfair that I asked for this much money? Do you? Actually don't answer me, you should probably look deep into yourself and answer that to yourself. I think it's criminal that you've produced $50-100-500k a year in extra profits a year and you get paid a whopping $15k. I decided to not undervalue myself, and found ways not only to produce more value to my clients but to demand that I get paid that value. When I did site rentals and lead gen that was a way of upping my value. I evolved into marketing it a little differently. I started to understand that companies needed more than just SEO, they wanted the peace of mind of knowing their marketing was taken care of. I'll tell you that I had clients proud that they had written me very large checks. Because they understood that everytime they can trade me $20 for $100 we both win. In no way do I think what you are doing is "Unfair". I think its a great thing that you are providing a product/service that produces results. That is how you become successful, you provide results.

The problem with your model is the constant churn. You have to always have new clients coming in to make money. And then the work you do is labor intensive. If you get sick like I did last year, what happens to your cash flow? Get put in the hospital for three months unable to work, and does your business keep churning on? Why not take your SEO knowledge and your conversion knowledge and build a lead gen campaign. You build up a portfolio of sites that bring you $500-5k a month, and now it's YOU who have peace of mind. It's not changing what you do to what I do, it's changing how you make money off of it. I could care less if you ever do facebook or linked in marketing. But I would love it if you would make what you're worth. Can I walk away from my business, yes I can. will it operate at 100% no it wont. You cant teach 'complicated' SEO to just anyone. However, I do take 30 days off a year. Me my wife and son go on vacations and cruises, and I honestly spend little to no time "checking in"

If you really examine what you've built, you've just built yourself a job, albeit a good paying one. You can't travel for a month with no cell phone. You can't spend the winter in Vail or the summer in Peru. It's time to think about how do you build this thing into a business. You build a real business when you have either very good systems that produce cash, or reoccuring cash flow. Now some of that can be done if you're good at marketing your SEO services.

I would say one of your problems is you lost focus on the reason why businesses succeed. A business succeeds when it delivers what a customer needs, and makes it easier and pleasant to do business with you. You're banging your head on brick walls attempting to sell SEO. Most customers don't really need SEO, I mean some would like to have it, but they don't need it. What they do need is more customers. Which do you think is easier to sell? Spend some time with your customers, find out what they really need, what keeps them up at night, what is the first thing they think of when they wake up, and the last thing right before they go to bed. You're not going to find many who are thinking of SEO or PPC. This is the point. No, they are not thinking those 2 options. However, it is those 2 options and others that that ARE the answers to their questions. Business wants more sales...that is what keeps people up at night. I could be wrong, but the basic difference between you and I is, my clients sell product (With the exception of the lawyers, they are generally not my normal client base). Yours provide service. I understand that there are many many avenues to getting traffic. But ultimately, Its the platform that the traffic comes to that is the MOST important key to the puzzle. ( You think selling SEO is hard try sell that one ) If the site does not convert, what is the sense. If the sites stickiness is slim to none what is the point? If your bounce rate is through the roof what is the point? What I sell under the disguise of SEO is THAT platform. Understanding all of those elements and how the correlate to success is key in what I do. The by product of my work is good solid search engine listings, hence selling my service as SEO vs. trying to sell an upgraded site.

And this is what you'll find my friend. Your sales job gets much easier. You are already facing the fact that most of your prospects are very wary of the term SEO. So don't sell them SEO, sell them cash. You own the site, you SEO it, you set it to convert. They pay you monthly an agreed rental amount, a dollar amount per lead or a percentage of the profits. You'll close more business, much easier, make more money, and still have very happy customers. They do want the peace of mind, the closer you get to a completely done for you system, the better off you are. I would say you're providing more peace of mind because they are partnering with you. You won't make any money unless they make money too.

I think your mindset is all wrong: Its not wrong, its different Like I said in the last post we will agree when we agree and disagree on other points.

It's not a business expense it's an investment in higher returns. Again the same analogy, would you trade $20 for $100 and how often? If I can take your client that spends $250k on PPC, and show them a verifiable, and completely tracked income stream of at least $1M in profits are you saying they shouldn't do it? Wouldn't you do it my friend? If I could build up a marketing funnel for you where you pay me $20k every month, but I give you $200k in sales and $100k in profits(websites and SEO and printing or whatever you do)? How long would you want to pay me that $20k? This is where you and I disagree.... Would I do it? NO. I can do that for myself, and for far less. You can turn the words all you want. An investment is a 1 time deal, overhead is a regulated monthly expense. You can call this what you want... But the reality is, is it what it is. This in particular is where PPC sales excels vs. SEO sales. You can EASILY spin the PPC concept and general terminology into an asset. SEO on the other hand is kind of a concept, that people are wary of as we have discussed.

Back for a second on the "Investment" vs. "Expense". An investment is the purchase of a new piece of equipment. Investment is the training of staff. Investment is the time and money put into developing a product or service.

A business expense is very defined in its function and use. Electricity is a expense. Rent is an expense ( Where as building purchase would be an investment ) Taxes are an expense. Advertising is an expense. PPC is an expense. How can you tell one from the other? If you "Turn it off" will your business run? Will it still profit?

Another difference between what you do, and what I do... my service is an investment, yours.. well its an expense. This in it self is the sales technique that I have found to sway a client the most consistently. As many bad points that can be made about SEO, there are a few points that can be made with PPC.

As an example a few weeks ago someone posted what they should do, I suggest SEO ( of course ) and someone I respect greatly here on the boards, took what I said and spun the crud out if it sighting the fluctuation of SEO and the consistency of PPC and suggested Facebook as a good alternative. This falling just weeks after Facebook did one of its biggest updates in history dropping many peoples reach by LARGE amounts.

I am in no way mad at said person, It was interesting to see how the spin was executed. To the "Average" person it all makes sense. This is what they WANT to see. I peddle what is largely misunderstood on many levels. By the nature of developing good SEO you in turn are developing a good solid website.

A good example(s) of a recent shift back to SEO would be walmart and Target. They recently ( somewhere in November I believe ) started implementing a text field on every one of their product pages, that used to not be there. Clearly they are targeting efforts towards the line of SEO to get away from the PPC model. Lord only knows how much money 'Target' in particular pays to PPC on products they don't even have. It is mind boggling sometimes. but hey they got traffic!

I started making markedly more money when I turned my focus outwards instead of inwards. Do you know what thought I think of first thing in the morning, and last thing at night? I think of how can I make more money for my clients. When you have that mindset, it just bleeds out of you. My clients sense it. I'm not trying to sell them one thing or another thing. I can go with complete integrity to them, knowing that I won't benefit unless they benefit first and hopefully massively. Last week I was taking a shower and thought up a way to build a slipstream JV for a client who was about to shutdown one of his smaller businesses. He had a meeting on friday and he went from shutting down a division, to an expected contract worth $300k PROFIT a year. Because I was thinking of him, not about me. If you want to talk about the fundamental difference in our system. My system is 100% client centered, I want them to experience massive success, ecstatic happiness and joy, confidence and pride in their business. When I make that happen, I generally get paid big bucks as well. Sometimes not, but that's ok. System for System, the end result is the same. It is on the level we play that is different in many ways. I turn $100,000 or less business' into $250,000 business' on a regular basis. That is what I do. I can go after bigger business and get the 7 digit companies and possibly turn them into 8 digit companies. I choose not to. In the example above I didn't get paid a dime, because it wasn't about me. But now I have a case study where I have a client who can say a 5 minute phone call from me changed a business that was losing $50k a year into a business making $300k profit. Plus he owes me, eventually I'll call in a favor.

To be honest, I'm a little wary of someone who tells me they can SEO a site and get it converting in 90 days. It just takes longer than that, especially if you want it to last. It's very hard to SEO a site in 90 days. For instance your attorney above, most attorney niches in decent sized cities already have pretty good competition. If you can SEO them in 90 days, I'll pay you to fly to Atlanta and teach my team how. Book the ticket my friend. I use a tried and true method, that is far from black hat, and is surprisingly easy to execute. Keep in mind if you do want to get that ticket, have your check book out when I get there! haha And I would say one thing that we've seen over the last 5 years is that SEO results are fluid, it's not likely that you can rank it once and then forget it. It needs maintenance in most cases. As I have stated over and over, I work in a very localized market. The fluctuation of SEO efforts at such a macro level is not so floaty as in larger markets. Granted, once you are in the single 2 and 3 keyword chain level, there is some effort required in keeping that level. However, my method WILL put you in the top 5 in less than 90 days. Even with PPC, it takes us longer than 90 days to get the conversions maximized. We've taken a site that converted 1% and gotten it to over 30% but it took us over a year of testing, and probably $200k in ad spend. It made money at around 2-3%, and made just stupid money at 30%.

To recap here are my concerns:
1. You've got a job, not a real business. You can call it what you will, I love what I do, and I do what I love. If that is not a business than I don't know what is.
2. You aren't delivering what the clients want, you're only trying to sell them what you offer. I deliver what they NEED to get what they want, it is a stepping stone in the right direction for my clients.
3. You're not getting paid nearly enough for your work I could go after "bigger", but that is to stressful in my line of work. I play on a low level because I can not only provide results, but those results are more constant by nature
4. You're letting your clients down, you have so much to offer but because you don't package it right, they are turning you down, and they are losing out of geometric growth in their business. You could talk to any ONE of my 3000 clients over my career, and not a one would mention being let down. I am very specific in my approach to clients as to what they are getting and what to expect. I deliver on all aspects. They understand that they are getting the "platform" that is designed for growth. The growth is up to them from that point.

I am sure it absolutely puzzles you why my thinking is so "directed". The answer is I do what I do very well. Yes I could 'alter' my system and create sales funnels and do exactly what it is you do. That is not an issue.

Sometimes money is not the only thing that matters. Sometimes its getting the key to a city in which you have helped many of its merchants and fellow citizens get to a new level of growth.

Sometimes its knowing you could be playing with the 'Goliath's' of the world but instead work with the 'David's'

Thanks
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MRomeo09

11 years ago

I started my path into SEO back in 1996. I have a few years on you. However, the first few by todays standards were straight out black hat. Stuffing and spam linking were then allowed.
1997 Me and a few friends started a start up The first year that grossed very high 5 figures.
1998 Grossed right at 7 figures. we build a better mouse trap. the programming was the trap, and my SEO was the bait.
1999 Gross was at 7 figures per month
2000 we sold to expedia
2002 I was contracted by a major record label to go through and SEO every single signed artist site, and developed related cross linking (Might note that related cross linking was not a thing to do back then) These pages to this day still function nicely.
2004 switched my efforts to assisting local markets specifically. Started a firm in Myrtle Beach SC built and SEO'd somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 sites in 3 years
2007 Moved to West Virginia and took a break from clients and focused on self promotion.
2010 Missed the client interaction and started a new local targeted firm which brings us to today in a rough kinda way.
I'm honestly surprised you have this level of experience and charge so little, why are you not doing SEO for yourself. Buy websites on Flippa- SEO them and sell them off, etc.

I'll tell you that I completely dropped SEO as an offering because it wasn't fair to me. I literally created $1M increases in profits yearly and got paid $10-20-30k. Not cool. Not enough. I wanted more. And this is the thing your clients will gladly pay you more. But you have to ask for it. Sure they'd prefer to pay you $15k to make an extra $200k a year. But what if you could get paid more? The only reason you aren't making more is because you haven't gotten over the hump to start asking for more. I would say that the person that under values their worth is you and not me. If I have a client that stands the potential to million dollar gains rest assured I am not getting 10 to 30K.. 30K might be my starting point. You need to look at my model. I redesign an existing platform or I build a new one in 90 days. That platform is functioning and performing to everyone's expectations in that 90 days. I am done. Or am I? This is indeed a stepping stone for some of my clients, not many but some. I highly doubt it. I know I'm getting paid what I'm worth because I negotiate for 20% of the increased profits. I only targeted companies between $1-5M in sales. I wanted to make a minimum of $100k a year per client. But this isn't really about who's is bigger than whose is it? If you're charging a flat fee, you cannot approach what you would get when you take a percentage. Or are you telling me you charged at least 20% of their profit for the next five years up front? Now I take equity positions in companies to take on their marketing. It's what I'm doing today. When you do what I do and get 10-50% of the company, then you're in pretty good shape.

I started to delve into site rentals and lead generation like many when I read Shoemoney's lead generation post. How To Make Money Setting Up Your Own Local Affiliate Program - ShoeMoney. I realized that THIS was the future. No longer would I get paid peanuts while my clients became rich off of my efforts.

I honestly don't care whether your system is PPC, SEO, Facebook or radio ad campaigns, it's about how you monetize it. I can absolutely guarantee you that you are not getting paid what you're worth, or what the clients would pay. Take your same campaign, and build it into a lead gen site and monetize it better. If your clients are paying you $15k to set it up. They'd probably pay you $10k a month FOREVER to build them a funnel of paying customers. Forever my friend, say it with me, forever. Maybe that day for you is not today. Someday though you'll ask yourself. When do you deserve more? I honestly don't know how to answer this. Can I do this, with no question yes. is it something I want to do? no not really. I have reached a point in my life where in a way I am giving back. I am supporting the community in which I live, AND I am making money doing it. I enjoy what I do, and I feel I am making a difference in peoples lives. I supply a service that these people could not afford . (So yes I understand that I sell short of value ) But to be honest the general level of SEO I do in a local market, is not the same that is done in say a fortune 500 environment. Do I have the ability to step up and play with the big boys? sure been there done that got paid REAL well for it. but that is not what this about for me. I know you are reading this and thinking I am crazy. And by all means that is fine.. I'm wasting my talent... I don't think so I am sharing my talent with those that NEED it vs. those that can truly pay for it.
I found out early on, that the people I like to work with aren't the $50-100k a year earners it's the $300k or more. They are less risk adverse, and it typically takes just as much effort on our end to make $10k as it does to make $250k. Yes I target larger companies, but that doesn't change the fact that they are local companies. I just do my research and laser target on the companies that I want. The companies with $1-20M in sales that are still local. If I do a search on InfoUsa. There are 284 plumbers in my area with sales over $1M and 680 with less than $1M. It doesn't cost anymore to target the larger companies than it does the smaller companies. They generally have ad budgets and are more receptive to different types of marketing campaigns. It's a lot easier to convince a larger company that is already spending on advertising to take risks than it is to work with the small fry who is not sure how he's going to pay the mortgage this month.

Let me ask you do you think it's unfair that I asked for this much money? Do you? Actually don't answer me, you should probably look deep into yourself and answer that to yourself. I think it's criminal that you've produced $50-100-500k a year in extra profits a year and you get paid a whopping $15k. I decided to not undervalue myself, and found ways not only to produce more value to my clients but to demand that I get paid that value. When I did site rentals and lead gen that was a way of upping my value. I evolved into marketing it a little differently. I started to understand that companies needed more than just SEO, they wanted the peace of mind of knowing their marketing was taken care of. I'll tell you that I had clients proud that they had written me very large checks. Because they understood that everytime they can trade me $20 for $100 we both win. In no way do I think what you are doing is "Unfair". I think its a great thing that you are providing a product/service that produces results. That is how you become successful, you provide results.

The problem with your model is the constant churn. You have to always have new clients coming in to make money. And then the work you do is labor intensive. If you get sick like I did last year, what happens to your cash flow? Get put in the hospital for three months unable to work, and does your business keep churning on? Why not take your SEO knowledge and your conversion knowledge and build a lead gen campaign. You build up a portfolio of sites that bring you $500-5k a month, and now it's YOU who have peace of mind. It's not changing what you do to what I do, it's changing how you make money off of it. I could care less if you ever do facebook or linked in marketing. But I would love it if you would make what you're worth. Can I walk away from my business, yes I can. will it operate at 100% no it wont. You cant teach 'complicated' SEO to just anyone.And that is part of your problem, you've built something eminently not scalable. However, I do take 30 days off a year. Me my wife and son go on vacations and cruises, and I honestly spend little to no time "checking in"

If you really examine what you've built, you've just built yourself a job, albeit a good paying one. You can't travel for a month with no cell phone. You can't spend the winter in Vail or the summer in Peru. It's time to think about how do you build this thing into a business. You build a real business when you have either very good systems that produce cash, or reoccuring cash flow. Now some of that can be done if you're good at marketing your SEO services.

I would say one of your problems is you lost focus on the reason why businesses succeed. A business succeeds when it delivers what a customer needs, and makes it easier and pleasant to do business with you. You're banging your head on brick walls attempting to sell SEO. Most customers don't really need SEO, I mean some would like to have it, but they don't need it. What they do need is more customers. Which do you think is easier to sell? Spend some time with your customers, find out what they really need, what keeps them up at night, what is the first thing they think of when they wake up, and the last thing right before they go to bed. You're not going to find many who are thinking of SEO or PPC. This is the point. No, they are not thinking those 2 options. However, it is those 2 options and others that that ARE the answers to their questions. Business wants more sales...that is what keeps people up at night. I could be wrong, but the basic difference between you and I is, my clients sell product (With the exception of the lawyers, they are generally not my normal client base). Yours provide service. I understand that there are many many avenues to getting traffic. But ultimately, Its the platform that the traffic comes to that is the MOST important key to the puzzle. ( You think selling SEO is hard try sell that one ) If the site does not convert, what is the sense. If the sites stickiness is slim to none what is the point? If your bounce rate is through the roof what is the point? What I sell under the disguise of SEO is THAT platform. Understanding all of those elements and how the correlate to success is key in what I do. The by product of my work is good solid search engine listings, hence selling my service as SEO vs. trying to sell an upgraded site.

It's doing pretty much the same thing except you leave the client in control and I don't. You're kind of getting a little squirrely though, is it SEO you're selling or is it a "platform". To be honest I'm a little confused on exactly what you're selling. Is it a special kind of ecommerce cart? I'm not sure there's a ton of difference between products and services on a local scale. I've worked with local product companies as well. I just always use Plumbers as my example as it's easier to explain than Sheet Metal Companies or something else.
And this is what you'll find my friend. Your sales job gets much easier. You are already facing the fact that most of your prospects are very wary of the term SEO. So don't sell them SEO, sell them cash. You own the site, you SEO it, you set it to convert. They pay you monthly an agreed rental amount, a dollar amount per lead or a percentage of the profits. You'll close more business, much easier, make more money, and still have very happy customers. They do want the peace of mind, the closer you get to a completely done for you system, the better off you are. I would say you're providing more peace of mind because they are partnering with you. You won't make any money unless they make money too.

I think your mindset is all wrong: Its not wrong, its different Like I said in the last post we will agree when we agree and disagree on other points.
Guess we'll just disagree then.
It's not a business expense it's an investment in higher returns. Again the same analogy, would you trade $20 for $100 and how often? If I can take your client that spends $250k on PPC, and show them a verifiable, and completely tracked income stream of at least $1M in profits are you saying they shouldn't do it? Wouldn't you do it my friend? If I could build up a marketing funnel for you where you pay me $20k every month, but I give you $200k in sales and $100k in profits(websites and SEO and printing or whatever you do)? How long would you want to pay me that $20k? This is where you and I disagree.... Would I do it? NO. I can do that for myself, and for far less. You can turn the words all you want. An investment is a 1 time deal, overhead is a regulated monthly expense. You can call this what you want... But the reality is, is it what it is. This in particular is where PPC sales excels vs. SEO sales. You can EASILY spin the PPC concept and general terminology into an asset. SEO on the other hand is kind of a concept, that people are wary of as we have discussed.

Back for a second on the "Investment" vs. "Expense". An investment is the purchase of a new piece of equipment. Investment is the training of staff. Investment is the time and money put into developing a product or service.
No it's not my friend, an investment is using money and expecting a return. Straight from Webster's- the action or process of investing money for profit or material result. Isn't that exactly what I'm doing? You can't redefine investments to suit your purpose. Hence we harp on ROI- return on investment. I assure my customers for every dollar they invest they will get at a minimum 5 back. And generally it's much more than that. Because I'm only taking part of the first cut, while in many businesses they get repeat business and referrals and other ways of getting business so in the long run I'm making closer to 5-10% only.

A business expense is very defined in its function and use. Electricity is a expense. Rent is an expense ( Where as building purchase would be an investment ) Taxes are an expense. Advertising is an expense. PPC is an expense. How can you tell one from the other? If you "Turn it off" will your business run? Will it still profit?That's old school thinking where advertising is an expense, it's not an expense it's an investment with "hopefully" a defined return on that investment. As a marketer you should know better. You can't reclassify things. You charge $x for SEO, because you expect $x in return. There is no difference with PPC, you pay $x to get $x*10 in return hopefully. But neither one is inherently different. They are both investments. Hopefully if you've done your job right your customers are now in your herd with either investment and you can continue to profit from them.

Dan Kennedy and his disciples had it right, you can build a dominant business when you can afford to pay a higher amount to attract a customer than any of your competitors. This is very true, I've seen it happen to many times to doubt it.

Honestly this old school thinking is where many of our customers are, and one of the greatest changes we can affect as consultants is to get them to realize that advertising in any form is not an expense but an investment in future profits. No investment and the business will shrivel up and die. You do your clients a great disservice by propogating this mistaken belief.

Another difference between what you do, and what I do... my service is an investment, yours.. well its an expense. This in it self is the sales technique that I have found to sway a client the most consistently. As many bad points that can be made about SEO, there are a few points that can be made with PPC. Again I disagree with the idea that it's an expense. It's an investment pure and simple. We actually change the model so that it's truly and investment with a defined result versus how they have been using advertising which is gambling that they get back more than the spend.

As an example a few weeks ago someone posted what they should do, I suggest SEO ( of course ) and someone I respect greatly here on the boards, took what I said and spun the crud out if it sighting the fluctuation of SEO and the consistency of PPC and suggested Facebook as a good alternative. This falling just weeks after Facebook did one of its biggest updates in history dropping many peoples reach by LARGE amounts.

I am in no way mad at said person, It was interesting to see how the spin was executed. To the "Average" person it all makes sense. This is what they WANT to see. I peddle what is largely misunderstood on many levels. By the nature of developing good SEO you in turn are developing a good solid website.

A good example(s) of a recent shift back to SEO would be walmart and Target. They recently ( somewhere in November I believe ) started implementing a text field on every one of their product pages, that used to not be there. Clearly they are targeting efforts towards the line of SEO to get away from the PPC model. Lord only knows how much money 'Target' in particular pays to PPC on products they don't even have. It is mind boggling sometimes. but hey they got traffic!

I started making markedly more money when I turned my focus outwards instead of inwards. Do you know what thought I think of first thing in the morning, and last thing at night? I think of how can I make more money for my clients. When you have that mindset, it just bleeds out of you. My clients sense it. I'm not trying to sell them one thing or another thing. I can go with complete integrity to them, knowing that I won't benefit unless they benefit first and hopefully massively. Last week I was taking a shower and thought up a way to build a slipstream JV for a client who was about to shutdown one of his smaller businesses. He had a meeting on friday and he went from shutting down a division, to an expected contract worth $300k PROFIT a year. Because I was thinking of him, not about me. If you want to talk about the fundamental difference in our system. My system is 100% client centered, I want them to experience massive success, ecstatic happiness and joy, confidence and pride in their business. When I make that happen, I generally get paid big bucks as well. Sometimes not, but that's ok. System for System, the end result is the same. It is on the level we play that is different in many ways. I turn $100,000 or less business' into $250,000 business' on a regular basis. That is what I do. I can go after bigger business and get the 7 digit companies and possibly turn them into 8 digit companies. I choose not to.You do realize I'm still working with very local companies right? For instance one of the companies we were planning on targeting but never got around to were sheet metal companies. You can find those in many cities, and a good portion of them fall into my target range of $1-5M. I'll be real honest I never had a lot of success with national companies, it just wasn't my thing. In the example above I didn't get paid a dime, because it wasn't about me. But now I have a case study where I have a client who can say a 5 minute phone call from me changed a business that was losing $50k a year into a business making $300k profit. Plus he owes me, eventually I'll call in a favor.

To be honest, I'm a little wary of someone who tells me they can SEO a site and get it converting in 90 days. It just takes longer than that, especially if you want it to last. It's very hard to SEO a site in 90 days. For instance your attorney above, most attorney niches in decent sized cities already have pretty good competition. If you can SEO them in 90 days, I'll pay you to fly to Atlanta and teach my team how. Book the ticket my friend. I use a tried and true method, that is far from black hat, and is surprisingly easy to execute. Keep in mind if you do want to get that ticket, have your check book out when I get there! hahaI'm still a little wary. Spread some juice brother, let us know these secrets you're holding so close to your vest. I know a bunch of the big players in the industry and that's not exactly normal results, unless they are very low hanging fruit like optimizing for small suburbs around larger cities. And I would say one thing that we've seen over the last 5 years is that SEO results are fluid, it's not likely that you can rank it once and then forget it. It needs maintenance in most cases. As I have stated over and over, I work in a very localized market. The fluctuation of SEO efforts at such a macro level is not so floaty as in larger markets. Granted, once you are in the single 2 and 3 keyword chain level, there is some effort required in keeping that level. However, my method WILL put you in the top 5 in less than 90 days. Even with PPC, it takes us longer than 90 days to get the conversions maximized. We've taken a site that converted 1% and gotten it to over 30% but it took us over a year of testing, and probably $200k in ad spend. It made money at around 2-3%, and made just stupid money at 30%.

To recap here are my concerns:
1. You've got a job, not a real business. You can call it what you will, I love what I do, and I do what I love. If that is not a business than I don't know what is.
2. You aren't delivering what the clients want, you're only trying to sell them what you offer. I deliver what they NEED to get what they want, it is a stepping stone in the right direction for my clients.
3. You're not getting paid nearly enough for your work I could go after "bigger", but that is to stressful in my line of work. I play on a low level because I can not only provide results, but those results are more constant by nature
4. You're letting your clients down, you have so much to offer but because you don't package it right, they are turning you down, and they are losing out of geometric growth in their business. You could talk to any ONE of my 3000 clients over my career, and not a one would mention being let down. I am very specific in my approach to clients as to what they are getting and what to expect. I deliver on all aspects. They understand that they are getting the "platform" that is designed for growth. The growth is up to them from that point.You missed my point. I wasn't talking about the clients you have. I was talking about the clients you didn't get(i.e. this attorney firm). I feel like we're ethically obligated to provide our services to everyone who can benefit from it. That was my point.

I am sure it absolutely puzzles you why my thinking is so "directed". The answer is I do what I do very well. Yes I could 'alter' my system and create sales funnels and do exactly what it is you do. That is not an issue. Yeah, I'm not sure why you're resistant to a different model of pricing. When you take that $100k client and transform them into a $250k client. You could be making $30k a year forever, and they won't dislike you, or think you're doing them a disservice. They actually profit from having you around usually. They don't want to be left in the dark after your 90 days of service, if you're good they want you around and paying attention to their business.

Sometimes money is not the only thing that matters. Sometimes its getting the key to a city in which you have helped many of its merchants and fellow citizens get to a new level of growth.

Sometimes its knowing you could be playing with the 'Goliath's' of the world but instead work with the 'David's'

You're still avoiding the discussion about the scalability of the business. Read the E-Myth. You say above you can't really train someone to do SEO for you because it's too complicated. That's why you don't have a business, if you're not there the business doesn't run. I was basically out of commission for six months and only lost 20% of my business, and most of the loss was in the areas that were more manual like SEO, and I did some really stupid things like not have auto renew on a few domains(or rather I did but that account didn't have money in it. It was a manual process. A business like I built is scalable, I can hire a filipino to implement at $4 an hour. I had systems in place for client acquisition, client management, referral systems, etc. That's the difference between a job you create for yourself and a business. I have had clients who have had very good 7 and 8 figure businesses, that really were glorified jobs. One of my good friends and clients is a head hunter in the medical field. For whatever reason he can't keep employees and he's the "rainmaker" in the company. He can't quit, he can't sell it, he makes $1.5-2M a year, but it's still just a job.

It comes down to scalability and repeatability. When I sold my business the parts that were scalable sold on average for 6-10x what wasn't. The SEO contracts were basically worthless. It's simple, talk to a business broker, ask them what you could sell your business for. Then ask them what it could sell for if you had them on licensing agreements that bring in the same amount of cash monthly. Take a look at the resale market for doctor's practices. They are basically selling a job, and they sell for .5-1x, same for attorneys and accountants. Then compare that to a McDonald's that generally sells for 10x. Why? Because that's not a job, it's a real business. You should know that from when you sold your business before.

It's been fun, I don't really understand your resistance. You're making things much harder on yourself than they have to be. It doesn't have to be this hard to get business, it should be easy and fun and lucrative. But you're choosing the wrong clients, and selling them the wrong things, and making it so much harder than it needs to be- IMHO. You don't get bonus points for working harder to close sales. But hey, I'm glad you're actually doing something. It's better than just sitting on the sidelines and dreaming.

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Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. Itâ€™s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent

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savidge4

11 years ago

Instead of adding to the madness I will start over. I went and read your post on building an SEO empire. Yes a pyramid is the way to go. I understand the development of a traffic path. You take control of yours, I develop mine through my clients.

Going back as far as 2008ish There was a pattern forming within Google and its results. "Local" results to be more specific. Yes, you work with local companies, 99% of all companies are just that. I deal with in the confines of a local region. The market I work, basically a 2 hour circle from my house is in 4 geographical centers in regards to google, and almost kinda sorta with yahoo. They are Pittsburg Pa, Morgantown WV Clarksburg/Bridgeport WV and Charleston WV.

Pitt and Charleston are far more broken in terms of geographical locations and the effect of such with search engines. What this means... If I were in West Union WV ( 50 miles away from me ) and search "Italian Restaurants" on google. Bridgeport results would appear along with the 2 exact matches in West Union. By default I 'happen' to live in a hole. A hole as such that has many advantages for a guy like me that understands what that "hole" is, and how to use it.

As you lay out in your post from way back when ( Well Written I might add ) developing a pyramid to bring the traffic is an essential tool. I have come from that model, and gone more to a circle I guess ( The term I use is a spider web ) Within the google circle of relevancy of the Bridgeport market reach I have built 362 sites. All 362 are interconnected. As much as they are not contextually relevant they are Geographically relevant. This has become a very important piece in Googles eyes.

This web I started and my clients have built on has something in the lines of 90000 relevant pages and growing. The overall gain, in this and for my clients are obvious.

What's the most interesting thing about THIS model is the strength it has within the confinds of the geographical zone. The minute you are out of that zone, its like its not there. I have tested this 3 days to Sunday. I have actually pin pointed a few points along the road where the "on and off line" actually is. ( one side pulls from a cell tower in the zone, and the other pulls from another zone is my guess )

OK so that is my local market secret. I honestly think it is a geographical fluke is what it is.

Playing with bigger fish. Having read your post, you and I look at this in much the same way. I do target high PR sites. I own a few, I might buy some if needed. Its basic math a single PR5 link back is worth what 10,000
PR1 link backs? ( Maybe an exaggeration but not by all that much haha ) In regards to getting them to stay there, again that is why I play in smaller markets, it easier. I do have a personal project that will be national sales and playing in the 1 keyword arena. Kinda looking forward to that.

As far as selling on Flippa, I do. Not to often there specifically, well actually maybe 2 times a year. I generally will build something and place a post for sale on it, and with time Ill get a call. I am currently in development on 2 UHD sites ( 4000UHD and 4000UHDTV ). They aren't up yet but they will be soon enough. These 2 in particular I am looking into some different ways to build the monitary end of them instead of the usual adsense etc. I am thinking If I work these right on the re-sale end they could gather a pretty penny. But, if things go as I want with the new concept marketing, they may stay in the portfolio as Profit centers. time will tell.

If I haven't already, I really do appreciate your time and effort in responding.

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MRomeo09

11 years ago

That definitely makes it a lot clearer. I have done the same sort of thing, and yes it's quite nice when it works. Ok, I take it back you've monetized it pretty well. Because what you're actually selling is not SEO but access to a network that you control. Now see that to me makes sense.

The only risk you take is if Google notices a footprint, they can ban the entire network. What you're actually doing is directly against what Google allows you to do. You're creating a link network.

https://support.google.com/webmaster...er/66356?hl=en

You can probably skate by for a while, but you do run the risk of your entire network being banned, and then you have a huge customer service issue on your hands. You'll have to be pretty smart to keep everything from showing up. Of course almost anything we can do is against Google guidelines right? The problem is when Google shuts down a network it's NASTY. Ask me how I know this. Some of my nets in my SEO empire were decimated by one of the updates in 2012. Most of them were fine, but the ones that were hit it was really ugly. Look at what happened to link networks like Build My Rank and others, the results weren't pretty. If you build your foundation on a network, and you leave footprints and the network gets penalized all of your customers could get hammered and where does that leave you?

Just be careful is all I'm saying. In fact I'd probably remove all my defining characteristics like your city out of your post as Google is known to read forums and look to penalize offenders to their policies. Don't get me started on Matt Cutts and co.

Thanks for the clarification.

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Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. Itâ€™s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by MRomeo09

That definitely makes it a lot clearer. I have done the same sort of thing, and yes it's quite nice when it works. Ok, I take it back you've monetized it pretty well. Because what you're actually selling is not SEO but access to a network that you control. Now see that to me makes sense.

The only risk you take is if Google notices a footprint, they can ban the entire network. What you're actually doing is directly against what Google allows you to do. You're creating a link network.

https://support.google.com/webmaster...er/66356?hl=en

You can probably skate by for a while, but you do run the risk of your entire network being banned, and then you have a huge customer service issue on your hands. You'll have to be pretty smart to keep everything from showing up. Of course almost anything we can do is against Google guidelines right? The problem is when Google shuts down a network it's NASTY. Ask me how I know this. Some of my nets in my SEO empire were decimated by one of the updates in 2012. Most of them were fine, but the ones that were hit it was really ugly. Look at what happened to link networks like Build My Rank and others, the results weren't pretty. If you build your foundation on a network, and you leave footprints and the network gets penalized all of your customers could get hammered and where does that leave you?

Just be careful is all I'm saying. In fact I'd probably remove all my defining characteristics like your city out of your post as Google is known to read forums and look to penalize offenders to their policies. Don't get me started on Matt Cutts and co.

Thanks for the clarification.

AH! interesting you should mention that. Google and I have already gone round with this. All of my pages have a "link" page and they cross to other "Local" business'. Google went as far as to call a number of the owners to ask if the links were knowingly or unknowingly placed. In the overall realm of "Link Schemes" mine actually does pass Google's requirements, but some of my competition did take it apon themselves to mention the lists to Google. In the end I did get a green light from Google to continue within the guides of the Google article you posted.

Thanks

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massiveray

11 years ago

So I've just basically read this whole thread, in general I consider myself to be the best SEO on these boards (or one of) and I really don't understand what it is you actually do.

What is it you do for these 90 days that has these kinds of increases? are you just going in and fixing problems? switching to properly formatted HTML? site structure? link building? all of the above?

I'm not having a go I'd just love to know what it is you do.

I work with clients who earn in excess of £1 million per deal and if i could show these guys the gains you talk about they'd pay me much much better.

Also I'm not fishing for free dirt, if you can honestly do all of this, I will happily pay you for your time.

In the same vein, I <3 what Romeo is saying, if I could set up the kind of funnel you are talking and own it myself for these guys then i could also monetise better.

Something you said really struck with me, I recently went into hospital for 3 months with a kidney thing (dialysis that kind of shit) and over this I lost A LOT of my clients, I managed to keep it ticking over but it really did stress to me that I was integral to the success of my business and it would likely die if I wasn't around for too long.

I'm very interested in switching things over to your type of method, and have started making arrangements to do so this week. Lot's f testing and ad spend ahead but you have really opened my eyes!

Originally Posted by savidge4

MRomeo09: First off brother, I'm going to give you some tough love. I hope you're ok with that. And I'll tell you my friend, you don't value yourself highly enough. You just don't. If you're really good at SEO then the only client you should EVER take is yourself and your businesses. No one can pay you enough money to do SEO for them. Savidge4:I give tough love and expect tough love in return. You may notice that in the last post I did give a glimpse into what I do for myself. However, overall I have not mentioned my own projects.

Understand I'm not really talking about what we do, I'm actually talking about the monetization of it. That's what I've gradually changed over the years. I did exactly what you did for years. I started doing SEO in 2006. You can find some of my philosophies here: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html

Here's my progression that I put in another post:
Here are 4 deals I did in the same niche, across the years.
2006- SEO deal. $3k. As far as I can tell the biz owner made around $200k a year from my work.
2010- Site Rental- $750/mo. Now this was more like it, better than owning actual real estate.
2011- Lead Gen- Charged $45/phone call. Generated roughly 20-30 calls per month($900-1350/mo)
2012- Licensing- Put together a complete marketing funnel. From lead-gen to appointment set. Charged $25k setup fee. And $10k a month. Generated $40k a month in revenue.
2013- Sold the entire business.

I started my path into SEO back in 1996. I have a few years on you. However, the first few by todays standards were straight out black hat. Stuffing and spam linking were then allowed.
1997 Me and a few friends started a start up The first year that grossed very high 5 figures.
1998 Grossed right at 7 figures. we build a better mouse trap. the programming was the trap, and my SEO was the bait.
1999 Gross was at 7 figures per month
2000 we sold to expedia
2002 I was contracted by a major record label to go through and SEO every single signed artist site, and developed related cross linking (Might note that related cross linking was not a thing to do back then) These pages to this day still function nicely.
2004 switched my efforts to assisting local markets specifically. Started a firm in Myrtle Beach SC built and SEO'd somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 sites in 3 years
2007 Moved to West Virginia and took a break from clients and focused on self promotion.
2010 Missed the client interaction and started a new local targeted firm which brings us to today in a rough kinda way.

I'll tell you that I completely dropped SEO as an offering because it wasn't fair to me. I literally created $1M increases in profits yearly and got paid $10-20-30k. Not cool. Not enough. I wanted more. And this is the thing your clients will gladly pay you more. But you have to ask for it. Sure they'd prefer to pay you $15k to make an extra $200k a year. But what if you could get paid more? The only reason you aren't making more is because you haven't gotten over the hump to start asking for more. I would say that the person that under values their worth is you and not me. If I have a client that stands the potential to million dollar gains rest assured I am not getting 10 to 30K.. 30K might be my starting point. You need to look at my model. I redesign an existing platform or I build a new one in 90 days. That platform is functioning and performing to everyone's expectations in that 90 days. I am done. Or am I? This is indeed a stepping stone for some of my clients, not many but some.

I started to delve into site rentals and lead generation like many when I read Shoemoney's lead generation post. How To Make Money Setting Up Your Own Local Affiliate Program - ShoeMoney. I realized that THIS was the future. No longer would I get paid peanuts while my clients became rich off of my efforts.

I honestly don't care whether your system is PPC, SEO, Facebook or radio ad campaigns, it's about how you monetize it. I can absolutely guarantee you that you are not getting paid what you're worth, or what the clients would pay. Take your same campaign, and build it into a lead gen site and monetize it better. If your clients are paying you $15k to set it up. They'd probably pay you $10k a month FOREVER to build them a funnel of paying customers. Forever my friend, say it with me, forever. Maybe that day for you is not today. Someday though you'll ask yourself. When do you deserve more? I honestly don't know how to answer this. Can I do this, with no question yes. is it something I want to do? no not really. I have reached a point in my life where in a way I am giving back. I am supporting the community in which I live, AND I am making money doing it. I enjoy what I do, and I feel I am making a difference in peoples lives. I supply a service that these people could not afford . (So yes I understand that I sell short of value ) But to be honest the general level of SEO I do in a local market, is not the same that is done in say a fortune 500 environment. Do I have the ability to step up and play with the big boys? sure been there done that got paid REAL well for it. but that is not what this about for me. I know you are reading this and thinking I am crazy. And by all means that is fine.. I'm wasting my talent... I don't think so I am sharing my talent with those that NEED it vs. those that can truly pay for it.

Let me ask you do you think it's unfair that I asked for this much money? Do you? Actually don't answer me, you should probably look deep into yourself and answer that to yourself. I think it's criminal that you've produced $50-100-500k a year in extra profits a year and you get paid a whopping $15k. I decided to not undervalue myself, and found ways not only to produce more value to my clients but to demand that I get paid that value. When I did site rentals and lead gen that was a way of upping my value. I evolved into marketing it a little differently. I started to understand that companies needed more than just SEO, they wanted the peace of mind of knowing their marketing was taken care of. I'll tell you that I had clients proud that they had written me very large checks. Because they understood that everytime they can trade me $20 for $100 we both win. In no way do I think what you are doing is "Unfair". I think its a great thing that you are providing a product/service that produces results. That is how you become successful, you provide results.

The problem with your model is the constant churn. You have to always have new clients coming in to make money. And then the work you do is labor intensive. If you get sick like I did last year, what happens to your cash flow? Get put in the hospital for three months unable to work, and does your business keep churning on? Why not take your SEO knowledge and your conversion knowledge and build a lead gen campaign. You build up a portfolio of sites that bring you $500-5k a month, and now it's YOU who have peace of mind. It's not changing what you do to what I do, it's changing how you make money off of it. I could care less if you ever do facebook or linked in marketing. But I would love it if you would make what you're worth. Can I walk away from my business, yes I can. will it operate at 100% no it wont. You cant teach 'complicated' SEO to just anyone. However, I do take 30 days off a year. Me my wife and son go on vacations and cruises, and I honestly spend little to no time "checking in"

If you really examine what you've built, you've just built yourself a job, albeit a good paying one. You can't travel for a month with no cell phone. You can't spend the winter in Vail or the summer in Peru. It's time to think about how do you build this thing into a business. You build a real business when you have either very good systems that produce cash, or reoccuring cash flow. Now some of that can be done if you're good at marketing your SEO services.

I would say one of your problems is you lost focus on the reason why businesses succeed. A business succeeds when it delivers what a customer needs, and makes it easier and pleasant to do business with you. You're banging your head on brick walls attempting to sell SEO. Most customers don't really need SEO, I mean some would like to have it, but they don't need it. What they do need is more customers. Which do you think is easier to sell? Spend some time with your customers, find out what they really need, what keeps them up at night, what is the first thing they think of when they wake up, and the last thing right before they go to bed. You're not going to find many who are thinking of SEO or PPC. This is the point. No, they are not thinking those 2 options. However, it is those 2 options and others that that ARE the answers to their questions. Business wants more sales...that is what keeps people up at night. I could be wrong, but the basic difference between you and I is, my clients sell product (With the exception of the lawyers, they are generally not my normal client base). Yours provide service. I understand that there are many many avenues to getting traffic. But ultimately, Its the platform that the traffic comes to that is the MOST important key to the puzzle. ( You think selling SEO is hard try sell that one ) If the site does not convert, what is the sense. If the sites stickiness is slim to none what is the point? If your bounce rate is through the roof what is the point? What I sell under the disguise of SEO is THAT platform. Understanding all of those elements and how the correlate to success is key in what I do. The by product of my work is good solid search engine listings, hence selling my service as SEO vs. trying to sell an upgraded site.

And this is what you'll find my friend. Your sales job gets much easier. You are already facing the fact that most of your prospects are very wary of the term SEO. So don't sell them SEO, sell them cash. You own the site, you SEO it, you set it to convert. They pay you monthly an agreed rental amount, a dollar amount per lead or a percentage of the profits. You'll close more business, much easier, make more money, and still have very happy customers. They do want the peace of mind, the closer you get to a completely done for you system, the better off you are. I would say you're providing more peace of mind because they are partnering with you. You won't make any money unless they make money too.

I think your mindset is all wrong: Its not wrong, its different Like I said in the last post we will agree when we agree and disagree on other points.

It's not a business expense it's an investment in higher returns. Again the same analogy, would you trade $20 for $100 and how often? If I can take your client that spends $250k on PPC, and show them a verifiable, and completely tracked income stream of at least $1M in profits are you saying they shouldn't do it? Wouldn't you do it my friend? If I could build up a marketing funnel for you where you pay me $20k every month, but I give you $200k in sales and $100k in profits(websites and SEO and printing or whatever you do)? How long would you want to pay me that $20k? This is where you and I disagree.... Would I do it? NO. I can do that for myself, and for far less. You can turn the words all you want. An investment is a 1 time deal, overhead is a regulated monthly expense. You can call this what you want... But the reality is, is it what it is. This in particular is where PPC sales excels vs. SEO sales. You can EASILY spin the PPC concept and general terminology into an asset. SEO on the other hand is kind of a concept, that people are wary of as we have discussed.

Back for a second on the "Investment" vs. "Expense". An investment is the purchase of a new piece of equipment. Investment is the training of staff. Investment is the time and money put into developing a product or service.

A business expense is very defined in its function and use. Electricity is a expense. Rent is an expense ( Where as building purchase would be an investment ) Taxes are an expense. Advertising is an expense. PPC is an expense. How can you tell one from the other? If you "Turn it off" will your business run? Will it still profit?

Another difference between what you do, and what I do... my service is an investment, yours.. well its an expense. This in it self is the sales technique that I have found to sway a client the most consistently. As many bad points that can be made about SEO, there are a few points that can be made with PPC.

As an example a few weeks ago someone posted what they should do, I suggest SEO ( of course ) and someone I respect greatly here on the boards, took what I said and spun the crud out if it sighting the fluctuation of SEO and the consistency of PPC and suggested Facebook as a good alternative. This falling just weeks after Facebook did one of its biggest updates in history dropping many peoples reach by LARGE amounts.

I am in no way mad at said person, It was interesting to see how the spin was executed. To the "Average" person it all makes sense. This is what they WANT to see. I peddle what is largely misunderstood on many levels. By the nature of developing good SEO you in turn are developing a good solid website.

A good example(s) of a recent shift back to SEO would be walmart and Target. They recently ( somewhere in November I believe ) started implementing a text field on every one of their product pages, that used to not be there. Clearly they are targeting efforts towards the line of SEO to get away from the PPC model. Lord only knows how much money 'Target' in particular pays to PPC on products they don't even have. It is mind boggling sometimes. but hey they got traffic!

I started making markedly more money when I turned my focus outwards instead of inwards. Do you know what thought I think of first thing in the morning, and last thing at night? I think of how can I make more money for my clients. When you have that mindset, it just bleeds out of you. My clients sense it. I'm not trying to sell them one thing or another thing. I can go with complete integrity to them, knowing that I won't benefit unless they benefit first and hopefully massively. Last week I was taking a shower and thought up a way to build a slipstream JV for a client who was about to shutdown one of his smaller businesses. He had a meeting on friday and he went from shutting down a division, to an expected contract worth $300k PROFIT a year. Because I was thinking of him, not about me. If you want to talk about the fundamental difference in our system. My system is 100% client centered, I want them to experience massive success, ecstatic happiness and joy, confidence and pride in their business. When I make that happen, I generally get paid big bucks as well. Sometimes not, but that's ok. System for System, the end result is the same. It is on the level we play that is different in many ways. I turn $100,000 or less business' into $250,000 business' on a regular basis. That is what I do. I can go after bigger business and get the 7 digit companies and possibly turn them into 8 digit companies. I choose not to. In the example above I didn't get paid a dime, because it wasn't about me. But now I have a case study where I have a client who can say a 5 minute phone call from me changed a business that was losing $50k a year into a business making $300k profit. Plus he owes me, eventually I'll call in a favor.

To be honest, I'm a little wary of someone who tells me they can SEO a site and get it converting in 90 days. It just takes longer than that, especially if you want it to last. It's very hard to SEO a site in 90 days. For instance your attorney above, most attorney niches in decent sized cities already have pretty good competition. If you can SEO them in 90 days, I'll pay you to fly to Atlanta and teach my team how. Book the ticket my friend. I use a tried and true method, that is far from black hat, and is surprisingly easy to execute. Keep in mind if you do want to get that ticket, have your check book out when I get there! haha And I would say one thing that we've seen over the last 5 years is that SEO results are fluid, it's not likely that you can rank it once and then forget it. It needs maintenance in most cases. As I have stated over and over, I work in a very localized market. The fluctuation of SEO efforts at such a macro level is not so floaty as in larger markets. Granted, once you are in the single 2 and 3 keyword chain level, there is some effort required in keeping that level. However, my method WILL put you in the top 5 in less than 90 days. Even with PPC, it takes us longer than 90 days to get the conversions maximized. We've taken a site that converted 1% and gotten it to over 30% but it took us over a year of testing, and probably $200k in ad spend. It made money at around 2-3%, and made just stupid money at 30%.

To recap here are my concerns:
1. You've got a job, not a real business. You can call it what you will, I love what I do, and I do what I love. If that is not a business than I don't know what is.
2. You aren't delivering what the clients want, you're only trying to sell them what you offer. I deliver what they NEED to get what they want, it is a stepping stone in the right direction for my clients.
3. You're not getting paid nearly enough for your work I could go after "bigger", but that is to stressful in my line of work. I play on a low level because I can not only provide results, but those results are more constant by nature
4. You're letting your clients down, you have so much to offer but because you don't package it right, they are turning you down, and they are losing out of geometric growth in their business. You could talk to any ONE of my 3000 clients over my career, and not a one would mention being let down. I am very specific in my approach to clients as to what they are getting and what to expect. I deliver on all aspects. They understand that they are getting the "platform" that is designed for growth. The growth is up to them from that point.

I am sure it absolutely puzzles you why my thinking is so "directed". The answer is I do what I do very well. Yes I could 'alter' my system and create sales funnels and do exactly what it is you do. That is not an issue.

Sometimes money is not the only thing that matters. Sometimes its getting the key to a city in which you have helped many of its merchants and fellow citizens get to a new level of growth.

Sometimes its knowing you could be playing with the 'Goliath's' of the world but instead work with the 'David's'

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savidge4

11 years ago

massiveray: So I've just basically read this whole thread, in general I consider myself to be the best SEO on these boards (or one of) and I really don't understand what it is you actually do. Savidge4: What I do. I basically start over and engineer the entire site into a market focused SEO machine. I start with a list of 200 targeted keywords. Depending on the size of the project, there might be all 200 listed on say 20 pages or there may actually be 200 pages with each page focused on a 1 particular keyword. I design a working flowing layout that is easy to navigate and defines the path to the profit center. This is the essence of whatI callmy platform.

What is it you do for these 90 days that has these kinds of increases? are you just going in and fixing problems? switching to properly formatted HTML? site structure? link building? all of the above? I personally do not "Fix" existing code except on very rare occasions I will start over and or build a parallel site if the logistics of the primary are in bad shape. I deal with a client for roughly 13 weeks once a contract is signed.
Week 1 and sometimes this may go into 2 weeks is Research and discover. I look at how things currently work. How and where information is shared within the business keyword research etc. I also site submit at this time again dependent on existing vs.new
Week 3 flow chart flow chart flow chart. I will usually submit layout design in this week as well.
week 4 through 10ish is the actual design process. Also at this time the process of obtaining solid back linking is taking place. I personally recently went to exclusively using Html5 with CSS3 I do use NetObjects to develop the shell, it does stream line the programming effort. However I and my prtners do a lot of programming. I rarely use WordPress, It is entirely dependent on the client, and their needs.
Week 11 I usually start seeing SEO results and start the fine tuning
Week 13 I hand over the project.

I'm not having a go I'd just love to know what it is you do.

I work with clients who earn in excess of £1 million per deal and if i could show these guys the gains you talk about they'd pay me much much better.

Also I'm not fishing for free dirt, if you can honestly do all of this, I will happily pay you for your time. As Romeo more than once pointed out... What I do is not scalable. And he IS right. I can only do what I can do. Id love to help you, but I am happy with what I have.

In the same vein, I <3 what Romeo is saying, if I could set up the kind of funnel you are talking and own it myself for these guys then i could also monetise better. Just as Romeo is saying to me, and I agree... you could be doing what he does. Its really not a hard concept. If you are GOOD at SEO and you are not on some ethical crusade such as my self, you could do just that.

Something you said really struck with me, I recently went into hospital for 3 months with a kidney thing (dialysis that kind of shit) and over this I lost A LOT of my clients, I managed to keep it ticking over but it really did stress to me that I was integral to the success of my business and it would likely die if I wasn't around for too long.

I'm very interested in switching things over to your type of method, and have started making arrangements to do so this week. Lot's f testing and ad spend ahead but you have really opened my eyes! read Romeos post http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html He very clearly lays out what it is he does. and HOW he does it. Probably one of the best shares of all time in regards to SEO.

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massiveray

11 years ago

my message is too short

Originally Posted by savidge4

massiveray: So I've just basically read this whole thread, in general I consider myself to be the best SEO on these boards (or one of) and I really don't understand what it is you actually do. Savidge4: What I do. I basically start over and engineer the entire site into a market focused SEO machine. I start with a list of 200 targeted keywords. Depending on the size of the project, there might be all 200 listed on say 20 pages or there may actually be 200 pages with each page focused on a 1 particular keyword. I design a working flowing layout that is easy to navigate and defines the path to the profit center. This is the essence of whatI callmy platform. massiveray: so you're just targeting loads of keywords, building a new html site and then ranking those keywords. Thanks for clarifying. 200 keywords is a lot though.

What is it you do for these 90 days that has these kinds of increases? are you just going in and fixing problems? switching to properly formatted HTML? site structure? link building? all of the above? I personally do not "Fix" existing code except on very rare occasions I will start over and or build a parallel site if the logistics of the primary are in bad shape. I deal with a client for roughly 13 weeks once a contract is signed.
Week 1 and sometimes this may go into 2 weeks is Research and discover. I look at how things currently work. How and where information is shared within the business keyword research etc. I also site submit at this time again dependent on existing vs.new
Week 3 flow chart flow chart flow chart. I will usually submit layout design in this week as well.
week 4 through 10ish is the actual design process. Also at this time the process of obtaining solid back linking is taking place. I personally recently went to exclusively using Html5 with CSS3 I do use NetObjects to develop the shell, it does stream line the programming effort. However I and my prtners do a lot of programming. I rarely use WordPress, It is entirely dependent on the client, and their needs. You are backlinking to all 200 of these keywords? using this network of yours? is that the key here, you're ranking longtails with a high PR network?
Week 11 I usually start seeing SEO results and start the fine tuning
Week 13 I hand over the project.

Thanks for clarifying the process but does this really make the kind of gains you were talking about earlier? consistently? in 13 weeks? if so then fair play to you and well done!

I'm not having a go I'd just love to know what it is you do.

I work with clients who earn in excess of £1 million per deal and if i could show these guys the gains you talk about they'd pay me much much better.

Also I'm not fishing for free dirt, if you can honestly do all of this, I will happily pay you for your time. As Romeo more than once pointed out... What I do is not scalable. And he IS right. I can only do what I can do. Id love to help you, but I am happy with what I have. Yeah I figured, I just thought I'd offer, if you're saying you can do something in 3 months that takes me a year I'd be silly not to try and get my hands on it right?

In the same vein, I <3 what Romeo is saying, if I could set up the kind of funnel you are talking and own it myself for these guys then i could also monetise better. Just as Romeo is saying to me, and I agree... you could be doing what he does. Its really not a hard concept. If you are GOOD at SEO and you are not on some ethical crusade such as my self, you could do just that. I am looking into setting this type of thing up as we speak, time is my main concern here, as I'm in a similar position to you, SEO clients and the time they take and lack of scalability.

Something you said really struck with me, I recently went into hospital for 3 months with a kidney thing (dialysis that kind of shit) and over this I lost A LOT of my clients, I managed to keep it ticking over but it really did stress to me that I was integral to the success of my business and it would likely die if I wasn't around for too long.

I'm very interested in switching things over to your type of method, and have started making arrangements to do so this week. Lot's f testing and ad spend ahead but you have really opened my eyes! read Romeos post http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html He very clearly lays out what it is he does. and HOW he does it. Probably one of the best shares of all time in regards to SEO. I meant his PPC funnels, I like the 4 hour set up and then just maintain idea of them. I've been considering moving everything over to PPC for a while now and this discussion of yours has given me the kick up the arse that I needed to seriously invest in testing if it's viable.

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savidge4

11 years ago

massiveray: so you're just targeting loads of keywords, building a new html site and then ranking those keywords. Thanks for clarifying. 200 keywords is a lot though.Savidge4: When you get into the practice of doing this, creating the list is not as hard as it sounds. I have gone as far on a projector or 2 to get in the 500 range. It is all dependent on your subject aka Client.

You are backlinking to all 200 of these keywords? using this network of yours? is that the key here, you're ranking longtails with a high PR network? I do not backlink to all 200 I generally run with 10 or so I do not waste High PR on long tail. Once you get the crawler to your site, the long tail will take care of themselves. ( Again understanding the "Market" I am in has by comparison to the internet at large minimal competition. I work within what I consider a Micro niche, niche at best, that happens to be a local market. )

Thanks for clarifying the process but does this really make the kind of gains you were talking about earlier? consistently? in 13 weeks? if so then fair play to you and well done! It is really clockwork. The overall secret in "My Method" is knowing where to spend the time, and when not to. Like I just said, I spend little to no time concerning myself with "Long Tail" They 99% of the time will fall right into place. And to be honest as Targeted as this traffic is, Ideally you want to go for more.( Don't get me wrong with that statement I do target them, just at the programming level and usually no further ) I reach for the higher mid line keywords, and focus on those. A hypothetical example; If you focus on "Weight Loss for Men" "Weight loss for men in Las Vegas" will fall into place on its own ( That is if the site is centered in the las vegas market ) However if you pin down "Weight loss for men in Las Vegas" you may not necessarily get "Weight loss for men" to fall into place.

I am looking into setting this type of thing up as we speak, time is my main concern here, as I'm in a similar position to you, SEO clients and the time they take and lack of scalability. I am guessing you are in the realm of 'monthly' SEO, and yes, that is extremely time consuming. Again that is a primary reason I play at the level I do. Its an in and out kind of thing vs. the long drawn process.

I meant his PPC funnels, I like the 4 hour set up and then just maintain idea of them. I've been considering moving everything over to PPC for a while now and this discussion of yours has given me the kick up the arse that I needed to seriously invest in testing if it's viable. Romeo would have to answer this directly, but I am assuming based on the discussion that as much as he does use PPC in his process, he has also backed that funnel up with his "Pyramid of power" Understanding the basis of this discussion is me wasting my SEO skills. I again assume he builds a pyramid. Maybe not to the extent as before, but to some level.

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savidge4

11 years ago

There is something in this thread that I wanted to point out. Conversion rate. I just so happened to be reading another thread asking if 1% conversion was a good number. I have already learned in this forum in particular to tell people to shoot for 3% that is the overall average of conversion. even with that, much debate ensues thinking I am crazy or something.

I personally do not operate at 3%. I like the 15 to 25% range. That is what I strive for. My own personal Internet Satellite business operates on average across the entire funnel at just over 30% consistently. MRomeo stated that he has tested and tested and hit 30%. Interestingly enough we both use different methods of traffic. Ultimately those streams for the most part come from the same place.

Another greatly admired user on this forum suggests that he gets a 33% response rate on e-mail. I personally think that's crazy, but I not for one second think its impossible. I just suck at e-mail marketing. You all have read my writing I am scattered, non focused, leave pertinent points out, and I wonder why I suck at e-mail marketing! hahahaha

Anyways back to the point.... ( oh geez there I go again ) Through testing comes success. understand that there are no limits as to what level of success you can have, always push for more. Develop a 'working' system for yourself. Use it, refine it, and succeed using it.

Hope that Helps!

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savidge4

11 years ago

Now that I finally am not doing 20 things at once. My distain for PPC.

I want to preface the follow to state that I understand it is the client that ultimately pulls the trigger on this. It is NO way the cause of the person or firm selling the PPC concept.

As MRomeo stated he offers $5 in return for $1 invested. A 500% return on investment... or is it? Now lets look at this from the Clients side. In order to give a 500% return, you need to increase his sales by 500% so for every 1 sale that was being made, you are now making 5. Easy concept I am sure most people will jump all over it. At this level everything looks AWESOME.

Now lets start breaking this down. If I have an item that sells for $1 and I give you $1 you in turn sell 5 total. I have now just sold 4 and given 1 away for free. lets dig a bit deeper, that item cost me .50 to purchase and or make. I now have 2.50 in product, $1 in PPC for a total of $3.50. I have no given away 3.5 of my items for free. Lets add expenses, a warehouse and employees and electric etc., that works out to .25 each, so my total product expense is .75 or $3.75 extended. I give you $1 and I am left with .25. I am right back were I started.

I understand that the above is an 'extreme' I get it, I'm just simply driving the idea home. Many of our customers are working on 10% to 30% profit margins, they are just short of doing 'anything' to increase sales. the reality is in a great number of cases the math does not add up. When I speak about an 'expense' vs. a 'investment' this is what I am talking about.

We can increase these numbers, $20 to jump sales of one $100 sale to $500 in sales there is still a 5% increase in each items 'cost' hence that items added expense.

Lets look at the 2 terms

Investment: the rough definition; the purchase a factory or a house, or putting money into an asset with the expectation of financial return.
Investment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Expense: the rough definition; the payment to another person or company to pay for an item or service. or an outflow of cash to a person or business for a product or service of equal or greater value, or of future value. or better yet, expense reduces owners equity.
Expense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lets be honest with one another here. Where does PPC fall? As much as you want to say that PPC provides financial return, I will as a business owner cry foul. It does NOT provide financial return. However it does Create more business, but there is a inherent COST in doing so.

In NO way is PPC an 'Investment'. I challenge anyone to give 1 example where there is not a 'Cost' in PPC, but rather a profit and I will forever shut my trap on the subject. The reality is, that will never happen.

SEO on the other hand... Upfront, its not cheap... but over the long haul, you gain back your investment... you actually profit from the exchange.

I do have a decent past history. I designed and built a SEO empire that pointed to one site, that sold for a lot of money. I SEO'd 6% of an entire industry, using at the time forward thinking concepts of inter weaving a body of websites into a community. ( Just an added here. what is Amazons most liked feature? How about the "Customers who bought this item also bought".... - its the same concept cross linking 1 item to the next to the next etc. )

I'm not where I am at today by accident. I started from scratch, started small and I am working my way up the latter. I have a model that is 'Proven' to work. My model in my current location is incredible, that in itself was by accident, but figuring out what it is I am working with comes from experience. As shared time and again on this forum, develop a working model and duplicate over and over. That is what I am doing with what I consider decent efficiency.

I absolutely understand the shift that MRomeo made, it makes perfect sense. SEO empire building is complicated tedious hard stuff... it takes time and more time and more time. There was a time back in 98 and 99 I was working 120+ hours a week, it was ridiculous.

To duplicate that model for each client is border line retarded. Here in lies why I shifted to a "Localized" market. I am in effect building the pyramid not pointed to one site, but within itself. I have the ability to gain the strength by numbers within a single market. I am not limited to any one niche, the entire community becomes the niche within I work. I don't specialize in "plumbers" or "radiologist", I specialize in a geographical zone and or zones. This in itself is the current upcoming future of SEO Empire building.

I have rattled on enough...

Hope that Helps!

Thanks
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wb_man

11 years ago

savidge4 and NRomeo09, the best way to settle this debate:
between the two of you, who makes more money doing what you do? lets post some numbers.

at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is how much you make, not what you do.

Thanks
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vndnbrgj

11 years ago

Originally Posted by wb_man

savidge4 and NRomeo09, the best way to settle this debate:
between the two of you, who makes more money doing what you do? lets post some numbers.

at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is how much you make, not what you do.

Actually wb, that doesn't solve anything. Different people have different goals.
One person may be comfortable with $100,000 and the other with $1,000,000
That doesn't mean one is better than the other, it just means they have different goals, ambitions, etc.

Thanks

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MRomeo09

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

AH! interesting you should mention that. Google and I have already gone round with this. All of my pages have a "link" page and they cross to other "Local" business'. Google went as far as to call a number of the owners to ask if the links were knowingly or unknowingly placed. In the overall realm of "Link Schemes" mine actually does pass Google's requirements, but some of my competition did take it apon themselves to mention the lists to Google. In the end I did get a green light from Google to continue within the guides of the Google article you posted.

I think what you're doing is perfectly legitimate and should NOT be penalized. However, it directly controverts one of Google's rules: "Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking" Good for you if you got them to ok you, but I still would be very careful of taking that risk.

Originally Posted by savidge4

There is something in this thread that I wanted to point out. Conversion rate. I just so happened to be reading another thread asking if 1% conversion was a good number. I have already learned in this forum in particular to tell people to shoot for 3% that is the overall average of conversion. even with that, much debate ensues thinking I am crazy or something.

I personally do not operate at 3%. I like the 15 to 25% range. That is what I strive for. My own personal Internet Satellite business operates on average across the entire funnel at just over 30% consistently. MRomeo stated that he has tested and tested and hit 30%. Interestingly enough we both use different methods of traffic. Ultimately those streams for the most part come from the same place.

Another greatly admired user on this forum suggests that he gets a 33% response rate on e-mail. I personally think that's crazy, but I not for one second think its impossible. I just suck at e-mail marketing. You all have read my writing I am scattered, non focused, leave pertinent points out, and I wonder why I suck at e-mail marketing! hahahaha

Anyways back to the point.... ( oh geez there I go again ) Through testing comes success. understand that there are no limits as to what level of success you can have, always push for more. Develop a 'working' system for yourself. Use it, refine it, and succeed using it.

Hope that Helps!

I've been doing this a long time, and I think I'm pretty good. But I can't pump up conversions to 20%+ in 90 days without a ton of traffic. And definitely not with just organic SEO traffic, it takes a while to build up traffic for local companies. And even when you have it built up, unless it's specifically a tech company your traffic can still be quite low. In many niches in local markets you're only getting between 10-30 visitors a day at first, and then you can get to maybe 100 but still it takes a while to adequately test. The way you refine conversions quickly is by throwing a lot of traffic at it. When I'm split testing landing pages, I need at minimum 500-1,000 visitors or else it's statistically irrelevant. By using good funnel basics you can generally get that 3-5% fairly quickly. But until you understand that market, you're just not going to be able to tune the conversions that well. If you want my experience at it, it takes about 6 months to a year with 75-100 visitors a day to really get to the highest conversions. Until you have intimate knowledge of the exact niche. For instance one of the niches that I worked on the final straw was a very well crafted testimonial. It was legitimate, but it was how they said it, and that it dealt with the biggest concern of potential clients and that was the final straw. It was probably the 15th testimonial we had worked with in that location. It's not uncommon to have around 1,000 changes documented in our conversion optimization, it's not for the weak that's for sure. It takes time and especially traffic.

Originally Posted by savidge4

Now that I finally am not doing 20 things at once. My distain for PPC.

I want to preface the follow to state that I understand it is the client that ultimately pulls the trigger on this. It is NO way the cause of the person or firm selling the PPC concept.

As MRomeo stated he offers $5 in return for $1 invested. A 500% return on investment... or is it? Now lets look at this from the Clients side. In order to give a 500% return, you need to increase his sales by 500% so for every 1 sale that was being made, you are now making 5. Easy concept I am sure most people will jump all over it. At this level everything looks AWESOME.

Now lets start breaking this down. If I have an item that sells for $1 and I give you $1 you in turn sell 5 total. I have now just sold 4 and given 1 away for free. lets dig a bit deeper, that item cost me .50 to purchase and or make. I now have 2.50 in product, $1 in PPC for a total of $3.50. I have no given away 3.5 of my items for free. Lets add expenses, a warehouse and employees and electric etc., that works out to .25 each, so my total product expense is .75 or $3.75 extended. I give you $1 and I am left with .25. I am right back were I started.

I understand that the above is an 'extreme' I get it, I'm just simply driving the idea home. Many of our customers are working on 10% to 30% profit margins, they are just short of doing 'anything' to increase sales. the reality is in a great number of cases the math does not add up. When I speak about an 'expense' vs. a 'investment' this is what I am talking about.

That's not really the way it works, but I'll humor you. First off, let's talk about incremental revenue. If you're selling $1M in product, and I bring you a new channel of business that brings in a second $1M without messing with the original line of business. Your COGS(Costs of Goods Sold) of that $1M in product might be $700k. But the real COGS for the second might be only $400k. You're not paying more electricity because you have more product coming in and out, you're probably not moving into new facilities, you're not getting double the cell phones, or extra liability insurance, etc., etc. Your fixed costs are staying the same basically. Some of your variable costs like raw materials and labor will increase which is the basis of the $400k COGS. Your sophisticated and even not so sophisticated business owners get that when you explain it to them. Incremental revenue is how you drastically improve the lifestyle and financial circumstances of small businesses.

Second I said profit, not revenue. If in my example above I give you an extra million in revenue, and it costs you $400k to produce that incremental revenue, then I expect 20% of the $600k profit you make. So I'd make $120k, not the $200k off of the gross. If you don't make a profit, then I don't get paid, that's the way it works. Let me cut and paste from another thread so I can show you real numbers.

Let's talk about a real client, a local business. Here are his numbers:
22 Leads Per Month
7 Jobs Per Month
$4900 average Job
38% Average Profit
HIs only advertising was in the Money Pages and Valpak.

We sold him a proven campaign in the niche. We created a free report that was one of those proven models of educational material that a buyer would be interested in. But mostly the report was full of testimonials inducing the customer to want to do business with them. It was basically a case study, testimonial driven sales letter. The report and testimonial gathering cost me about $400. We drove traffic through PPC, and Youtube.

He paid me $5k setup fee, and 20% of profits.
57 Leads Per Month
30 Jobs Per Month
$5800 Average Job
45% Average Profit.

I basically transformed the business. He went from around $13k a month in profit, and making a comfortable $160k a year. To making over $72k a month and almost getting to a million a year. He actually had me stop after 3 weeks to give him time to hire up. If you look at the numbers, we actually helped him close more business. Instead of closing around 33% of his sales calls he moved to over 50%. He also sold more. He did that because we really ratcheted up his trust factor by running a testimonial driven marketing campaign. He was able to increase his profit by selling better quality stuff which didn't cost any more to install, etc.

Gross his business moved from a $400k a year business to a $2.5M business in 90 days. I no longer service his account for obvious reasons but he's still one of my really good friends. This isn't hypothetical, it's a real business making real profit. Because I helped him develop some referral campaigns he'll probably be a $4M business by the end of 2015. Let me ask you again, do you think he whines about paying out $16k a month for this new business? Do you think he considers it an expense? This was a business that had been in business almost 10 years, that was consistently a $100-200k cash maker for the guy. But was basically a job. Now I helped him build a business and revitalized his future.

We can increase these numbers, $20 to jump sales of one $100 sale to $500 in sales there is still a 5% increase in each items 'cost' hence that items added expense.

Again, no it doesn't. This completely ignores the way real business works. It actually costs less the more business you do, not more. Almost every business benefits from economies of scale, it's the way the world works. If I'm buying 10 widgets they might cost me $1 a piece, but if I can buy 100 widgets they might cost me $.50 a piece. Look at almost every business, GotPrint for example. If I order 500 business cards vs 10,000 business cards the cost per card is radically different and much less. Almost everything works that way.

Lets look at the 2 terms

Investment: the rough definition; the purchase a factory or a house, or putting money into an asset with the expectation of financial return.
Investment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Expense: the rough definition; the payment to another person or company to pay for an item or service. or an outflow of cash to a person or business for a product or service of equal or greater value, or of future value. or better yet, expense reduces owners equity.
Expense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lets be honest with one another here. Where does PPC fall? As much as you want to say that PPC provides financial return, I will as a business owner cry foul. It does NOT provide financial return. However it does Create more business, but there is a inherent COST in doing so.

In NO way is PPC an 'Investment'. I challenge anyone to give 1 example where there is not a 'Cost' in PPC, but rather a profit and I will forever shut my trap on the subject. The reality is, that will never happen.

I'm just unclear how you don't see this. Go back to your definition. "putting money into an asset with the expectation of financial return". If I invest $20 into the asset of customer creation no matter what that looks like with the expectation that I will have a return then it's an investment not an expense. I'm baffled that you don't see this. I'm baffled that you think SEO because it's a one time investment(which it isn't), versus PPC which actually is a one time investment that you choose to continue isn't an investment but an expense.

Let's break it down into very simple terms. For my one client it costs around $20 to get a client with my funnel. That includes all the people that don't buy, etc. To drive one client from the wide scary world until they are writing a check(ignoring labor cost of appointments for now) is $20. If I only spend $20 to get one client. And then I shut it all down and go away, yet I make $5800 gross with that client. How can you not see that the $20 invested is an investment to receive $5800? How do you not see by your own definition that it fits more into an investment than an expense? They are consciously choosing to reinvest their $20 to get more clients. That's the way it works in it's simplest form.

Yes very literally on a balance sheet it's an expense, I get that. But every expense should be an investment with expectations of profit. If I spend $40k for labor to you I would expect that I would get $120-160k in returns. How is that different than PPC? I just don't get your mindset. I don't get how your thinking very clearly shuts off between ongoing investments vs one time investments, other than you're stuck on your own agenda.

I suppose the only way I can figure out your mindset is it's an investment if it's a one time expense. And ongoing expense if it keeps on going. Does that about cover it? Because you do realize that SEO is an expense on the balance sheet right? It doesn't go in the asset column.

SEO on the other hand... Upfront, its not cheap... but over the long haul, you gain back your investment... you actually profit from the exchange.

And I've got customers who have gone from $150k to $850k a year in their pocket who would argue they are profiting from the exchange as well.

Originally Posted by wb_man

savidge4 and NRomeo09, the best way to settle this debate:
between the two of you, who makes more money doing what you do? lets post some numbers.

at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is how much you make, not what you do.

Well I make one bajillion dollars, does that help?

I sold my company so I'm out of the running. I do get a very nice consulting fee and non-compete that pays out over three years.

What you'll find however as you start to make more money that you start doing funky things to avoid the tax man, and to protect your assets. My audited tax returns are generally 300+ pages. Even at the height of my earnings, I was trying to protect as much of it as I can. I bought a lot of real estate in land trusts, did private equity investments, I built a pyramid of wealth. Much of what I have done has pumped up my Roth IRA(one of the best things the government ever did, but I worry about the future when the rich use this tax free money and don't pay taxes on it any longer). It's complicated. When you make a good living, you're painting a target on your back. I'm more of the boring Stanley Millionaire Next Door than the flashy type. I'm more into long term wealth than flashy hedonistic lifestyles. I'm very private, and try to keep under the radar.

So to be honest I couldn't even tell you what I made, I pay way too much money to accountants to bury it very deep. My Net Worth however... now that might be another conversation.

Thanks
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MRomeo09

11 years ago

Originally Posted by vndnbrgj

Actually wb, that doesn't solve anything. Different people have different goals.
One person may be comfortable with $100,000 and the other with $1,000,000
That doesn't mean one is better than the other, it just means they have different goals, ambitions, etc.

It's very true. My budget is fairly small but I live the lifestyle I choose. It's not a true measure of wealth. A better measure would be net worth, ongoing IRR of investments, etc.

Originally Posted by vndnbrgj

Savidge: A few things...
A lot of businesses have under-utilized assets. Meaning they have assets in their business that aren't performing at 100% capacity. Things like staff, office space, warehouse space, etc. As such, an increase in sales doesn't mean an increase in expenses. I am not saying this is the situation with every business, but it is the case in most businesses.
I do consulting and get paid a fee plus 10%-20% of increased gross profits. I don't know about Romeo, but he may be doing the same thing. The business takes the cost to provide the product or service, and the gross profit left is where my cut comes from.

So when it's all said an done... it's not as drastic as your example.
By making their existing assets perform at 100% and a percentage of gross profits....Doesn't leave them where they started, but in a much better position.

More or less the same thing. I just find it easier as when I was doing small business marketing consulting, many times clients would do nothing because I found 100 different things to do, and they would just go into overwhelm and found it easier to do nothing. But this is ONE thing we can implement, and when we have that done let's do ONE thing more, etc.

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savidge4 11 years ago

MRomeo09:I've been doing this a long time, and I think I'm pretty good. But I can't pump up conversions to 20%+ in 90 days without a ton of traffic. And definitely not with just organic SEO traffic, it takes a while to build up traffic for local companies. And even when you have it built up, unless it's specifically a tech company your traffic can still be quite low. In many niches in local markets you're only getting between 10-30 visitors a day at first, and then you can get to maybe 100 but still it takes a while to adequately test. The way you refine conversions quickly is by throwing a lot of traffic at it. When I'm split testing landing pages, I need at minimum 500-1,000 visitors or else it's statistically irrelevant. By using good funnel basics you can generally get that 3-5% fairly quickly. But until you understand that market, you're just not going to be able to tune the conversions that well. If you want my experience at it, it takes about 6 months to a year with 75-100 visitors a day to really get to the highest conversions. Until you have intimate knowledge of the exact niche. For instance one of the niches that I worked on the final straw was a very well crafted testimonial. It was legitimate, but it was how they said it, and that it dealt with the biggest concern of potential clients and that was the final straw. It was probably the 15th testimonial we had worked with in that location. It's not uncommon to have around 1,000 changes documented in our conversion optimization, it's not for the weak that's for sure. It takes time and especially traffic.

Savidge4:marketing a hvac company in Seattle is different than marketing one in Texas. There is no question there in each case will be a certain amount of testing that will go on to make both "convert" right. There are obviously many variables that need to be worked out that in one way or another are location related.

Now specifically lets look at what I do. I have specialized. Regardless of the product or service I am representing, I am selling to the exact same group of people. The best analogy I can come up with is mailing list. Once you understand what it takes to make that mailing list convert, you can from then on run with it.

Sure it takes a lot of testing to figure out how to get them to open the e-mail, how to get them to read the e-mail and how to get them to act on the e-mail. But once that is done, you have a method to making that e-mail list produce.

So little ol me is sitting here saying you know what I am going to make my community my niche. I am going to start researching how to convert these people. I am going to sell my process under the disguise of web development and SEO. It doesn't matter ( In My case and setting ) who or what I am selling at this point. I understand what it takes to make my population ( Mailing list ) convert.

I can now sit here so many pages later and pretty much develop from the ground up a focused targeted machine. Are there some tweeks along the way? sure there is. But does it take me 6 months to iron it out? not even close. The first 20 40 60 pages were obviously more work, but now its pretty easy.

Second I said profit, not revenue. If in my example above I give you an extra million in revenue, and it costs you $400k to produce that incremental revenue, then I expect 20% of the $600k profit you make. So I'd make $120k, not the $200k off of the gross. If you don't make a profit, then I don't get paid, that's the way it works. Let me cut and paste from another thread so I can show you real numbers.

I understand you said 'profit' and I understand that vndnbrgj is saying the same thing. So yes in THAT scenario PPC works. You do understand however in the not so perfect world, that is 9 times out of 10 not the case. take any SEO/PPC firm out there... what do they do? they charge a flat monthly rate, and charge for the "Traffic" or PPC expense. There is not that bridge to where you are producing at. There is only expense regardless of performance.

So I apologize for not specifying and making my self clear, basically wasting your time. Was not my intention by any means. I am not going to state any excuses...I was wrong and again I apologize.
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JoeyPal

11 years ago

That sounds like a good method. Just penciled it down. Going in coach!

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Peter Lessard

11 years ago

250k a year on ppc is great! One cool thing about those kinds of situations is that it is often so easy to justify your fees just in simple ways you can save them money.

They must be doing something in the conversion process, lead capture, mobile bounce rates, design that someone with your experience can point out, that when fixed makes your fee a no brainer. I love sites with tons of traffic and spend. Even plugging a 3% hole means big bucks!

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bad golfer

11 years ago

Thanks, MRomeo09, I've been following your business growth for a few years. You first came on my radar with this post:
http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html

I started a whole new business "division" from that post, and honestly think it will be a $50 million dollar brand eventually.

So here you are pushing your own boundaries three years later. It's a good lesson on how to keep asking yourself for more and better results.

Where you are at now reminds me of what Michael Hiles does--taking over the complete marketing function (more or less). I know of some high-profile copywriters that have a group that does something similar except they look for companies they can buy outright . Then they overhaul the marketing and profit big. Either way, it's a powerful business model that demands higher level thinking.

Heck, talk about high-level thinking: The guys at Warby Parker (eyeglasses) started a new company offering shaving supplies called Harry's. Early on they realized they couldn't find good enough razor blades for the quality they wanted to offer. They finally found a 93-year-old company in Germany that could make the blades they wanted.

So they went to their venture capital contacts and said, "Hey, we NEED this company to make the whole deal work. We want to buy them." Their VCs gave them the money. Yes, a startup firm less than a year old bought an old-world German corporation with 400+ employees for $100 million.
10-Month-Old Startup Buys 93-Year-Old Business for $100 Million

Mindset is important.

Anyhowz, thanks for the great posts.

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by bad golfer

Thanks, MRomeo09, I've been following your business growth for a few years. You first came on my radar with this post:
http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...on-empire.html

I started a whole new business "division" from that post, and honestly think it will be a $50 million dollar brand eventually.

So here you are pushing your own boundaries three years later. It's a good lesson on how to keep asking yourself for more and better results.

Where you are at now reminds me of what Michael Hiles does--taking over the complete marketing function (more or less). I know of some high-profile copywriters that have a group that does something similar except they look for companies they can buy outright . Then they overhaul the marketing and profit big. Either way, it's a powerful business model that demands higher level thinking.

Heck, talk about high-level thinking: The guys at Warby Parker (eyeglasses) started a new company offering shaving supplies called Harry's. Early on they realized they couldn't find good enough razor blades for the quality they wanted to offer. They finally found a 93-year-old company in Germany that could make the blades they wanted.

So they went to their venture capital contacts and said, "Hey, we NEED this company to make the whole deal work. We want to buy them." Their VCs gave them the money. Yes, a startup firm less than a year old bought an old-world German corporation with 400+ employees for $100 million.
10-Month-Old Startup Buys 93-Year-Old Business for $100 Million

Mindset is important.

Anyhowz, thanks for the great posts.

AH.. the universal understood value of investment. Ensuring long term profit potential by decreasing overall overhead within your business model. There is a specific economic rule that applies to this specifically. I for the life of me can not think of the name of it though.

Understanding in business where an investment can be made, to further the long term of your business is essential in any companies success. Google is a GREAT modern example. Google is a MASS data collector. Each and every one of their products do 2 things; gather data and emit content. Be it their search engine, maps or YouTube. They ALL do the same things but in different forms.

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vndnbrgj

11 years ago

Savidge: A few things...
A lot of businesses have under-utilized assets. Meaning they have assets in their business that aren't performing at 100% capacity. Things like staff, office space, warehouse space, etc. As such, an increase in sales doesn't mean an increase in expenses. I am not saying this is the situation with every business, but it is the case in most businesses.
I do consulting and get paid a fee plus 10%-20% of increased gross profits. I don't know about Romeo, but he may be doing the same thing. The business takes the cost to provide the product or service, and the gross profit left is where my cut comes from.

So when it's all said an done... it's not as drastic as your example.
By making their existing assets perform at 100% and a percentage of gross profits....Doesn't leave them where they started, but in a much better position.

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misterme

11 years ago

Sorry but really can't read through all the voluminous tome "War of the (Ro)seos"...

...suffice it to say SEO schmeseo. For some reason I'm currently at the number one spot, first page, Google SERPS for a very highly competitive KW phrase ("city, occupation" such as "NYC plumber" might be type of KW) and NOTHING. Crickets. No inquiries coming in because of it. at. all.

Yet, I just took a regular person, no experience, coached her on a telephone script I wrote, pulled up a couple of websites to grab leads, and within one hour, she's brought in $1,075. And the day's not done.

Instead of the hoped for torrent of searchers calling in as far as I can see that's what brings in money even with just the smallest handful of leads. She had spoken to only nine people at that point.

But what I really want to say is, THAT'S why what MRomeo09's posted is so valuable: it's not about offering up SEO services and how that's structured per se, it's really about creating a machine that makes money.

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by misterme

Sorry but really can't read through all the voluminous tome "War of the (Ro)seos"...

...suffice it to say SEO schmeseo. For some reason I'm currently at the number one spot, first page, Google SERPS for a very highly competitive KW phrase ("city, occupation" such as "NYC plumber" might be type of KW) and NOTHING. Crickets. No inquiries coming in because of it. at. all.

Yet, I just took a regular person, no experience, coached her on a telephone script I wrote, pulled up a couple of websites to grab leads, and within one hour, she's brought in $1,075. And the day's not done.

Instead of the hoped for torrent of searchers calling in as far as I can see that's what brings in money even with just the smallest handful of leads. She had spoken to only nine people at that point.

But what I really want to say is, THAT'S why what MRomeo09's posted is so valuable: it's not about offering up SEO services and how that's structured per se, it's really about creating a machine that makes money.

At the very start of this post #1 Ewenmack says "I've seen some crazy numbers which seo are slaughtering Adwords equivalent costs."

The reality is Mromeo and I are creating the same machine. The issue at hand and what was the base of the discussion is how do I sell some guy paying $190,000 for traffic a $50,000 a year SEO plan that will do the exact same thing. The PAIN POINT as Ewen calls it in this instance IS HUGE.

The reason the PPC money machine is so dang easy to sell is simple. once you have it down like MRomeo does. He walks in and says hey $5000 today and sign here for 20% every month. If it doesn't work than then it cost you nothing but the $5000. Check in hand turn it on. BANG its right there.

An SEO guy walks in with his SEO machine and he cant turn it on tomorrow. ( well he could if he had the traffic sitting there already, but that's a different thing ) But in time he can offer the SAME results, at 1/2 the cost or less.

So from the clients perspective... tomorrow 3-6 months, tomorrow 3-6 months. Well dang I don't blame anyone for the decision, its easy!

I don't want to place myself in that up front sales confrontation, I cant win. However you throw me in there after a year. I have a jolly good chance.

Lets use your #1 listing as an example. You can have a guy come in and offer you a Sales funnel. so much down and x% a month. He build his site for your item/service... he pumps it with traffic, you get conversions. easy enough Like I said before SIMPLE.

The reality is you have a #1 listing.... you already HAVE the funnel. If someone like me had created that page there would be many things that could be done to make that page convert.

#1 The text of the page would have already been tested, it would be a known factor that it was affective. ( And yes I have stated I would use PPC to do this testing ) ***PRIOR to it being up and ranked!

#2 Any element that might need to be changed to convert better would be in the form of a image file or a script.

So the reasoning behind these 2 point.

Factor #1 the text: Once you have the text of a page ranking at #1 the SMALLEST of changes can affect your page listing on a search engine. It is by all means easier to make changes in text to increase page rank than it is to make changes on a page that already is ranked and keeping it there.

Factor #2 As MRomeo has stated and I will agree in many cases A/B testing needs to be done. The elements you know may have to be tested I would create these elements into images vs text. Examples of these elements would be: headlines, call to action statements, or even Testimonials. You can without effecting your page ranking make these changes.

Changing a file for file with the same name and alt tag will in no way affect your ranking. The same goes within your call to action script where you are capturing e-mail address' etc. you can make changes to the writing within the script, because search engine bots/spiders don't read that. So again you are making changes without affecting your page ranking.

So lets throw in another point.. "well I only have this one page with a #1 listing." I will tell you what, if you have one page that just kind a got there on its own, you have other pages that could be there as well. a little look at what is ranked where with some modifications and you can easily have 3 5 10 pages ranking very well. You would have a MACHINE.

It simply comes down to this, the PPC machine has a nice little package. it is literally buying the same keywords an SEO project would be targeting. It is literally producing the same results. The difference is the delivery in the sales pitch, and the speed delivery of results.

As much as the end resultof PPC and SEO are the same, its the front end that kills SEO. It is simply technical by nature. The client is literally paying on faith, vs instant results. That in itself is the hard sell. This is what has driven me to my current relationship with my local market. Confined by geography my clients speak to one another and refer my services to potential clients, I am building a base of trust in my machine, my brand.

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MRomeo09

11 years ago

Originally Posted by misterme

Sorry but really can't read through all the voluminous tome "War of the (Ro)seos"...

...suffice it to say SEO schmeseo. For some reason I'm currently at the number one spot, first page, Google SERPS for a very highly competitive KW phrase ("city, occupation" such as "NYC plumber" might be type of KW) and NOTHING. Crickets. No inquiries coming in because of it. at. all.

Yet, I just took a regular person, no experience, coached her on a telephone script I wrote, pulled up a couple of websites to grab leads, and within one hour, she's brought in $1,075. And the day's not done.

Instead of the hoped for torrent of searchers calling in as far as I can see that's what brings in money even with just the smallest handful of leads. She had spoken to only nine people at that point.

But what I really want to say is, THAT'S why what MRomeo09's posted is so valuable: it's not about offering up SEO services and how that's structured per se, it's really about creating a machine that makes money.

And in that is one of the dirty little secrets that no one talks about. In many industries the traffic you receive can be VERY small, even if you're in the #1 position. There just aren't that many people looking for a Cherry Hill House painter on a daily basis. I worked some very high profile clients in Chicago, and even then Unique Visitors never got over 100 a day. And even that is a little deceiving, as many times the traffic you're getting from SEO aren't targeted enough, and they are finding your site from searches that have nothing to do with what you're offering or searches that aren't in the buy phase. Or from areas that aren't in your service area. Look at the 5-20% traffic most of your sites get from outside of the US. That traffic is useless.

Systematization and monetization are what transforms what we do from a JOB into a business. The closer you can get to a system for your clients that just prints them money the happier you'll be and the more money they'll make, and the more money they'll happily pay you. The closer you get to a system that creates those results without your day to day involvement, the closer you are to a real business rather than a job you've created for yourself. Think McDonald's not the local handyman.

Thanks for your input. Weren't you on Michel Fortin's old copywriting board?

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MRomeo09

11 years ago

So I apologize for not specifying and making my self clear, basically wasting your time. Was not my intention by any means. I am not going to state any excuses...I was wrong and again I apologize.

No apologies necessary. It's a discussion forum. I had fun. Probably spent way too much time bothering(sometimes it's boring being "retired"), but it was fun none the less.

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We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

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kirbymarketingconcierge 11 years ago

worth repeating I think :

The closer you can get to a system for your clients that just prints them money the happier you'll be and the more money they'll make, and the more money they'll happily pay you. The closer you get to a system that creates those results without your day to day involvement, the closer you are to a real business rather than a job you've created for yourself. Think McDonald's not the local handyman.
Mromeo99

also to everybody else. good stuff

like a flyover, easy to follow, "macro" look at PPC, SEO today
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misterme

11 years ago

Originally Posted by MRomeo09

And in that is one of the dirty little secrets that no one talks about. In many industries the traffic you receive can be VERY small, even if you're in the #1 position. There just aren't that many people looking for a Cherry Hill House painter on a daily basis.

Thanks for your input. Weren't you on Michel Fortin's old copywriting board?

No, I wasn't.

But I'm not a house painter in Cherry Hill. Google KW says over 800 searches are made monthly for my "city business" KW, which I never put too much trust into.

Keep that flame going. Love to hear about how you've actually created more or less a turnkey business, not just a job forever going after where the next meal comes from, trading hours for dollars.

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unifiedac

11 years ago

This conversation was both extremely enlightening and disconcerting at the same time. Enlightening because there is hope for the industrious website owner (like myself) who wants to improve site design, traffic, conversions etc. and earn more income. Disconcerting because I can't afford effective PPC campaigns or SEO services and can't do it myself. I was saying, "This is awesome!" and, "This is so depressing" all at the same time.

Is there such a thing as pro bono SEO work?

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massiveray

11 years ago

Originally Posted by unifiedac

This conversation was both extremely enlightening and disconcerting at the same time. Enlightening because there is hope for the industrious website owner (like myself) who wants to improve site design, traffic, conversions etc. and earn more income. Disconcerting because I can't afford effective PPC campaigns or SEO services and can't do it myself. I was saying, "This is awesome!" and, "This is so depressing" all at the same time.

Is there such a thing as pro bono SEO work?

Not in my world, check out Eric Wards ultimate guide to link building, it's like $10 and it's literally a step by step beginners guide to SEO (real SEO, not all the bullshit you read about or buy in WSO round here), I have all of my link builders read it no matter how experienced they are.

Them it's simply a case of trading your time for your websites future dollars, while still learning to do this properly.

If you do SEO properly (from a traffic driving perspective) then cash flow should start as soon as you begin your outreach.

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