SEO, SEO, Backlinks... Six Figures?? not!

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Out of everyone I know in this business who makes a lot of money, only a couple focus on SEO, backlinks, etc. as their primary way to get traffic and earn six figures or more. I can count on one hand the six figure earners from SEO, backlinks, etc.

Maybe I just dont know those people.

I do know a lot of people in this business though.

But, maybe I know all the *others*.

However, most of the people I come into contact with who are NOT making money, well, most of them DO focus on SEO, backlinks, etc. It's interesting. I'm not saying SEO, backlinks, etc does not work. Of course it works.

But, when 97% of the people I know make their money with paid traffic and affiliates... and only 3% earn their money from SEO and backlinks... I cant help (for the sake of being blunt) scratch my head.

THEN, when 97% of the people I come across who are NOT making money focus on those methods for traffic... I scratch my head again.

I know, I know, there will be the heard of folks claim they make their big bucks with SEO, back-links, etc on here... but I dont know them. Maybe they are too busy doing SEO stuff to build relationships so I dont get to know any of them.

Or, maybe... just maybe... since I've had countless students *switch* from SEO to other forms of traffic... and then start earning money... maybe, just maybe... that SEO stuff is not the answer.

hmm

Let the flame begin

~Eric
#search engine optimization #backlinks #figures #seo
  • I know someone that makes at least 6 figures. Most large SEO firms have power in numbers and their owners do sometimes make good money. I don't think there are too many small operations in SEO that big money unless they are reselling services.

  • Eric!!! OMG!!!! Quit cutting thru the bull****!!!

    They want to believe that SEO is the only way!!!

    They need to believe that it is, because it is the only thing most can do without spending money.

    LOL

    Yep, SEO brings me some free money, but long term, the money is the list... And I have made the most of my money tapping into other peoples' lists.
    • [1] reply
    • hehe

      I knew I'd catch that big fish on my line.

      lol

      hahaha

      I'm cool

      SEO, etc is great. It works, just that most people cannot make it work (well enough)... that's all. If I had my way, everyone would do it as G R A V Y... not as the primary way to depend on for paying da house and stuff.
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  • Wow! As in "WOW" Nice story you've got there dvduval. This guy just hit on a jackpot. And he worked hard for it. Great!
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks. Yes, it was an amazing experience for me that I met this person when he was in a village making less than $200/month, and then he flew in and saw me in Palo Alto just a few years later with hundreds of employees. It was surreal.
  • Paid traffic and your list is where all your money is lies. BUT before you get to all that, as a newbie, you should mainly learn how to convert that SEO and FREE traffic that you're getting before moving onto Paid traffic.

    Because face it, you can get all the paid traffic to your site that your server can handle but if you haven't learned how to convert that traffic then your business is out an EXTREMELY large amount of money and will probably fail VERY quickly.
    • [2] replies
    • ALL RIGHT!

      A playa'

      Ok, ok... wait I'm a little too excited. was going to go to sleep... but you woke me up. Alright, so... newbies should first go with SEO?? then after they dial in their conversions... then go to paid traffic??

      hehe

      So, a newbie spends what?? Six months on SEO and article marketing... to finally realize they cant convert? Then, another six months making sure it converts... then go to paid traffic?? Instead of finding out that their stuff dont convert in.... 15 minutes!! with paid traffic??

      Ok, ok... spend $20 and see if it converts with paid traffic... OR... OR... OR... spend six months with free traffic SEO to find out... OH NO, I wasted six months!!

      Alright, I'm dizzy sleepy.

      Late!

      ~Smokin Hot Sexy
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    • Tee hee hee...

      Don't you realize that getting that free traffic from Google can often be very expensive?

      Would you rather test your sales copy on $100 or $300 of Google Adword traffic, OR $4,000 "free" search engine traffic?

      When I last ran my SEO firm, I insisted that clients had experience with PPC before coming to me.

      Otherwise, I would risk doing them a great disservice by letting them spend $5,000 per month with me on keywords that could not convert traffic to sales!!

      Let me tell you a story...

      I have always used Article Marketing to ensure my SEO success...

      There was one keyword that I thought would be extremely profitable for me to pursue.

      I spent several months of my time chasing that one keyword... It had to be a good one -- my competitors were spending $2 per click for that traffic!!

      After about 4 months of heavy link building and more than two dozen high-quality syndicated articles, I grabbed #1 for the singular and plural of the keyword.

      Now, I did not pay any money to get that #1 spot in Google.

      I only spent my time, and you are thinking that your time is FREE, right?

      I spent probably 100 man-hours to get that number one ranking in Google for the singular and plural of the target keyword.

      How much is your time really worth to you?

      If you are a minimum wage earner, then that 100 hours is about $800. At my avg hourly earning at that time, it was closer to $4000 invested in that one keyword phrase.

      But I got #1 in Google, and I did not have to pay $2 per click to get that traffic.

      I just checked the Google External Keyword Tool. People are currently paying $1.24 for the singular and $1.48 for the plural.

      So it would seem that this is still a profitable keyword?

      In the #1 spot, I only got 42 clicks per month, with an average of a 6% closing ratio, netting me 2-2.5 sales per month. And the average gross sale was $400 with a profit margin of 15%.

      How good is your math?

      So I earned about $1,000 per month gross, with a profit margin of $150...



      In the end, I would have had to continue offering that service for 27 months (2 yrs and 3 months), just to break even!!


      Anyone who claims that FREE traffic is cheaper than PAID traffic is not doing their math right...
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  • Hi Eric,

    Between the OP and post #8 you made the subtle switch between statistics based upon 'everyone I know' to -

    Where did the 'people I know' bit get lost along the way?

    Perhaps the SEO people don't need to network or be prominent on forums, whereas those in the IM syndicate do, because that's how their system works?

    Perhaps the way it works for SEO people is that they keep very quiet, perhaps network quietly between themselves and don't sell their secrets?

    Perhaps they avoid talking to people who are in the business of selling SEO secrets and thereby ruining them?
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  • It would make perfect sense that very big earners don't use SEO. Instead they leverage other people who have done SEO by getting ad spots on their sites etc.

    However in the beginning, SEO is an effective way of getting started cheaply.

    I imagine big earners don't design their own graphics, code HTML themselves, or do their own bookkeeping.

    However running the shop yourself and keeping a tight budget is essential for many starting out, so SEO is a great way to get started.

    My analogy is SEO is like a wheelbarrow: Richard Branson started off his career selling items from a wheelbarrow. Now I don't know many multi-millionaires that use a wheelbarrow to get their sales, but it doesn't mean it's a bad idea, and it doesn't mean it can't be a great stepping stone to bigger success.
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    • Of course, that's not to say SEO cannot be leveraged effectively to make big money. One way you could do it is by taking on many offline clients and outsourcing all the grunt work (though again, we come back to the issue of money, which will definitely be needed here).

      You could also outsource the creation and SEO of "money" sites on a massive scale, so that could be tremendously profitable too. The issue here is that many of the SEO advocates here think in DIY terms, and while SEO could be leveraged to make tremendous profits you have to know how to leverage it effectively. Doing all the work yourself is a recipe for burn out and mediocre results, in the majority of cases.
  • Eric,

    You don't know my friend. He makes about $100k/month only from his sites. It's 100% information-type of websites, monetized with ads from AdSense and other networks.

    His formula? Find an expert on some topic by reading print and magazines, call that person, offer them a 50/50 deal. The expert writes the content, my friend sets up the website (10 minutes) and does the SEO.

    He keeps telling me... "You would be amazed if you knew how much these experts appreciate my business model, I basically give them an additional source of income from doing what they already love to do: write quality content."

    And he will never write an ebook about that... he is making enough money already. From SEO.

    I guess you're down to 96.5% now... lolz
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    • Shhhh! You're only supposed to say stuff like this in the war room!
    • Do you know how many sites he had to put up to reach that figure though? And surely you don't think he does all the SEO work himself, without some major outsourcing occurring for the backlinks?
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    • Everything has a price and FREE is designed to fool you into taking the first step and then string you along until hope is your best friend. Free is a long roller coaster ride and if you like the ride, don't be afraid to get on
      Have fun dodging bullets and pissing off the free-leaders when you don't perform according to the freemium plan they signed you up for.

      You're not making any money but you spend so much time on the free-coaster, you never noticed your wife left until you couldn't find the dog. But it all works out for the best when you realize you never would have met your 2nd wife if you weren't having so much fun doing what you wanted.

      AND that's the whole point.       The reason that guy makes money is because he's smart enough to find/hire PE0PLE and then "give them an additional source of income from doing what they already love to do" and it doesn't matter WHAT people do - it only matters WHY they do it.

      If SEO is the reason you get up every morning, then SEO makes you money because money is always a result not a reason.

      FREE Websites with Reseller Hosting for as long as it takes you to get some money coming in - ZERO - not a single penny - unless you want to buy your own domain, but you don't have to. I'll GIVE you one - just ask.

      FREE Webstore with mainstream office and computer products drop shipped with seriously GREAT customer service and 30-day credit terms if you qualify.

      LIST BUILDING - go to http://www.ez-1.net/mako and promote the idea of helping people. but that's where I could use some help - I've only emailed that list (no idea how many are on it now) once this year. NOT GOOD. If you want more proof that nobody is perfect, I can do that but it's no fun so I won't!!

      5,000-7,000 Verified Backlinks starting at only $37 - Has the price of all those fancy back links gone way down in the last month or so? Is it my imagination or has there been an upheaval of back link fire sales with abnormally low prices?

      The answer to that hot topic is perfect for this new blog I just put here:       www.gurubull****.com The last four digits won't show up. Hint: 4 letter word after the word BULLs--t is that enough hinting? Bring your favorite niche - whatever you love to do - and you can have a keyword rich domain with matching website email and stuff....all for 1-figure, and that's it. Need Cpanel hosting to go with that? Just ask and don't be scared. Life is too short to play it safe - Les Brown says: You can't get out of life alive...so quit trying to.
  • The problem with this whole thread, if we are talking about newbies, you have to put yourself in a newbies situation.

    What do you do if you have...

    No website

    No traffic

    No list

    No product

    No name value

    A newbie has to start somewhere and a lot of opportunities aren't an option especially if they don't have a lot of money to gamble or take a risk with. Mama didn't leave us all a trust fund.

    You want a newbie to go out an buy targeted traffic? They may as well flush that money down the toilet.

    Not everybody can sit down and write an ebook or create a product. It doesn't matter anyway, they have no list and no traffic so it's not going to do them any good.

    SEO is affordable for most, just takes time and effort. If they are motivated they are busy reading and learning while they slave away with forum profiles and blog commenting.

    Most SEO driven sites may never amount to anything more than beer money but beer money is better than no money. Instead of a half rack they can invest that money into adsense, hire a writer, buy fiverr gigs, start outsourcing or pick up some PLR to resell. And during this time their small site should be growing along with their list.

    It all starts somewhere.

    I'm sure we all have our own newbie stories and I'm also pretty sure nobody handed any of us a million member list to get up n' running with.
    • [3] replies
    • I think, that's the main problem here.

      Why does everyone think that free traffic can only come from SEO? It's an endless chain of cycle... the newbie will get sick and tired of building links manually and look into automated programs/softwares like article submission software/scrapebox/senuke/UAW/AMA and the like.... and you are telling me they're free?

      I am sure 99% of people who start out IM will invest in at least a paid software or service to help them with their backlinking efforts.. which makes SEO not really that free as one would think after all...

      Check out Splork's post,
      Screw Your Backlinking Strategy
      there are many other ways to get free traffic other than SEO if one thinks hard enough... but of course, it takes a lot more work and effort, which is what people don't want you to know.
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    • I wasn't born with a trust fund either. I had to fight and scrape to get where I am today.

      I also did not have the benefit of a place like this to teach me the pros and cons, benefits and pitfalls of the road I was about to take.

      When I started online trying to make money, there was no Google, Paypal, Ebay, Warrior Forum, Ezine Articles or any of the other things we all take for granted today.

      The real problem most people have now and going forward with building an online business is that they have been convinced by others that SEO is the best, most profitable way forward.

      But SEO is only the best, most profitable way forward, if people give no value to their own time.

      As you said:


      Another thing most fail to comprehend is that SEO is developed through an assortment of "link building" methods.

      Link building utilizes any of nearly 3 dozen other traffic strategies, including: article marketing, forum marketing, social media marketing, link directories, blog commenting, blogging, etc., etc.

      Most people are so narrowly focused on the end goal of SEO that they will forget to do those link building tasks in a more effective way.

      * For example, most people chasing SEO will post in forums with a bunch of "me too" posts, which causes them to miss out on the real potential value of forum marketing.

      I cut my teeth on forum marketing.

      * For example, most people chasing SEO will do article marketing with a bunch of spun articles that offer no real value to the external community, just so that they can get those links for SEO. Once again, this kind of thinking causes people to overlook the front end potential value of good article marketing practices backed by good value content.

      After doing forum marketing profitably for some time, article marketing was the next logical step forward. When I started doing article marketing, the only option was to create valuable content that others wanted to publish. It would be another couple of years before article marketing would begin to benefit SEO.

      More than a decade later, I still do article marketing the way I did it in the beginning, offering value to publishers and their audiences. While article marketing can improve my SEO, SEO is the gravy down the road. But in the meantime, I consider an article a failure if it fails to find a publisher and/or to generate direct sales within a couple of weeks of having written it.

      I want my article marketing to pay for itself now, and later. But if it doesn't make money now, I consider it a complete waste of energy.

      There are more effective, less time consuming methods of simply building links.

      If you want to build links, do those other things.

      If you want to generate sales now, focus on giving publishers and their audiences valuable content in your article marketing. I spent four hours on my last article in the creation and distribution phase. I made $1200 direct product sales for the effort. So the process returned to me $300 per hour, and articles will have a lifespan of years in which they can continue generating real dollars for my business.

      My point is that if you are going to do those things that are necessary to create SEO value, focus on making money on the front end as well.

      Don't fall for the delusional idea that SEO is the only thing that matters. SEO may never pay dividends, and you really could go bust waiting for Google to deliver the traffic to your website.

      So focus on those things that can make you money on the front end, and count your blessings if and when the SEO value of your link building begins to pay off for you.

      In my recent traffic report (shown in my signature), I document 35 traffic methods. 28 of them can be done for free. 33 of them can be outsourced. And I have used 31 of them in my own business.

      Many of them can help with your SEO, but once again, if you are not using those traffic strategies to their full benefit on the front end, you may not be around to count your blessings when Google starts to value your website enough to rank it well.
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    • I agree with this, SEO allowed me to learn about stuff for free, and you should only pay when you are 100% or at least 90% comfortable with what you're doing, you know what you need to pay for, and what you can do yourself. Besides, I find SEO challenging and fun at the same time, and I'd probably waste my time watching football or reading about useless stuff anyways, so I don't consider my time to be as valuable as others, I have an everyday job in which I wait for customers to come, so in the time that customers are not in the shop, I just SEO away!
  • Banned
    I don't know anyone who voted for Obama, and yet, he's president. Go figure.
  • Perhaps it is based on some incorrect assumptions. Just guessing but...

    1. "If I do SEO, all my efforts will get me free traffic forever by locking in that sweet position on the first page of Google"

    and...

    2. "Paid traffic is like an on/off switch. If I stop paying, I will go out of business"

    Conclusion... SEO is never forever. Paid traffic is supposed to convert and bring money to the table, which is to be reinvested in more paid traffic.

    Just my two cents...
  • This is going to sound strange from an SEO guy but I completely agree with you Eric...

    I've been in SEO for 10 years and made very good money with it, but after doing product creation for the last few and learning the strategies from guys like...

    Jason Fladlien
    Lee McIntyre
    Andre Chaperon
    Brent Hall

    ...I can see how tapping into other people's assets...

    Lists
    JV/Affiliates

    ...is a much quicker route to six figures as you say :-)

    You can't beat testing your sales page instantly with PPC, improving your conversion and sales funnel to squeeze the maximum EPC, then contacting JV's...
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  • SEO probably does have it's most limited application selling stuff to other IM'ers. I wouldn't waste my time trying to build a Clickbank product review sites and SEO it. However, IM product buyers are only a tiny portion of the overall online marketplace.

    Of course you don't know them. Most of them stay very quiet to protect their business. They generally don't sell SEO services or ebooks on SEO or work in the IM niche so they don't have a need to build relationships with other IM'ers. I know I should keep a lower profile myself but, like my namesake in my avatar, sometimes I have a big mouth.
  • Yes PPC is the best way to go. Once you understand it, master it, you make money. But a daunting task for the 97% without the time and resources to do so. So using SEO they hope for lightning.
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • I know only one Internet Marketing Millionaire (which is probably one more than most ) and he does PPC, SEO, Media Buys, Webshops and Product Creation.

    He'll usually begin by testing a new campaign with PPC. If it shows promise, then he'll tweak and test to see if it's profitable. If it is profitable then he launches some kind of SEO campaign as well.

    I'd love to get started making money with PPC, but I can't help but feel that I'm up against an army of people with huge budgets and therefore lower click prices. At least in SEO, I feel like I am not that far behind the best.

    Anyway, when is your WSO coming out, I'll consider buying it
    • [1] reply
    • You'll struggle to make good consistent income from PPC selling a single product or for a single affiliate commission... and this is what most people do when they approach PPC and that's why they give up...

      The trick is to sell your own products and have a higher EPC than your competitors so that it's more profitable for you than your competition...

      The higher EPC you have, the more you can pay per click and the more advertising opportunities open up for you...

      How you get a higher EPC is through multiple offers, upsells, cross sells, downsells, continuity sales...

      ...and a whole heap of testing and tracking conversion

      You only need one slick high EPC sales funnel and you've got a lucrative income on your hands, not to mention affiliates will bite your hand off to promote your products...
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  • I don't get what the arguments about.

    SEO is just another way to get traffic to whatever you are offering.

    Are you saying that the people you know who get seo traffic don't make money?

    Or don't make a lot of money?

    If so I wonder what they are doing wrong.

    I just use seo to build up a list and then jv with other people, seems to work fine for making money.

    I dunno maybe SEO isn't for everyone, i'm certainly not making millions or anything so maybe i'm the wrong guy to comment on this

    But I will say, I don't get that SEO is supposed to be difficult, so far i'm finding it pretty easy in fact...

    I think the number one thing with SEO is you have to have patience, which a lot of people don't really have.

    Takes months to see that traffic

    Edit: Wanted to respond to the post above mine too.

    Yes! Ugh, I find out all about all the great things about product creation and PPC and all sorts of fun stuff.

    Then adwords banned me (still don't know why, they just say that my business plan isn't compatible wit theirs)

    But that's great advise, really, I made really good money before I got banned once I forgot affiliate ppc and focused on my product.
  • I kinda chuckle at this thread a bit because I do in fact make my income from seo alone. Some of the matter of fact statements made within this thread definitely make me chuckle. And honestly, my first impression of this thread was simply it was about seo bashing and opinions that "paid traffic" is better and easier than "free traffic". OK, so what... You like paid vs. free better, good for you. There are plenty of people making good money from seo. Can you make it faster, can you make more, doesn't matter. people do what works for them and makes them happy. Then there are the rest who are still learning, struggling, and driving on and will some day do the same whether with ppc or seo...

    That being said, I would agree with you to a degree =p Although I have chosen free traffic to make my income, I know ppc is quicker and can be quite lucrative.

    However, it's only easier when you know what you're doing and when in fact you're making more money than your spending. Remember, that a LOT of beginners are getting into it because they don't have any spare money.

    As I started out, I did look into ppc and got burned. I didn't know what i was doing and I was spending way too much money on buying courses from people who I found out didn't really know what they were doing either. Big surprise right?

    Unfortunately, I probably didn't spend enough time with it because I didn't get lucky enough to find the information and learn the knowledge I needed to in fact be successful with paid traffic.

    What I did find easy was seo/free traffic. I knew what was needed to rank and I had no problems making sites that converted, both through affiliate marketing and adsense.

    Make no mistake, I paid a ton of money learning to do that as well, but in the end that paid off and I qucikly made all the money I invested back and then some. So now, free traffic has simply been what I do.

    I would definitely like to get into ppc, but I've got comfortable and am still gun shy. And simply doing what works for me. I haven't found the need at this stage to go back to paid traffic. I drove one of my affiliate managers crazy because he would always say you need to get into ppc. I was doing extremely well with particular campaigns and he said my earnigs would skyrocket with ppc. My answer was always ya I know...

    Anyway, thats my two cents. Threads like this kinda bother me. You all know as well as I do, that the large percentage of beginners fail. Doesn't matter what it is, ppc, seo, whatever... What bothers me about threads like this are in regards to the beginners who read them. With the matter of fact statements, suggestive statements about the crazy amounts of money being made, how easy it is, and mysterious statements with no hint of detail, beginners get very easily distracted and doubt their current efforts. It makes their heads spin even more and contributes to their failure in the end.

    Don't get me wrong, I agree in general with the whole paid vs. free issue. However, instead of patting each other on the back and drinking each other's kool aid because you as a matter of fact are the select few who have the golden nugget of marketing, how about including some sources, guides, courses, you would recommend to those NOT in the know so they can learn and avoid most of the bs out here. I would even check out your suggestions because I know the golden egg is there and ppc is still on my to learn list =p
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    • And I chuckle at your reply, because this thread is not about PAID TRAFFIC VS FREE TRAFFIC VIA SEO, but rather about there are a lot more other ways to get free traffic other than SEO and how most newcomers get stuck in the driving traffic to their website phase.. why? because they are stuck with SEO... throwing darts against a wall where they dont even know where it is and hoping that they stick!

      Sure, SEO is great and cool, and definitely the best and the passive one for the long term... but it certainly isn't FREE to get there

      • [1] reply
  • Ha - i here ya ... all from an army of well oiled affiliate marketers with LISTs and a never ending incestuous funnel of marketing to marketers ...

    Of course there's zero learning curve to proper affiliate relationship building, list building, and PPC ... it's all so readily apparent on how to be successful with all those. There's no investment in education or costs there right?

    Its all fine and good to talk about list building and jv mailings and sorts of wonderful "inside the warrior forum and IM world" incest laden eBooks and training courses for marketers FROm marketers ... but what does Johny LunchBox with an offline brick n mortar do?

    They call it advertising expense ...
  • Oh Ya? And I chuckle at you chuckling at my reply... =p

    Read...

    This thread is plenty heavy in elements of paid traffic vs. "free traffic", not sure how that can't be seen, but people interpret things differently. But I agree, obviously there are more ways besides seo. Don't think we have any disconnect here.

    And obviously "free" traffic isn't free. We all know what we mean in I.M. when we say "free" which is why often times you will see the word in quotes. Maybe we need to say organic so we avoid technicalities or say cheaper than other avenues I dunno =p. Time is money and nothing is truly free in our realm, you start paying for your IM education when you jump in...
  • Yes, that's right folks.

    There is NO MONEY in SEO traffic.

    Now go leave the SERPS alone and I'll uh...make very little money at it while you guys...get all the money in PPC.....

  • I have found paid traffic to be much better. For one thing, the ads are placed in a way that sort of separates them from all the "muck" in the regular search engine results

    Problem is, the decision has been taken out of my hands. I lost my 150k a year biz to the dreaded Google Slap, and every effort to get back on has been fruitless. So I am basically forced to do SEO, even though I hate it
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    SEO, SEO, Backlinks... Six Figures?? not!

    Out of everyone I know in this business who makes a lot of money, only a couple focus on SEO, backlinks, etc. as their primary way to get traffic and earn six figures or more. I can count on one hand the six figure earners from SEO, backlinks, etc. Maybe I just dont know those people.