Dave Miller

[YouGotMyMoney]

"even when G rolls back this Filter"

That seems to be a big topic of discussion. But how much (if any) will they?

While nothing is for certain of course, G will have to eventually roll this back. Just like they did a couple weeks ago, when the whole Neg SEO talk spiked.

There are simply too many high-quality sites that have lost traffic, it may be possible they are simply teaching us a lesson, before putting things right.

 

[Pangaea]

Pangea was right about getting traffic sources other than Google organic results. This isn't even about a gut reaction to the recent algo changes, even when G rolls back this Filter, it's smart to diversify.

So the options for online marketing seem to be:

1. PPC. Google/Bing. Depending on if your an affiliate or agent will help you figure out where your CPC needs to be.

The consesus seems to be that Facebook ads dont work for most people. Has anyone had success with ins ads on other social sites? You dont have to name the network.

2. Media Buys. Banner Advertising.

Anyone want to discuss these methods?

Facebook works if you actually know that marketing is more than: THIS IS MY STUFF! BUY IT!!!
If you know how to build a sales funnel you can make big money... Here's one of my social traffic funnels... just so you can get an idea of what the heck I'm talking about.

So... Success w/ any of the traffic sources?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Facebook = Huzzah!
PPV = Huzzah!
PPC = Huzzah!
POF = Hell no.. Works great for selling minority dating and cougar dating though...
Mobile = You wouldn't believe me, but I log into Admob more than Adwords.
Retargeting = You wouldn't even know what the hell I'm talking about.
Email = My lists aren't big enough, but I know guys who kill it.
SEO = SEO is scary right now. Google is pushing for sponsored ads clicks, working on lowering the number of long-tail searches, everyone and their mother is learning a little SEO now.


It's already been decided that I'm a hack though, don't mind me.

P.S. I'm pretty cynical about SEO right now and probably a little biased.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

Pangea, thanks for the post, good stuff.

 

[Josh]

How's that? A one trick deal?

Perhaps I'll sit corrected. Do you have any sites less than six months old that are ranking for anything particularly interesting or helpful?

I checked the other sites hosted on the same server as the one in your signature and it doesn't appear that you have any others with them (at least not insurance related), maybe you do have others.

It looks like your site was registered back in 1999 and you've had relevant content on it for over a decade. Us "legends in our own minds" work with much newer sites and get them to rank.

To illustrate the point and answer your question, you have stuff on your site that is either broken or done incorrectly. For example, if you click on life insurance on your main page you haven't even used an H1 tag and your H2/H3 are a bit of a mess. If from that same page you click on "auto" under insurance you'll get 404'd.

Don't get me wrong, you have a great site and you will likely remain unaffected by any changes to the google algorithms, but you're relying on lots of old content, not much by terms of actually optimizing your site for search engines. You're onsite SEO (according to SerpIQ) is nearly non-existant. With some tweaks your site could probably be doing even better and be less vulnerable to getting outranked, but if you're content with where you are and think of us all as "legends in our own minds", then you probably aren't interested in the constructive criticism.

 

[Pangaea]

Pangea, thanks for the post, good stuff.

No problemo.

I will say this, out of EVERYONE I know and have EVER met in Internet Marketing (that means forums, conferences, personal networks, parties) I only know one person that makes mid-six figures with SEO exclusively (and he's a black hat). I know a few guys that do low-six figs exclusively through SEO and they're pretty gray/black hat. While, at the same time, I personally know quite a few individuals that are doing seven figures a year and none of them even think about SEO.

If someone spent the amount of time they invested into SEO and learned how to convert traffic, then dropped a little money into marketing it would grow far faster than ever possible with SEO. Not to mention the skills are transferable to every other form of marketing.

I think it's pretty straight-forward when considering the pros and con

1. You can ignore the constant Google algorithm updates.
2. You don't have to wait days-weeks-months to find out if your marketing worked.
3. You can enter and exit markets in seconds.
4. You're more flexible with the type of consumers you want.
5. You can reach your market in places the competition hasn't been yet. (Like being the first life insurance website to advertise on a smoker's digest website).
6. You can reach more devices... Cell phones and tablets do outnumber desktops after all...
7. You can scale up and get FAR more impressions and visitors than possible with SEO... Look up how many daily visitors you'll get if you're number one for "car insurance" then ask yourself how many you'd get w/ a PPV network. You'll literally get about 10,000 visitors an hour with a budget of a few hundred a day... Now... if you were creative don't you think you can slowly push someone through a sales funnel that ends up with them requesting an insurance quote?
8. You can daypart and segment your offer. Have a team of sale people that you need to get some fresh leads to at a certain time from a certain area?
9. Want to target people over a certain age, who only make a certain amount of money? How about special interest groups? Ask yourself, "How many people with diabetes google 'diabetic life insurance' compared with the amount of diabetes that may view a website for tips on living with diabetes?".
10. THE ONLY CON: It costs money to test... Well, so does SEO if you're doing it right.

Don't mind me though, I have no idea of what I'm talking about.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

P, I'm def there with u. My affiliate income is down about 50% from last month.

And about SEO having costs, you are def right.

-Assistants.
-Automation Software.
-Link Rentals
-Backlink Packages

ETC...

 

[1manshow]

but if you're content with where you are and think of us all as "legends in our own minds", then you probably aren't interested in the constructive criticism.

I'm always interested in constructive criticism, especially when it comes from an experienced, knowledgable source.


The "legends in your own mind" comments come when I see blowhards who've been either punished by google or never proven jack spouting off like they actually know something.

 

[Josh]

Most folks doing anything interesting have had their rankings hurt on at least some of their sites by updates to the Google algorithms. I have around 100 domains and some of them have seen an increase in traffic since the latest updates and some have gone down. Fortunately for me the ones I've really been putting my effort into have benefited from the most recent updates. Some of my "we'll see how this site" works actually had a noticeable increase in traffic too for a variety of reasons that are easier to identify when I can look across ~100 sites to see which ones are doing better and which ones are doing worse.

I'm not sure if I fit into the category of being a legend in my own mind according to you, but from what I've seen most of the folks that allegedly have experience doing this are either experienced at selling a garbage service or just incompetent. Fortunately for me, Google seems to respond well to the things I'm doing so a lack of experience doesn't seem to be much of a handicap for my success. My biggest handicap is a lack of time (as I'm sure is the case with many of us).

 

[Pangaea]

Most folks doing anything interesting have had their rankings hurt on at least some of their sites by updates to the Google algorithms. I have around 100 domains and some of them have seen an increase in traffic since the latest updates and some have gone down. Fortunately for me the ones I've really been putting my effort into have benefited from the most recent updates. Some of my "we'll see how this site" works actually had a noticeable increase in traffic too for a variety of reasons that are easier to identify when I can look across ~100 sites to see which ones are doing better and which ones are doing worse.

I'm not sure if I fit into the category of being a legend in my own mind according to you, but from what I've seen most of the folks that allegedly have experience doing this are either experienced at selling a garbage service or just incompetent. Fortunately for me, Google seems to respond well to the things I'm doing so a lack of experience doesn't seem to be much of a handicap for my success. My biggest handicap is a lack of time (as I'm sure is the case with many of us).

He probably means me.

I'm clearly an failure. God knows how I've been paying the bills since selling Attraction in Dec of 2010.

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

dealin on sistrunk and sunrise blvd?