Internet Marketing and the Case for Remarkable Content
This post could have been better titled as “Internet Marketing…how I approach and attack markets AND the Case for Remarkable Content“. I go over the steps I take when evaluating a market and then what I do in order to try to get it ranked. SEO is important and if you don’t know search optimization basics, I encourage you to learn. As always, don’t take this as law….these things are what I know that do well for me….your outcome may be varied based on your abilities and timing….
In this rant, I go over the following things:
- The case for building an authority site versus a mini-site..why there IS room for yet another make money blog (or fitness blog or gambling blog or any blog in a highly competitive market.
- How to understand Market Share and using market share to determine a market’s profit potential…
- Why establishing a believable story and unique selling point is paramount to your success as a marketer, even if you are just peddling information….
- Finally, the case for remarkable content…why most blogs and websites fail miserably in spite of building strong link profiles.
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First thing first. I build authority sites these days. I don’t mess around with niche websites (or the long tail way to millions although I have several that I use to test the actual market that houses the niche). I don’t. I believe that an authority site will or could outrank a small niche site any day of the week. Authority sites will traditionally have more opportunity to make more money than 20 niche sites, not to mention the weight that google will give your site if you can manage to gain its trust.
And because I almost exclusively build authority sites these days, I always look at the largest market share for whatever market I am getting into.
The reason why I mention this is because it is my viewpoint at least, that most newbie and fledgling marketers get it all wrong in terms of how they go about doing internet marketing. Most will throw up one hundred 2 page sites that get a smattering of visitors a day (if that) even when they manage to rank for the long tail in Google.
They do this because that is what they are taught to do. They do this because they want to make money right now…not later….Rather than go all out and try to establish authority for “everything birkenstock”, they would rather try to cut it down to “birkenstock model 1440″ and take that traffic because they are told that it converts.
And while this may or may not be the case, the thing to think about is what happens when an authority site on “everything birkenstock” decides to optimize a page for “birkenstock model 1440?” What will happen when an authority site encroaches on your long tail land?
Anyway, that is something you should ponder as you are plodding away wasting time throwing up meaningless 2 page sites that just happen to get ranked right now rather than going all out and building a site that is linkable and that could grab the lionshare of a market.
Is there Room for Yet Another Blog about Making Money Online?
You know, you could ask this very same question for nearly any competitive niche….whether it is about fitness or gambling or marketing…And while it would be easy to give the answer that so many other blogs would give…that being a resounding “NO”, I don’t think that that is necessarily so. Let’s explore….
First of all, to make such a broad statement would be a lot like stating that you shouldn’t open a fast food joint because McDonald’s owns most of the market. The better question is where would you stand in terms of market share IF you opened up a burger stand?….An even BETTER question would be how would you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
To fully understand this, whenever I get into a market, I try to deduce whether:
- There are enough competitors to even bother entering the market
- Generally speaking, how much money is passing hands in the market that I am looking into.
Competition is important. While many marketers look at competition as a reason NOT to enter the market, I look at competition as the biggest reason to go in full throttle. I know. It sounds like suicide, right? After all, if your market is “make money online” or “marketing”, then competing would be more challenging than competing for a derivative of this market. In this case, the risk of a highly competitive market DOES equal the potential reward.
Also, competition tells me that the market is rife with opportunity. To put it bluntly, Competition equals MONEY. The only thing that you really need to worry about is how to position your site in a spot where you can grab a part of that market.
Internet Marketing and Understanding Market Share
What do you do when you are looking for niches? Well, if you are like most marketers out there, chances are you just randomly choose a niche that you like and start searching for long tail keywords with low competition.
The reason why I know this is because this is what is taught. It is the cookie cutter version to finding markets and I think that most gurus do this because they either are repeating what they have heard from another marketer OR they don’t think that the average marketer can wrap their mouth around it.
I am not going to coddle you.
There are basically 2 keys to determine market share (this doesn’t change in the offline world by the way)…
- Amount of potential traffic- the more people searching for things inside the market, the more potential traffic you will have.
- The value of each “visitor”- Some markets are naturally more profitable than other markets. Ex. Someone looking for song lyrics will be less likely to purchase something than someone looking for credit cards. Alternatively, someone looking for “internet marketing tips” may be less valuable than someone searching for “internet marketing companies“.
Obviously, if you can find a market that has high traffic and high visitor value, with low competition, you can call it a slam dunk and start to prepare for retirement. Then again, I wouldn’t expect it.
But how do you go about determining this number?
Simple. Use what Google gives you…..Keyword External Tool
- Type in where you want to analyze the traffic from (U.S. If you want english traffic, ect)
- Type in the general niche you are in (for example, if you are looking at health insurance, type it in)
- Type in the captcha and make it so only that keyword will get results.
I am going to use the “make money online” example…
It is kind of small so for those of you who can’t read it, there have been roughly 450,000 queries for “make money online” and the average cost per click is roughly $3.00.
If you were to muliply the queries times the average cost per click, you would get a fairly broad picture of how much money is flowing through the make money market….$1,336,500. And while this is not an accurate deduction, you can pretty much know that this market may be worth investing in…maybe not. But looking at these numbers would give you the impression that there aren’t many make money sites that are making the owner stinking rich, right?
I should mention that although it seems like there isn’t that much money in this market, I don’t take into account the list marketers and lifetime customer value of retaining these lists…I am only talking about advertisers who advertise via the adwords network.
Let’s examine the keyword that I am gunning for (it is the keyword at the end of the rainbow, mind you…I probably won’t rank for it for a year or two…)
Once again, for those of you who don’t like squinting, the estimated traffic for this query is roughly 1,000,000. The average cost per click is $6.10. Doing the math quickly, that means that internet marketing has a market share of roughly $6,000,000.
While these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt (after all, it is google’s job to sell ads so therefore it is only logic that they would skew the results in an effort to gain advertisers), just doing this will give you a rough estimate of how much potential money you can make with a given keyword. After all, with competition comes opportunities.
I should point out for all of you long tail marketers, you can use this method to determine your market’s viability. For instance, if you are thinking about building a site around “croc sandals”, the market share online would be roughly a little under half a million.
Ads and ad prices usually dictate how valuable a market is considered. But as you have probably guessed, market share on the whole isn’t the only thing to consider. There are other things….for instance, how much your material resonates to your market when they find you….
Take a little peak at your Competitors
The make money online niche has tons of competitors.. at the time of this writing, I get 118,000,000 million competing pages in my datacenter. Now, you tell me….considering that the market share is roughly 1 million dollars on the whole, would trying to rank for this warrant the time and effort needed to be placed to grab that traffic? I won’t say one way or another, but I will tell you that chances are great the effort would probably not equal the reward if the market share is remotely accurate.
Alternatively, the keyword “internet marketing” is also competitive. It has roughly 84,000,000 competing pages….but then again, Internet marketing has roughly 6 times the market share of Make money online market. Just something to think about when you are considering jumping in.
Since this isn’t necessarily a tutorial on how to “spy” on your competition or figure out what you need to do to outrank your opponent I will stop here. (I might talk about this later…but most likely I will just link to one of many articles that show how to rudimentally do this)
Establish a USP (unique selling point) or STORY for your site
I am amazed at exactly how little is really talked about in relation to building a USP or story for a site/brand online. Most internet marketers and bloggers alike don’t really spend near enough time to analyze what they are trying to convey with their site.
All sites tell a story just as all brands tell a story. In the case of being just a blogger or peddling information, this is normally also your unique selling point…you know….what makes you different than all the others out there.
If you want to compete in a competitive market, you need to have a story. The reason why is simple. If people can buy your story, then you will get linked to. And if you can get linked to then rather than have to constantly build your link profile manually, then you will stand a better chance of getting ranked based on the merits of your work..which by the way, is the natural way to get ranked in google. Like I said, I love competition and won’t shy away from it. The bigger the mountain, the more motivated I am.
Simply being “informative” is not enough in competitive markets. If you are teaching everyone else or talking about the same old same old, then you will need to establish a personality or style of communication that is different than your competitors. If you can’t, you won’t be able to grab much market share.
The problem that most make money bloggers have is that once you have seen one, you have seen 98% of them out there. Make money bloggers are worse than some of the social marketers out there that regurgitate stories. What you get is the same story told the same way hundreds of times over. So the question is…
- How do you stand out?
- What makes your site different?
- Is it the content?
- Is it your personality?
- What story are you trying to convey?
- Is it believable?
- Would someone who comes to your site think about linking to your site?
- Finally, would YOU like your site if you happened onto it by accident?
Ultimately, you either better have a very good story that is believable OR be able to look at your niche in a unique way that resonates with people.
The Story of Two Make Money Blogs..who happen to be ranked in the top 10 for Make Money Online
This isn’t really a case study but it is a story of how two bloggers in the make money market manage to successfully tell a believable story to their readers and, as a result, actually gain readers as well as mentions through the internet. Sure, they both obviously know what they are talking about….both rank very high for a market that is pretty competitive and extremely saturated.
For anyone who reads Grizzly’s how to make money online blog, you would know that he tells a story. This is what he is telling:
- Most make money blogs are bullshit (pardon my french)
- Organic Search is the way to go.
- I make money online and here is proof.
- I will show you exactly how to rank for keywords that will make you money…for free (WIIFM factor)
Alternatively, CarloCab also tells a story:
- 14 year old makes a full time income online and wants to show you how he does it (WIIFM factor)
Both of these guys just happen to be listed in the top 10 results of Google for “make money online“. Both of these guys have a completely different approach to getting the same outcome.
In the case of Carlo Cab, his selling point is his age and the fact that he makes a lot of money online (if you believe his story). The GOAL for his site is to grab emails. Sure he has ads on the side but ultimately he wants his visitor to give up his email in exchange for whatever free he is peddling.
Grizzly, on the other hand, sells his story differently. He is an adsense guy who has a very good way with words and freely offers proof (in the way of screenshots) as to how he makes money online. The GOAL for his site is to get the visitor to click on an adsense ad.
As a result of their stories, both are believable, for better or for worse, and both get these results not only from building links but from gaining links from either the story they tell or what they have written (which I will discuss later).
I could give you several other examples of high profile bloggers out there that are getting traffic because they either sold their story really well or they have the personality and unique content for the visitor to consume.
The point I am making is that the problem with make money blogs is that they aren’t unique and most don’t have the personality to pull it off and make it believable. To put it in the frankest of terms, very few people believe them….The same thing can be applied to virtually all the markets out there.
I say this because USP is something that is relative whether you are selling something tangible (like ad space, contextual ads or physical products) OR you are simply selling yourself. Nearly every successful website out there has a unique selling point. Nearly every successful website out there is believable in the eyes of their readers.
You either have to create Remarkable content that creates Conversation OR establish a very strong WIIFM factor
Are YOU making Remarkable Content OR are YOU contributing to the litter on the internet?
This flies in the face of a lot of blogs I read, including the afforementioned blog by Grizzly. There are a lot of people who say that content is not king. And while I am not saying that content IS king, I don’t fall into the camp that content is NOT king either….. I believe that REMARKABLE content is king. Why?
- Remarkable content gets talked about by other bloggers and webmasters.
- Remarkable content get links by other bloggers and webmasters which in turn get MORE links (links beget more links)
- Remarkable content establishes your site as an authority site BECAUSE of the links from your peers.
- Remarkable content confirms that your site must be good because it is talked about (social proof)
And here is the problem that most make money bloggers (or fitness bloggers…or social bloggers….or gmabling and sports bloggers) face. Frankly, their content isn’t remarkable enough to make waves in their community.
In essence, their website is nothing more than an echo in their market (albeit, a unique echo in terms of the search engines). It not only is not remarkable, there is very little to separate their site from another site in their niche. Their link building efforts must be more focused because no one will naturally link up to thier site. (more link farms, more paid links, more automated software to reduce workload, ect.)
As a result, these guys instead have to resort to link building tactics in the hopes that they can beat their competitors by having more links than them. They do so using very common tactics such as site directories, article marketing, comment spamming marketing, and social bookmarks (let’s not forget scuttle sites).
And the other guys who actually create remarkable content? They get the most coveted anchor of them all…the anchor text in an actual post that is, in most cases, in close proximity to other semantic terms that is relative to their niche. Do they do the other things? Sure. Do they buy links from other webmaster’s? In the case of competitive markets, most likely. But they get what is considered the holy grail of backlinks without even asking for it….anchor text from another website that is aligned with their niche within the actual article.
And the biggest irony of all is that backlinks from great content creates more backlinks as more people discover it. In other words, the rich simply get richer.
If your content is not REMARKABLE, you are forced to do what every other marketer has to do but do so ten fold. Build links and try to prove to google that your site is an authority site.
And the worse part is that even if you get there (page one), you will have to fight twice as hard if your site is not linkable because I can guarantee you that there will be sites on the front page of google that are.
This is what a lot of marketers trying to grab the bigger piece of the market share don’t get. The thought process is that if they can get more links than their competitor, then they should rank higher…all things considered equal.
And while this is true, the problem is that the social bloggers who write remarkable content (or who wrote remarkable content when they were drumming up support) will naturally secure more links faster and more efficiently than someone trying to game google. Luckily for the most of us, there aren’t very many of these guys around.
Does this mean that all you have to do is write remarkable content to ranked for competitive terms?
Of course not. But if you write remarkable content and combine it with other standard practices that most webmaster’s use when building a link profile AND the trust you will get as people link naturally to your site because they see your site as valuable, you stand a far better chance of getting ranked than some poor schlob that has gone in the other direction (content is not only NOT important…I don’t need good content at all to get ranked)
Using Grizzly’s blog as an example, although Grizzly has stated that content should not be the main drive to making money online (you know, the whole content is king myth), nearly every one of his posts is uniquely remarkable. And although he probably wouldn’t admit it, I would be willing to bet that ALL of his authority sites follow the same format. I would also be willing to bet that his authority sites make him far more money than his one off 2 page mini-niche sites.
Grizzly has managed to not only get the one-offs from search, he also has managed to build a fairly large readership to his site. And while he will admit that his readership doesn’t pay the bills, because he writes remarkable content, his readership rewards his efforts by giving him backlinks which will eventually drive him to the top spot of the niche.
So what is the difference between remarkable content and okay content? Well, let’s take a look at traffic for the top spot of “make money online” and compare it with Grizzly’s traffic, who happens to have less pages indexed but has managed to be in the top third position for this keyword.
Ironically enough, both sites are blogspot blogs (free hosted)….
First let’s take a look at the number one spot: http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com/ run by a guy named Alan…
- According to Alan’s advertising page, his site gets roughly 1,400 uniques a day.
- He has 455 pages indexed
- He has 228 links from google and nearly 20,000 links from yahoo
And Grizzly?
- According to a blog post, his site gets roughly 4,000 to 5,000 uniques a day (double that of Alans)
- He has 246 pages indexed (nearly half of Alan’s site
- Yet he has 457 links from google and 22,000 links from yahoo. Once again, google’s link survey shows DOUBLE that of Alans.
I am going to make a bold statement and say that Grizzly will make it to the top of Google by the end of the year, even if Grizzly slowed down on manually acquiring links and let his link profile grow naturally.
Why?
- Because I bet that the majority of his links are coming naturally anyway.
- I bet that the majority of these natural links are within content from people who have bought into Grizzly’s story and actually like him.
- As these links age, they will gain more power and trust.
Essentially, while Grizzly would love to state that content may not be king, his REMARKABLE content gets links naturally which will help him shoot up the search engines and rank higher. And because his site’s content is that good, his “linkers” will gain other “linkers” which will gain other “linkers”.
Remarkable Content = More Natural Links = More Trust and Authority = Higher Rankings
He gains more and more funnels based on his content. It is beyond his control. The only way he could stop it is if he pulled the plug on his site.
In effect, Grizzly wins not just because he wins the game of building manual links and purchasing links…he wins because people like his content and are willing to link to him.
As more people read the blogs of these other people, they will find Grizzly’s site, become “fans” and post links to his site.
And because he knows and understands how to rank in the search engines, he gets social proof from two different sources:
- Google- Because he is ranked high, Google itself is stating that he must be credible.
- His Peers- Because his peers believe his story, they are willing to “turn on” other people to his stuff which is the ultimate social proof…
I didn’t mean this to become a love fest for Grizzly’s site.
My point is that if you are under the belief that you can get ranked without great remarkable content for a competitive niche, then you are fooling yourself. In most cases (barring credit card offers and other search queries that bring up affiliate websites), there is a difference between throwing up a bunch of PLR and actually creating something that is unique and remarkable, that the social masses love and will actually recommend.
The social proof rewards are just too high not to go that route.
So in summation, here is how I approach markets when doing internet marketing….
- Define Markets with market share…figure out how much money is in the market itself and use it as a measure to judge whether the reward of ranking will be high enough for the time it will take.
- Don’t shy away from competition…it is where the money is at…
- Go for the jugular when going after primary keywords. Primary Keywords in competitive markets almost always get a lot of traffic….and build an authority site based on the market. Don’t wimp out with a long tail.
- Build a story and establish your site’s Unique Selling Point. Dare to be different.
- Write remarkable content. Write everything as though it will get linked to.
Photo Sources: Information Hydrant, Conversation is King,I believe
41 Responses to “Internet Marketing and the Case for Remarkable Content”
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Lots of IM blogs dish out advice like they're serving a fat man at an all you can eat buffet, but very few I've seen eat what comes out of their kitchen.
Your site Leo is firmly in the practice what you preach category, and that has to be better proof of authority than some scanned in (photoshoped) Adsense check.
I know you've talked about this in some of your previous posts, but I think the long form article (+1000 words) really adds to the unique content you stress here. Coupled this with the fact that if you write longer than average posts then by definition they HAVE to have a unique selling point to hold a readers attention for that long.
It seems to my eyes that the overwhelming majority of blogs on any topic seem to have "twitter length x2 posts". The ease and hence lack of uniqueness of the rapid fire post probably ties into the low barrier to entry "back ground noise" that blog must overcome in order to rise in the rankings and in the public consciousness.
I have no data to back this up but I think that the number of natural back links you get expressed as a percentage of the number of people who read the whole article will be much higher than the "twitter x2 post" Hypothetical e.g: post length = 200 words, 80% viewers read till end, 2% convert to natural back link. post length = +1500, 50% viewers read till end, 10% convert to natural back links. The numbers should work out in your favor is my guess.
Cheers
Patrick
Hey Patrick,
Thanks. Yeah, there are definitely some other reasons why long content works better than a ton of short posts other than simply getting the point across.
Case in point, long posts will less likely go into supplemental hell because they will tend to be MORE unique than shorter posts…long posts will generate MORE traffic organically because you will have more keywords in your posts….ect.
But the biggest reason is that with long posts, you can actually say something…and I mean REALLY work an idea out. And from an authority standpoint, who wins?..someone who writes a very thin post on "how to..{fill-in-the-blank} or someone who writes posts that could possibly be the equivalent of what most IMers and bloggers give away as a means to collect email addresses from list building?
I don't know about you, but I would think that the latter.
Now, I doubt most people will read my entire post. I have been trying to break it up into chunks with h2 and h3 headers, bullets, pictures and what not though. I figure most will scan over it first…find something that may interest them and read that and then possible scan some more.
A few may actually scan first, read a blurb and then get hooked (hopefully). I do know that the average time on my site is pretty high though which means that either they are reading or happen to go the bathroom or suddenly have the urge to clean the house right when they get to my page. Whatever it is, I do appreciate it, ya know. In the very least, it makes me feel like my time spent writing is worth it.
fyuh.. another 1 hour reading, and sure I will have to re-read this again.
great article Leo, as always.
Love the content….come to your site just to read a paragraph at top of page and was loat in all the great info.
Charles Duggan
HBnC Design
Thanks bodezy….I don't make it easy, do I?
Thanks Charles, I appreciate you taking the time to read my long winded self, lol.
Griz would be pleased with that whopper of a post.
I've found that the need for 'remarkable content' varies greatly from niche to niche.
As you observed, it's easier to make friends and get links if you bring something to the table. Look at political blogging for example in addition to 'make money online' blogging. But, there are other ways to do it that you'll see if you Google on very competitive terms in niches like credit and dieting and those ways generally involve money changing hands. If you can't make friends, buy some, they say.
On lower competition niches, you can do quite well with $10-30 a day sites that are less than remarkable. The key here is in numbers, more sites, more money, less risk of authority site intrusion on your keywords impacting your earnings.
Hi Frank,
Seen you around the forums and such…thanks for stopping by and commenting. Like I said in the post, I didn't mean to turn it into a lovefest for Griz (although I love his site b/c of his style of writing). There is a Griz or two (or three) in almost every niche and I have found that these are the guys that garner a lot of respect and authority in whatever market they are in.
As far as the ultra competitive keywords, I agree with you. It is almost like you need to see what google is ranking highly and mimic the model. And yes, I agree that you need some pretty serious capital to compete for the primary keywords in those markets. (and for those who are reading this comment, the capital can be in thousands per month to stay competitive).
As far as lower competition niches, I have found that it is very hit and miss, traffic wise. The keyword tools just aren't accurate enough. You end up ranking for something and get little to no traffic in spite of what you see. Of course, there are other methods that you can go through…like using different traffic measurements to guesstimate the traffic or launching a pay per click campaign to verify that the keyword will convert. Then again both cost time and money and there is no guarantee that you will hit.. That is why I love building authority sites…it kind of takes the guesswork out of wondering if you will get traffic. You know you will.
Anyway, thanks again for stopping by. (I have more to say but my wife is getting impatient…it is Friday…HER day…lol…)
Wow Leo, that was one hell of a post. I must say I agree with you that authority sites will outrank smaller sites just about every time. I think the reason so many people stick with the smaller sites that target long tail phrases is twofold:
1. Instant gratification. Its much easier to build a quick 5 page site, submit a few articles to EZA to promote it, and quickly see some AdSense clicks or affiliate sales. In just a couple of days you can see money hitting your account. But it takes time to build an authority site that ranks well for competitive keywords. Many people don't want to wait for the payoff.
2. Because that's what a lot "gurus" teach. There's a good reason for that too. Which ebook do you think will sell better…one that promises to teach you how to build an authority site that makes lots of money but takes a long time and a lot of work to build…or one that promises you can make a few hundred dollars a month really quickly.
The "gurus" know most people are lazy and aren't really looking to work hard to build a business. They want an easy system they can plug into and start earning cash right away (even if the revenue potential is far less than that of an authority site). And of course it makes the guru look good when his readers successfully follow his system to make $10 a day or whatever he promises.
Wow Leo, that was one hell of a post. I must say I agree with you that authority sites will outrank smaller sites just about every time. I think the reason so many people stick with the smaller sites that target long tail phrases is twofold:
1. Instant gratification. Its much easier to build a quick 5 page site, submit a few articles to EZA to promote it, and quickly see some AdSense clicks or affiliate sales. In just a couple of days you can see money hitting your account. But it takes time to build an authority site that ranks well for competitive keywords. Many people don't want to wait for the payoff.
2. Because that's what a lot "gurus" teach. There's a good reason for that too. Which ebook do you think will sell better…one that promises to teach you how to build an authority site that makes lots of money but takes a long time and a lot of work to build…or one that promises you can make a few hundred dollars a month really quickly.
The "gurus" know most people are lazy and aren't really looking to work hard to build a business. They want an easy system they can plug into and start earning cash right away (even if the revenue potential is far less than that of an authority site). And of course it makes the guru look good when his readers successfully follow his system to make $10 a day or whatever he promises.
Hi Mike, thanks for stopping by…yeah, telling someone that you can start making money "tomorrow" is more alluring than saying maybe in 6 months to a year. The issue isn't really about making money though…it is about building a brand that is synonymous with your market and making more money…that is how I see it anyway…
Reading your post worth the time spent on it. It is the best thing I have done today. Thank you very much for showing a completely new way of looking at building blogs. Thanks for Grizzly for his link to your site which made me discover this site.
hey Leo,
I agree with you on the importance of remarkable content, but you've got several other nuggets of wisdom buried in this post as well, such as…
~ Steve, the trade show guru
What is it with you and long posts?
"someone looking for “internet marketing tips” may be less valuable than someone searching for “internet marketing companies“."
Very good post, just takes a while… a long while… to get through.
PS. Did you used to have comment luv here?
Thanks for stopping by man…
Hey Steve,
Yeah, I am a bit long winded, right? I come from the School of Steve Pavlina as far as dense posts are concerned but there are other reasons why I do it that has to do with the search engines and partly because I don't post that often.
I am finding that most people will hit the same post 2-4 times throughout the week. I am guessing that they get to the page, start scanning….take a chunk in and then leave…come back later to grab some more stuff.
Comment Luv…I do/did…I am going to have to find out what happened. I like Intense debate but I am getting the impression that it doesn't like to play well with other plug-ins.
Awesome thread.Very very detail explanation, you've given me a few things to do.
Thanks Elvin…I appreciate the visit.
Hey Leo,
I never-ever read long winded posts…until today. I now have a better understanding what needs to be done to make my blog and static website more successful and thank you for that. I'll return often.
A quick question: I use the Google Keyword Tool but have never seen a page that shows estimated CPC unless I'm setting up an AdWords campaign. I see "advertiser" competition and a green bar chart but no actual $$$. Even when I clicked the link you provided in your post. Is that a subscription-only feature ?
Hi Rob, thanks for the compliment (and the comment)…to answer your question, there are filters that you add and remove after you do a keyword search….
1. Type in your keyword and the captcha
2. Once the results are shown, you should see something that says show columns to display…
3. In the drop down window find show estimated average CPC (or something to that effect)
4. Add it your filters….
I should add that what most people do not get is that the average CPC has to do with organic search ads…not the content network (just in case you are thinking of adding adsense blocks based purely on high paying keywords). The content network ads will, in most cases, have a much lower average.
Thanks for the great post….That's right I guess Google likes to see a lot of good quality links to a site to put up here in front of the SERPs.
another great resource for learning about link building is:
ultimatelinkbuildingreport.com good source of info, too.
I agree with most of what you are saying about building authority sites. However, what do say about creating many small mini sites as a defense against the black hole, volatile nature of SEO?
With authority sites, you are 1 Google pimp slap away from having your traffic and income disappear over night. Presumably, with many small mini sites, not all of them will be affected by a Google slap.
That isn’t really as true as you think. Authority sites actually have some advantages that mini-sites don’t. For one, link velocity becomes a non-factor. Also, you can add more shady link building profiles without the fear of a slap BECAUSE of your trust rank with the search engines.
Diversification is a good strategy though BUT you will likely never get to the point of gaining 1000’s of daily visitors, site wide links, and all in all greater credibility.
I get what you are saying. However, IMHO the possibility combined with the probability of getting google slapped is to risky for my taste to rely on google for traffic without taking proactive, risk mitigating actions.
Here is a link to a well known SEO who’s homepage stopped getting indexed because of something called proxy hacking: google slapped
Later on that same sight got href=”http://www.stomperblog.com/marketing/stompernet-going-natural-30/”>google slapped again and had to rely on PPC for traffic.
He had a authority site and presumedly did things the white hat way, but got slapped nonetheless.
To each his own. I just find intolerable the idea of being at google’s or any search engines mercy.
Thanks for the link. I understand where you are coming from and as you say…to each their own…it is really never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket…this goes for article marketing, SEM, PPC, or list marketing. However, internet marketing is so much more any of these things. Most people focus most of their efforts on one of these and hold their breath, hoping for the best. Better marketers understand that the internet part of marketing is just rudimentary….it is easy…the harder part is figuring out the business and metrics side of the equation.
The delivery isn’t really the problem. I think I once heard a direct marketer say that he didn’t understand why so many people kept asking about how to get traffic. To paraphrase him, “…you build an ad and then find a place to post it where your target market is at”.
Just to use an example, if you could figure out that the LCV (lifetime customer value) for each person you sold to was say $120 per year for 2-3 years once you got them, wouldn’t that free you up a bit to be a little more methodical with your marketing if the conversion rate for a PPC campaign cost you $70.00 per conversion? Would you be able to factor that number into organic search if you could estimate the “cost” of a number one ranking for your keyword? Wouldn’t that change how most marketing hobbyists view their campaigns? Would you be willing to go more out on a limb if you knew that by offering a bump offer on the backend, your margin would drop from .63% to .38%?
I am kind of ranting here but the bottom line is if you are building a business that relies solely on one other business, in the end you aren’t being proactive, you are being reactive.
On a side note, I appreciate your input…you are really getting me to think..
I agree. It has always given me pause when people write on forums that their business is nothing without SE traffic.
It accrued to me that I may have come across as anti search engine traffic in my previous comments. That is not exactly the case.
BTW, I would be willing to go out on a limb. In any event, it is smart to diversify your traffic sources.
Here is another interesting article called “Single?” Lawn Signs Conquer the American Landscape
Let me forwarn that this is an extremely long article. So long infact, that it would make one of your blog post look like a twitter post. But it is a interesting read in my opinion.
This article contains many tidbits like: 1) what criteria venture capitalist use to evaluate a business model, 2) actions to take if you really want to track down the owner of a domain.
What is germane to our conversation is the “old school” marketing tactics used in one of the most competitive markets: online dating. Their “old school” marketing tactic is presumed to be effective and quite profitable.
I am sure it cost a pretty penny to implement the tactic, but that is the cost of doing business. In my opinion, the most valuable aspect of their marketing tactic is it’s complete independence of search engines. Google could disappear tomorrow and it would not hurt them at all.
Can someone help me out here. I’m not sure why the information below equates with the owners of said sites not making much money. Thanks for any help that anyone can offer.
If you were to muliply the queries times the average cost per click, you would get a fairly broad picture of how much money is flowing through the make money market….$1,336,500. And while this is not an accurate deduction, you can pretty much know that this market may be worth investing in…maybe not. But looking at these numbers would give you the impression that there aren’t many make money sites that are making the owner stinking rich, right?
Clive’s last blog post..
Hi Clive, the number that you are looking at is adsense (I believe). You aren’t accounting for the hundreds of list marketers out OR the websites that aren’t actively advertising on the contextual networks and are relying on SEM to get by…not to mention the social marketers and the a-list marketers out there OR those that are currently pushing MMO products via affiliate management, as well as the vertical markets such as forex, MLM, work at home opps, ect.
Hope that helps you understand…..
Hi Leo,
Thanks very much for your reply I really appreciate it.
Clive’s last blog post..Overheard by Jack
I think the biggest reason that people fail with internet marketing is that they thinks it’s easier than it is. You need to understand basic offline marketing principles and psychology if you’re going to make it online!
Leo,
Where did you learn about lifetime value, metrics, cost per conversion? Would like to look more into understanding metrics. Like you said, if we took a more methodical approach, and knew on average the cost per conversion, I bet I could grow sales exponentially, but I think lots of IMer’s out there keep throwing at the wall, but never come back to optimize.
I myself and guilty of that…
@ Matt It has been 10+ years of learning and honing. I have always suggested that folks use PPC with real money with at least what they can afford. Using real money will put a little sting into trying to sell something and will either make you better or make you go broke. Most make money folks don’t think in terms of margin but even something as simple as testing backend products with upsells can greatly improve what would be a losing campaign and turn it into a hidden gem.
As an aside, when you start getting into more and more competitive markets who use PPC, you will notice that the ad itself in a lot of cases is nothing more than a loss leader.
Leo, ive been comming to your blog a few(2-3) times but never dropped a coment… let me tell you that you are even more exciting to read than grizzly! You are my make money online or off teacher without knowing it!
It is very true what you say – grizzly is a social blogger in combination with seo, answering comments, being friendly and all that stuff. And I find it interesting how many comments grizly gets with his 3k subscribers compared to 120k+ subscribers of darren rowse (around same but with darren lots more subscribers).
And your predictions have been very good if you didint rewrite this post, because griz did indeed get that #1 spot just when you predicted it as far back as 9 months ago!
When you compare the make money online terms with internet marketing, your estimations might be flawed a little(i think, probably its just me), woudnt you think that people searching internet marketing are already more aware about adsense and ads and would be less likely to spend money and there would be lower click throuhg rates? than those make money online ads?
Thanks for the great free lesson!
@ White Guy
Thanks for the compliments. I dunno if I am deserving but thank you. To answer your question, yes, adsense rates would most likely be higher in the make money online niche as the users are usually more likely to be enticed by the ads promising the world. However, as Grizzly found out, when you are dealing with a market that is used to purchasing product online such as the MMO niche and yes, the internet marketing niche, pushing affiliate products will greatly outweigh adsense earnings.
And if Grizzly was smart (he is a master at SEO and adsense…his marketing prowess may be lagging behind…), he would have already leveraged his **FAME** for bigger bucks. Then again, that would destroy his MO at this point, I guess. At any rate, he is doing pretty good just doing what he is doing, if you ask me.
Every niche has a different set of rules depending on the market. If you were ranking in the credit card or webhosting niche, it would be absolutely dumb to place adsense on your site since you could make an absolute killing from the affiliate offers. On the other hand, a general fishing or surfing site may do better with adsense. And when it comes to the entertainment market, who could resist those juicy CPA offers for email submits…..
Learning never stops, especially on internet, when inventions are actually growing by every minute. If look only Google – everyday makes us life a little bit happier or (mostly) a bit sad…:)
Hey Leo
Wow, a another great post and very informative.
Ok my 2 cents worth. Well maybe 3 cents today…
I agree that 1 of the keys to dominating any internet marketing arena is to understand your market. I have always looked at the total search results and use G’s keyword tool. However, what I found helpful for me today was looking at the total approx dollar value within a market and I have not done before until you showed me how to connect the dots and make that calculation.
The other aspect that I found helpful was your focus about for each of us establishing our Unique Selling Point. I have been guilty of this in the past with some sites by adding content that was only ok. Over the past year, I have increasingly been writing good quality content for a number of my sites that I want to have as authority.
The other interesting point in reading your Grizzly like post (lol) and hopefully helpful for your readers is that internet marketing takes time. Yes, finding smaller less competitive terms is ideal in many cases to make money faster, but that is part of the whole internet mindset problem. People see someone like Griz or Ben or yourself making some good coin and they think, oh slap up a website, put some re-hashed content up and they are now making money. Its like the 1 night stand mindset with no real purpose or intent for a long term commitment. Either way folks, if you want it, you will have to work for it. Or from the Kevin Costner movie – if you build it,they will come. you know that really is true today as it was in the movie many years ago. Build up a quality site and people will find you and pay attention.
Personally, Leo I have both small type niche sites, but have a few real authority sites, but intend to bring up 2 or 3 more over the next year. But in doing so, the one thing that resonated for me was that I will ensure that on those sites, they will have good long quality (or should I say Remarkable) posts.
Make it a great day
Darrell
P.S. Are you trying to rank for the term remarkable? ok I couldn’t resist (lol)
@ Darrell….you are too funny. I obviously didn’t put too much thinking into what this post would rank for. Strangely enough, I rewrote the title of this post, slapped it into a pdf and posted it on scrib’d and a number of other document sites. It ranks for remarkable content although I don’t know how beneficial it is. However, it is a good way to re-source old content and something I think everyone should think about….
Hey Leo
You know, many people don’t realize that its a very wise and powerful thing to do is to re-source their old content. Hell, even the mighty Ezine Articles has been advising us to do that. Take an old article, re-write and you get some new SEO link juice from it. I do it all the time and usually it turns out pretty good. It gets hard to keep coming up with new and fresh ideas sometimes.
Later, gotta get back to doing some work.
Make it a great day or should I say have a remarkable day. Ok I had to just add that one time. me bad..lol