Valuing an Internet Business - that old chestnut

[KFC]

DSLiverpool said:

I'm competing with John Lewis, dixons, Argos etc anyone who sells Panasonic phones - we normally do ok.
You can't keep changing what people are saying to suit your view point.

You might be 'competing' with them but nobody will be actively trying to rank. Its uncompetitive, so of course you have a far better chance of ranking.

A search engine can't tell good content from bad by looking at the content alone. The only way they can rate it is by looking at external factors (the main one being other sites linking to it). If you have a brilliant piece of content in a highly competitive market, nobody is going to see it. You need to actively promote it, otherwise its going absolutely nowhere.

[jammy_basturd]

I know of a couple of very good SEO agencies that have clients all round the UK, both of which have done what you said and created their own websites in order to sell sales leads (or just build up traffic and then sell the websites as a whole). They both get far more business from their "traditional" SEO clients.

[KFC]

jammy_basturd said:

I know of a couple of very good SEO agencies that have clients all round the UK, both of which have done what you said and created their own websites in order to sell sales leads (or just build up traffic and then sell the websites as a whole). They both get far more business from their "traditional" SEO clients.

Very good at SEO? Or very good at selling SEO? As they are two completely separate things.

If they are very good at SEO, they should be making high 5 - low 6 figures a month from lead gen. If they're not doing that, then I'd suggest they aren't quite as good as you/they think.

[jammy_basturd]

Both have some very big clients and are very successful at what they do.

I'd suggest the fact that as most SEO agencies aren't doing what you're suggesting, your idea isn't the holy grail you think it is.

[KFC]

jammy_basturd said:

I'd suggest the fact that as most SEO agencies aren't doing what you're suggesting, your idea isn't the holy grail you think it is.

I'm already doing it myself - I know its the holy grail of SEO. But only if you've got the skills to pull it off.

I'd suggest that most SEO agencies are selling at best ineffective and at worst plain old dangerous SEO to clients. Its crap, they know its crap, but it pays the bills (theirs only, tough luck for everyone else).

There is simply no way around the fact that if you're good at it, it pays to do exactly like I have said. If you're crap at it, you should sell it to someone else as a service.

[anonymous-user]

Your model - lead generation - requires different sales skills than traditional seo services.

Its true that most seo is really low value stuff. Most of the seo people I have encountered couldn't easily transition into the lead seller model.

Also, in all my web trawling I have never stumbled across a site that I believe was doing that

[KFC]

JPJPJP said:

Your model - lead generation - requires different sales skills than traditional seo services.

Its true that most seo is really low value stuff. Most of the seo people I have encountered couldn't easily transition into the lead seller model.

Also, in all my web trawling I have never stumbled across a site that I believe was doing that

That post makes no sense at all

You don't require *any* sales skills for lead gen stuff. Decide what you want to sell, sign up for a network that deals with it. Heres a random example of one that does car insurance. comparethemarket.com/affiliates/

Stick a website up, put the lead gen form in it. Now start your SEO and get some traffic to it... when the form starts being filled in you start making some cash. The business model is extremely simple... far simpler than trying to sell SEO to small businesses. Which just makes the decision to do the latter even more bizarre.

[jammy_basturd]

So how does your form filling lead generation idea help ecommerce websites?

For most ecommerce websites, people don't want to fill in their details on a form and then have these passed on to a third party company who will then send that customer details of the products they sell. No, they want to view all the products, decide which one they want and then buy that product on the website.

[anonymous-user]

I would call that affiliate sales not lead generation, but now I know what you mean, I agree more with you... Anyone wanting to earn from seo could do a lot worse than get into such networks. I understand there are some good one in porn

Even so, I don't ever recall seeing such an affiliate site in my searches

[KFC]

jammy_basturd said:

So how does your form filling lead generation idea help ecommerce websites?

For most ecommerce websites, people don't want to fill in their details on a form and then have these passed on to a third party company who will then send that customer details of the products they sell. No, they want to view all the products, decide which one they want and then buy that product on the website.

In most instances, it won't help them. You don't need to have it setup that a third party company contacts them though - it can all be done instantly, without leaving the original site. Look at the Cash Lady site that kerry Katona was advertising, thats an affiliate/lead gen site that simply passes the data on, but its all done in real time.

JPJPJP said:

I would call that affiliate sales not lead generation, but now I know what you mean, I agree more with you... Anyone wanting to earn from seo could do a lot worse than get into such networks. I understand there are some good one in porn

Even so, I don't ever recall seeing such an affiliate site in my searches

You can call it affiliate sales or lead gen... neither of them are wrong really.

Porn is a really difficult one, I wouldn't suggest anyone starting out there. Its near impossible to compete with all the criminally hacked sites and so on. Plus there is just so much free porn out there, only a fraction of the market actually pays for it now.

[jammy_basturd]

As you say, this sort of set up doesn't really work for a lot of ecommerce websites/businesses. It also wouldn't work for 80% of the clients I've worked with as the sales leads would be so far and few between and still not be worth paying much for.

I think we've just worked out how most SEO companies are still in business.

[anonymous-user]

Is cashlady a bit further along the complexity curve than most CJ affiliate programmes?

It looks that way to the uneducated like me - its not moneysupermarket, but it seems more sophisticated than a lot of the CJ stuff I have ever spent any time looking at

[KFC]

JPJPJP said:

Is cashlady a bit further along the complexity curve than most CJ affiliate programmes?

Yes, significantly further along the curve. Its all custom coded, they compare offers in their own backend and then serve up whichever is most appropriate (or most profitable). They're likely working directly with each lender, they won't have any networks like CJ involved at all.

In the same niche but the other end of the curve you could sign up with quinternet or lead affinity and they'll give you iframe code to paste into your website - literally 2 minutes of work and you're now live and accepting payday loan applications.

[sa_20v]

KFC said:

I'm already doing it myself - I know its the holy grail of SEO. But only if you've got the skills to pull it off.

I'd suggest that most SEO agencies are selling at best ineffective and at worst plain old dangerous SEO to clients. Its crap, they know its crap, but it pays the bills (theirs only, tough luck for everyone else).

There is simply no way around the fact that if you're good at it, it pays to do exactly like I have said. If you're crap at it, you should sell it to someone else as a service.

Sounds like you are to SEO what I am to PPC!

Agree re agencies - if you have staff who know enough to make money online, why help others get rich? That said, I and others who've made money online, do offer their time to start-ups and charities - two sectors where bang for buck is critically important but which are often taken advantage of by snake oil salesmen.

[anonymous-user]

KFC said:

Yes, significantly further along the curve. Its all custom coded, they compare offers in their own backend and then serve up whichever is most appropriate (or most profitable). They're likely working directly with each lender, they won't have any networks like CJ involved at all.

In the same niche but the other end of the curve you could sign up with quinternet or lead affinity and they'll give you iframe code to paste into your website - literally 2 minutes of work and you're now live and accepting payday loan applications.

https://www.cashlady.com/Affiliates.aspx

seems as though cashlady does use CJ - it has affiliates of its own...

[KFC]

I would be surprised if they used it for traffic landing on their site that they're selling on though - they are big enough that they will be working directly with every lender.


Realistically it would be pointless signing up to CashLady's affiliate program - you're now an affiliate of an affiliate, and they won't be doing it for free. It would be far better to go direct to Quinternet or Lead Affinity or Quiddi if you wanted to enter that market.

[ehasler]

KFC said:

You can call it affiliate sales or lead gen... neither of them are wrong really.

Porn is a really difficult one, I wouldn't suggest anyone starting out there. Its near impossible to compete with all the criminally hacked sites and so on. Plus there is just so much free porn out there, only a fraction of the market actually pays for it now.

Which areas do you think are worth looking at (other than the payday loans that you mentioned in another reply)?

Also, you seem to be suggesting that any decent SEO should turn their skills to affiliate sales/lead generation but wouldn't this be to the detriment of those already doing this? Presumably if the top 100 SEO guys each set up a site similar to yours, you'd end up earning a lot less?

[Frimley111R]

There’s been quite a thread drift here. All this talk of SEO is quite outdated. This has mostly been replaced by Content Marketing Strategy. A search engine’s aim is to provide users with the highest quality, most relevant and most up to date results (content) possible. This applies not only to organic/natural search results but also to PPC.

For example, if two companies bid the same amount for the same PPC term, one will rank higher than the other. Why? Because Google also looks at the page the advert is linked to. Apart from relevant keywords it looks at how recent the info has been added and its quality.
How does it know if the page offers engaging and quality content? It looks at how long people spend on the page. If a page is interesting people will read it and stay on the page longer. This applies to natural search ranking too.

What can sites do to improve their rankings? Improve the quality of copy, focus on genuinely interesting (to site visitors) content. This can come in the form of free downloads, page content, imagery, etc.

And social media is having a larger impact on rankings too, for a similar reason. If companies post interesting, quality content on their SM it will be shared by people and search engines see that and recognise that the company is giving people interesting content – exactly the aim of the search engine itself.

I could go on all day on this but felt it important to highlight how much SEO has changed and what leading clients of ours are doing today.

[KFC]

Frimley111R said:

How does it know if the page offers engaging and quality content? It looks at how long people spend on the page. If a page is interesting people will read it and stay on the page longer. This applies to natural search ranking too.

This isn't correct. Rather than time on page, what they are far more likely to look at is whether you went back to the search results and clicked on something else.

If everyone lands on your site, hits 'back' and starts clicking on other search results, then its a reasonable assumption that your page didn't really provide a quality answer for that search.

If you want some specific info then time on page being short could actually be a positive signal, rather than a negative one. i.e. you search for 'what type of screws do I need to attach a Sony TV to the wall?" You land on a page which makes it instantly clear that you need 30mm screws.... you're off the page in seconds yet you had the query answered. Same goes for bus time tables, cinema listings, restaurant opening hours, etc etc.

You really need to be setting up your page to ensure that people aren't going back to Google. The obvious ways to do that are to include all the information they're likely to need on your site (preferred option) or if you can't do that, then provide links to other resources so that you at least drag users further and further away from the original Google search results.

[Frimley111R]

It is correct but it is also not exhaustive. You are correct too but as I said, I'd be writing 10,000 words on this if I let myself. There are always exceptions and other elements that are relevant such as bounce rates too but this is not the place to got into detail.