Time to gain traffic

7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

Hello all,

Last January, I bought a new domain name and started developing an e-commerce site on wordpress/ woo. We put a place holder up and the site took until late November to launch. I hired a company that started in January to set up an inbound/ social campaign and produce content. We also set up a few magnets to get opt ins. I found a company on the Moz recommended list that performed an audit on the site for technical issues to fix and perform link building and CRO. They are also managing my PPC.

All in, I paid the Inbound and SEO/PPC company $80k plus ad spend for the 1st 6 months of this year. I'm really wondering why my site is doing so poorly. The site is still only getting about 40 organic searches a month and less than 10 social. We are producing content and adding links all the time. When should I expect to see some activity other than paid traffic?

Without seeing the site, there isn't much advice anyone can give you.

At that kind of spend though, you should be seeing more than 1-2 organic visitors per day, even in really tough niches.

My guess is that if they were Moz recommended, they are one of those "build great content and you will magically rank" SEOs.

Hopefully, they are at least doing well on the PPC side.

Thanks
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longrobnc

7 years ago

Mike,

I hired a company that does the social and content creation. I hired someone else to do link building and CRO. The audit the Moz recommended company completed uncovered some things which I had to pay someone a few grand to fix, which is aside from the other fees.

I just checked my analytic account, and 41 organic visitors are all I've gotten in 30 days.

I don't really want to post the Url on the open forum until my agreement is up very shortly. I was just really curious if it just took a hell of a lot of time to rank a new site.

As far as their PPC prowess. I ran my own account for 7 years and my results were actually better. I assumed that a professional could kick my ass. These professionals can't, sadly.

Thank you very much for responding.

Thanks
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Mike Anthony

7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

As far as their PPC prowess. I ran my own account for 7 years and my results were actually better. I assumed that a professional could kick my ass. These professionals can't, sadly.

If you can break the numbers apart - whats purely spent on organic might be able to give recommendations as to alternative organic strategies. Sounds like they sucketh though

Thanks
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longrobnc 7 years ago

I paid $15k for 6 months for social and content. I paid $54k for the audit, link building and CRO for 6 months along with them managing my PPC (Which I'm better at). I then paid $5500 to have the audit items fixed. I wrote the content on the site, and paid $1600 to have a writer punch it up a bit.

Social spend has only been about $400-500 a month plus items we gave away. Just guessing, around $3k a month on Adwords. I would not even begin to call any of this profitable. I'm getting about 10 sales ready leads for a product that averages $500 and has about a 20% profit margin. Some jobs can be $1200 or so and I make $250.
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MikeFriedman

7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

Mike,

I hired a company that does the social and content creation. I hired someone else to do link building and CRO. The audit the Moz recommended company completed uncovered some things which I had to pay someone a few grand to fix, which is aside from the other fees.

I just checked my analytic account, and 41 organic visitors are all I've gotten in 30 days.

I don't really want to post the Url on the open forum until my agreement is up very shortly. I was just really curious if it just took a hell of a lot of time to rank a new site.

As far as their PPC prowess. I ran my own account for 7 years and my results were actually better. I assumed that a professional could kick my ass. These professionals can't, sadly.

Thank you very much for responding.

Sorry. I missed that part. So the Moz recommended company just did an audit. Got it.

It sounds like whoever is handling the link building is doing a poor job. What kind of links are they building? Do they give you any sort of updates on it?

For PPC... if you were running the account for 7 years, a competent PPC manager should be able to do well running the campaign. You have 7 years of data for them to pull from. That's a goldmine and makes the job of a PPC manager so much easier.

Thanks
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longrobnc

7 years ago

Mike,

The company that did the audit is doing the link building. Honestly, they are super transparent. The issue with the links are that these are links that I can easily find and get myself. Giving me a list of links to go buy just seems like a bad deal for this type of money they charge in fees. It may just be me being a dick, but sending me to BOTW to buy a $299 link as your link building strategy, or buying some citations at Whitespark. I can do that crap myself.

Thanks
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MikeFriedman

7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

Mike,

The company that did the audit is doing the link building. Honestly, they are super transparent. The issue with the links are that these are links that I can easily find and get myself. Giving me a list of links to go buy just seems like a bad deal for this type of money they charge in fees. It may just be me being a dick, but sending me to BOTW to buy a $299 link as your link building strategy, or buying some citations at Whitespark. I can do that crap myself.

I like the BOTW, but they sent you there and had you buy the listing? As much as it sounds like you are paying them, they should have bought the listing.

I'm a fan of directories, but for what you are paying there should be a lot better links than just those.

Do you only serve a local market? Otherwise, citations are a waste of time.

What kind of business is it you do?

Thanks
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longrobnc 7 years ago

It's garage door e-commerce. It is going to be omni-channel. I service capabilities in 72 major cities, but I only have a physical location in 1 city today. We are opening 2 more cities in the next 2 months.

Yes, they sent me and I paid for the link separate from their fees. They actually sent me to buy 3 links.
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- Mike Anthony 7 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by longrobnc
  
  Yes, they sent me and I paid for the link separate from their fees. They actually sent me to buy 3 links.
  
  Thats not link building - thats consultancy. telling you about a list of directories such as Best of the Web is a 15 minute job. Now in your niche - outreach and content marketing to industry specific websites , bloggers and home and building related niche influencers (magazine, news, how to etc) would be link building.
  
  One of the chief benefits of white hat link building is links with traffic (because they are real sites people read) which you are obviously not getting.
  
  are you able to say what the unique selling point of your garage doors are, or if you sell several models, whats the USP of buying from you?
  
  Thanks
  
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  longrobnc 7 years ago
  
  Mike,
  
  In my niche, prices are rarely published. I have a great product and the prices are super. The site has a price configurator that shows you the product as you build the door in all of the colors and window options available. It shows the price upgrades. You can even build packages that include openers.
  
  The site allows the client to have the doors professionally installed or we will deliver. Obviously, the clients don't love the concept. I may swap the site to more lead gen, but it's hard to know what to do when I get no real traffic.
  
  Thanks
  
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BestSEOCompanyinIndia Banned 7 years ago

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- longrobnc 7 years ago
  
  Opensite Explorer says 1/1.
  Arefs says UR/9, DR/27.
  
  I just checked, and I don't see that it's set up in webmaster tools for me to check for link count. I have a tool that says 81 and it calls 79 valid. I'm no SEO, so I have no way for me to validate some of these things.
  
  Thanks
  
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Mike Anthony

7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

The site is still only getting about 40 organic searches a month and less than 10 social. We are producing content and adding links all the time. When should I expect to see some activity other than paid traffic?

If I am reading that right thats only organic and social without the ad buys. what are they giving you in traffic and actual customers for the ad money? are you profitable with those numbers included

Hard to evaluate the overall job without all the traffic and conversion numbers.

Thanks
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longrobnc

7 years ago

Mike,

I have spent roughly $20k in ad spend..............................I've made a single $1200 sale through the site which actually came from a Craigslist Ad. We have produced some super expensive sales ready leads that don't fit my company model. I'm currently undergoing another 5 figure development upgrade to improve the user experience, but with very little traffic it's hard for this to keep making sense. I understand that this is scarce info, but it's all I have for an open forum. Thanks!!!!

Thanks
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yukon

Banned 7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

Mike,

I have spent roughly $20k in ad spend..............................I've made a single $1200 sale through the site which actually came from a Craigslist Ad. We have produced some super expensive sales ready leads that don't fit my company model. I'm currently undergoing another 5 figure development upgrade to improve the user experience, but with very little traffic it's hard for this to keep making sense. I understand that this is scarce info, but it's all I have for an open forum. Thanks!!!!

Common sense would be, do what's making money. Assuming you've actually spent $20k - $80k on nothing useful vs a single $1,200 Craigslist sale.

You're hypothetically in the hole a few grand, digging deeper is absurd.

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Mike Anthony

7 years ago

Originally Posted by longrobnc

Mike,

I have spent roughly $20k in ad spend..............................I've made a single $1200 sale through the site which actually came from a Craigslist Ad.

For the love of all that is sensible why do you continue???? Heres why I think. You are shopping in the corporate market for providers where if they can look at webmaster tools its $500 just to look. Its like paying $50 for one tablet of Tylenol in a hospital or a normal key costing a thousand dollar because its for the military. Skip Moz and the top business search engine blogs. Here at WF the services are undervalued but thats the other extreme - total over value. Look in the middle. commit to no one for more than 90 days and let them earn it by seeing what they do with one keyword term at a less than full high price.

but it's all I have for an open forum.

Totally understand

I'm currently undergoing another 5 figure development upgrade to improve the user experience

hit the brakes on that if you can and immediately. Is your site now a complete dog? Thats the ONLY way doing UI upgrade is justified on a site with no traffic. As long as its a decent site then a UI upgrade should be done with TESTING against actual users. If you have none theres nothing to test against and you are once again just buying that high priced professionals instantly and automatically are going to result in huge improvement.

Thanks
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longrobnc 7 years ago

The upgrades are probably a few weeks away from being finished. It was for complimentary products that are lower ticket. I have slowed down on the paid traffic because you hit the nail on the head , I think the 1st build was a good idea in my head and a dog in practice. I checked the email I set up for those guys and they are in fact doing some outreach. However, they have only alerted me of 1 link they garnered from that outreach. I have paid them in full, so I'm apprehensive to fire them. That was the intent of my original question. Does traffic take time, and will I eventually see this all start to work.
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andre james

7 years ago

My heart goes out to you as I have been in a similar situation and would have continued to be so had I not requested a breakdown of where all my budget was going. At the time I struggled to make time and outsourced the work and foolishly thought I'd hired a team of 'Terminator SEO's' but unfortunately they turned out to be anything but...

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jamie3000

7 years ago

That amount of organics sounds like something is seriously wrong. Is your tracking working 100%?

Thanks
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longrobnc 7 years ago

Hi Jamie,

I can see my paid and direct traffic quite clearly. It's just that the organic isn't moving.

Thanks!
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xeniux

7 years ago

I hope you dont put all your eggs in 1 basket.

If you want to see real result, you need to get organic traffic through SEO (onpage/offpage) and optimizing the keywords + speed of your website.

You might need a SEO expert to optimize easy (long tail) keywords rather than difficult keywords, otherwise you would need years and cost you an arm and a leg in order to get into Search Engines top result.

If you optimize the SEO you wont need any PPC.

Another good method which you could put into your consideration is advertise in Affiliate Marketing like peerfly, shareasale, etc, CPA method is better for ecommerce business model.

Best,

Xen

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Enterprise SEO Services | Social Media Specialist | On Page SEO Services

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longrobnc 7 years ago

No, this was a business idea that I wanted to try. This was an investment and not counted on for my sole income.
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adgonlinesolution

7 years ago

just try to post on classified about your products and also share the products in product listing site. If you are selling products. You can do social promotion on daily basis.

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Vex Vane

7 years ago

In 6 MONTHS any decent SEO agency would have pointed out reason WHY you are performing so badly.

Transparent or not, if they are just taking money and not telling you what to fix ASAP, find another agency.

Just 40 visits a month is nothing. I literally get more on under construction sites with no real content just from curious onlookers who see single post mentioning coming soon.

If after six months you cant fine tune your ads to be profitable, just STOP and do something else. Buy radio commercials, or regular print ads in local paper, or flyers, or just post for free on Craigslist and Kijiji, or whatever is suitable here.

From what has been said here you are just burning money and continuing to do so without reassessing situation and putting hold on your spending is something you'll just regret.

Thanks
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longrobnc 7 years ago

Well, they do point out really dumb shi!t like, "You should use this font and not that font." I use an image of my print ads on my specials page because it looks good and you really can't code to get this presentation. In my opinion, these petty little issues don't keep my site from ranking and getting traffic. I use them on the specials pages of my other sites and those sites get traffic and convert really well. Everyone that does not deliver always has a crap excuse of why it's not their fault.
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- Vex Vane 7 years ago
  
  Main reason why a site is not ranking as well as it could is content and phrasing. Fonts do not matter to bots. They can blame fonts for bounce rate, not for ranking.
  
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davidricherd

7 years ago

Social Media Marketing is best practice if you really want to increase your site/blog traffic in less time period.

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Digital Marketing & SEO

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MikeFriedman 7 years ago

Originally Posted by davidricherd

Social Media Marketing is best practice if you really want to increase your site/blog traffic in less time period.

Nobody is looking for this type of business on Facebook or Twitter.
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longrobnc 7 years ago

Social has been the lowest ROI of any marketing I've ever taken part in in over a decade.
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