SEO is NOT Marketing

The way I look at things today, I would say that there are currently 3 popular camps in regards to making money online. There is the adsense group, which has recently seen a resurgence thanks largely to Grizzly and Court and Mark’s membership site. This group has bought into the fact that if they optimize their site properly and get a certain amount of links to it, that they will rank for their keyword and subsequently, the money will start flowing.

Ugghhhh….why do I write such long posts? Don’t have time to read it but are interested in seeing what it is all about? Get it in PDF format, print it out and read it when you do have the time. Click here to get this article in PDF format….

There is also the social groups like Jack Humphrey, who advocate twitter and facebook, commenting on blogs, ect….in other words, being social. This group believes that by being social and making yourself visible to your market, you can and will make money because eventually others in your “world” will think that you are an authority, follow you and buy things from you. They think that by participating in the conversation, you will get links naturally which will improve your SEO which in a sense will eventually make you money. The adsense camp disagrees that this will ever make money for people in most cases (speaking in generalities here) and is a general waste of time. And in a sense, it is….then again, in a sense it isn’t. But I will explain that later.

Then of course, there are the actual internet marketers….this group includes the Frank Kern’s and Russell Brunson’s of the world. They do a little of it all and their marketing strategy is based on whatever it is they are attempting to accomplish. In other words, they are looking for the means to an end. Timothy Ferris and Seth Godin fall into this category as well. These guys are largely “google proof”, meaning it doesn’t necessarily matter if they are even in organic search…they simply don’t need it; it wouldn’t affect their bottom line. Most of these guys have managed to pull together large lists over the years and developed relationships, albeit thin ones, with those who follow them and other marketers that matter. They are what I would consider true marketers. They use the internet to make money, sure. But if this was the 1970’s, they would be making money from direct mail. In other words, the fact that they are using the internet is irrelevant. It is just a medium to find their target market. They are living and dying by the premise of the most basic internet marketing premise…..

Create an irresistible offer for your market and sell them things that they want (or think they want)….

So which group would you rather be in? Which group’s methodology have you bought into? Since the majority of my referred traffic comes from places that is interested in SEO, I would imagine that most of you would be place squarely in the adsense camp. And because of this, you place a lot of importance on search engine visibility….

In my last post, I made the statement that google isn’t the only circus in town and that there are always ways to find your market without having to depend on organic search.

I believe that it was Russell Brunson who made the remark that (paraphrased) he didn’t understand it when people asked how to make money on the internet….you find or create a product that people want or think they want and you make them an offer they can’t refuse and post an ad.

• Find a product or create one that people want or think they want.
• Create an offer
• Give them a way to find you

It really is as simple as that, folks.

And if you adsense people think that it is “different” in your model, think again. The only difference is that you aren’t determining what you think the best offer is for your market; you are letting google decide for you. And in certain markets, it could be costing you…..

Do Different Models require different marketing strategies?

The reality is that all of these groups are essentially looking for the same thing. And whether they see it or not, their number one priority is visibility on the web. They are looking to find and direct the right people (potential buyers) to their site or page and get them to do whatever it is that they are hoping them to do when they get there. How they get there isn’t important. What is is that they take action when they do.

Adsense or content marketing attracts alot of people because it seems virtually dummy proof. You build content that is targeted for a keyword. You try to rank for that keyword. And then you get the search engine traffic that comes from people searching for the phrase. Rinse and repeat. You are essentially making a few pennies here and there. Have enough sites and the pennies will eventually add up into dollars. It doesn’t get any simpler than that, right?

Social marketing attracts a lot of people too because frankly, it is more fun to engage people than it is to write a hundred articles on how to remove a skin tag. Just like adsense, you do this by making yourself more visible by making comments, collecting friends, and making “fun” things in the hopes that it will be link bait. The downside is that people who visit and live on these social marketing platforms are usually there to be entertained. Another problem is the “targeting strategy” of social marketing. If you are selling bible verse bracelets to the social crowd on facebook, then chances are good that you will also get a lot of junk traffic along the way.

Internet marketers rely on (once again) visibility as well. However, they look for ways to make themselves more credible in the market. If they use social media, the chances are good it is more for branding than for sales. And if it is for sales, usually it isn’t aimed at outright sales unless the market is targeted.

How do YOU become more credible online? Credibility online can come from a variety of ways but the absolute best way is to have someone of importance vouch for you. If you have more than a few vouch for you, then your credibility will skyrocket. The other way is to rank organically. Believe it or not, regular “non” marketing folks still believe that the #1 listing is going to be the most relevant thing they are looking for. After all, if Google says so, it’s right…right?

Internet Marketers are typically lazy but in a good way. I think that internet marketers are more closely aligned with Black Hat marketers than they are with the white hat crowd. They look at things in a work vs. payoff kind of a way. While the adsense group will work tirelessly to build links to get ranked, an internet marketer will look at other available options to drive targeted traffic to their page. They know that the more funnel streams they create, the greater their offer will “stick”.

It is like my Craigslist example a post or two ago. Why worry about organic rankings if you can quickly make money without it? And once you determine that you can make money it, the next question should be how do you automate it so that it will make the most money it can with the least amount of work?

What would make more money? A one off adsense click OR the address of the person that you can engage and sell stuff to for months to come?

What takes more time? Building a site and all the supporting backlinks to get ranked that will get you 50 visitors per day or your link signature to your “unofficial audi handbook” in the audi motor forum that you spend time in and that others in the forum consider you a trusted member?

It may be the former…it may be the latter. In either case, an internet marketer would look for the easiest pathway to success.

I know that a lot of people will think that when I say internet marketing, I am implying selling make money products but I’m not. I guess I could if I wanted to. But there are so many markets out there that you can use the same marketing principles. When my wife and I were having a baby, she subscribed to this list. If you want to see how the big boys sell things by offering “value” in context, you should join and take a look. Talk about pitching the perfect product within the right timeline of the where you are at…sheesh….

Now, don’t think that I am not advocating adsense ads. I would be a hypocrite if I was. I have hundreds of pages online that are generally made just for adsense. But in these cases, the strategy fits. In other cases, adsense doesn’t fit. Once you graduate from being an “adsense” marketer or “social” marketer and look into internet marketing, you will find that there are 101 ways to earn money that has nothing to do with adsense or the stereotypical “social marketing” techniques.

Repeat after me….

Visibility = Success…the more visible your offer is, regardless of whether it is adsense or anything else, the more likely you will be successful.

So, when is adsense appropriate for a page?

Adsense wouldn’t be appropriate for a credit card offer site. Well, it could be appropriate but chances are good you wouldn’t be getting the most bang for your buck. It all comes down to understanding CPM’s. If your credit card referral site is clipping at $500 per 1,000 visitors and your CTR is 4%, then you can figure that you should get 40 sales out of every 1,000 visitors. And since most credit affiliates pay roughly $25 a pop, you would be losing $500 by placing adsense on it rather than going with an affiliate program.

Another example would things like hosting or autoresponders or anything that offers a continuity payment. Sure, you may be making a lot from the adsense clicks, but the reality is that if you were affiliated with the autoresponder itself, the chances are good that you would be building a nice residual income for yourself over time because the earning will compound monthly.

I place adsense on either niches that I am testing or niches in which I have determined have no backend potential. What I mean by this is that if I test a niche and it has a 4% CTR, then I can examine the ads and ad copy to see what is working in the market. From there, I can take a look at the converting products and see how the offer is laid out, what kind of pyschology is played with in the offer and whether there is an upsell, a down sell or backend product. If it does and it seems like I can work out a strategy to make myself VISIBLE online, then I will work on building a product. If not, the adsense remains.

I also place adsense on what I call 1-off products. This is fairly typical in the home remedies market. Someone that is looking for help to relieve gout pain is generally looking for things that will help them right now and chances are good that building a relationship with them based purely on relieving gout pain will disappear once their pain is gone. There are ways around this but it has more to do with knowing your market and the potential verticals for sales down the line. And yes, it requires a lot of researching.

Adsense Sites are best on non-social markets….

This is only my opinion. Don’t take it for the word. But Grizzly figured out something that will in effect increase his bottom line significantly on his make money site; Affiliate products on sites that are “social in nature” will almost always out do adsense on the same site. There is a caveat to this though and one that most people don’t get, won’t get, or simply won’t have the time to get-

In order for you to be successful in a social setting, you need to do several things:

• You need to PROVE that you are an authority and that you know what you are talking about…
• People SHOULD be able to relate to you and You have to HAVE something they want…

Proving ain’t as easy as you would think. You can imply that you are an authority (like so many people do on lists I subscribe to) and you may be an authority but if you are saying what everyone else is saying, then you won’t have that “thing” that they want. Ya feel me here? It is what most new marketers forget. Their USP (Unique selling proposition) isn’t unique at all…it is just more of the same old same old.

You have heard that the money is in the list.

This was a saying built by marketers trying to convince other marketers that they should get an autoresponder through them.

In reality, the money is in how people relate to you and how important they deem you. You can do this with a list, sure. You can build it up to 1,000’s strong and still never make money. If you don’t have something that people want (whether this is to emulate your success or learn something new), you will never get ahead. This is where 90% of all internet marketers live, by the way….repeating the same old tired worn out crap and pitching you on the same old shit with the same subject lines that every other marketer is using.

Oh, You can also do with with a social website……like Grizzly’s.

And yes, while grizzly does make money thanks largely to his organic listing, his site is the epitome of the perfect social blog…..in effect, he has a list without having a list….the Ultimate list….he has people who hang on his every word and would probably drink pee-pee if he told them that it would make them money and he engages them in a way that makes them feel like they too can earn a living online.

The whole point of this rant is that SEO is not marketing. Keyword Research is not marketing. They may be vehicles to get where you want but the most perfect optimized page that ranks may not make you money…even if you are getting hundreds of visitors a day. It is all about how you target your market and how you relate to them……Now THAT is marketing.