Marketing funded websites

[CrouchingWayne]

KFC, very interesting posts here - I'm not a web designer by any means but I used to do some online publishing for fun when I was a student.

I still read some blogs on the subject, but it seems incredibly complex to rank sites. When you're doing day to day SEO work what sort of activities does this involve? I've seen a lot of posts on "long tail" keywords, private blog networks, social media etc. but I would be interested in your take (if you can do so without jeopardising your business.)

The majority of these sites seem to be selling to wannabe SEO's rather than helping/teaching. I struggle to believe more people can't see this,

[KFC]

jammy_basturd said:

Really? I can't imagine there is big money in car insurance, flights, airport parking, airport transfers, etc that you'd get commission even into double figures.

Car insurance and flights are absolutely massive. Airport parking and airport transfers would be tiny in comparison. I know one guy mainly doing flight stuff who was making £10k a week at the time, and you'd never even have heard of his website. There will be multiple affiliates clearing £100k a week in comms in both of those markets.

jammy_basturd said:

Those 'SEO Experts' scrambling for £300 a month clients generally (nearly always) aren't very good, that's why they're feeding off the bottom of the market. They wouldn't do very well out of affiliate lead gen. either!

Sure, but there is nothing wrong in someone admitting they're not doing one job because they can't do another. I bet if you go in a hospital and speak to the janitor, electrician or cleaner they're not going to lie to you and say they just didn't fancy being a brain surgeon These seo's i think are just trying to convince themselves most of the time...

jammy_basturd said:

Then there are quite a few people that are good enough to earn a living from lead gen. but aren't entrepreneurial enough to want to go it alone. Many, many people are happy to earn fortunes for other people just along as they are guaranteed a salary at the end of the month and some time off every now and then.

seo is different from most other types of business though. You might have a brilliant plumber who doesn't want to go it alone because he can't handle the paperwork, he doesn't want to deal with customer queries, he doesn't have the money to fund a van and all his stock, etc. If you can seo for someone else, then you can do it for yourself. There isn't any real reason for a good seo to accept a 98% pay cut just to work for someone else is there?

[jammy_basturd]

Sure there is.

For a start most won't even realise the money involved. Then even when they find out they won't know where to start. Despite the huge sums of money they're missing out on, these two things together will be enough to turn away 99% of people. Most will thing if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Then there are people that are more than comfortable with the salaries they earn. They enjoy being in a company environment. They enjoy working with people, helping clients, etc.

Outside of SEO and lead gen. I imagine there are plenty of people that could work in the financials industry and earn a bucket load but have made the decision not to for one reason or another. In fact if I may be so blunt, in this topic and a number of others you've shown a certain amount of abrasiveness, ignorance and arrogance that I imagine turns quite a number of people away from such industries.

[KFC]

jammy_basturd said:

For a start most won't even realise the money involved. Then even when they find out they won't know where to start. Despite the huge sums of money they're missing out on, these two things together will be enough to turn away 99% of people. Most will thing if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

If you're good at it, you'll understand the money involved. It would be absolutely impossible to be able to rank a PPI claims website, and not fully understand the profit it was generating.

jammy_basturd said:

They enjoy being in a company environment. They enjoy working with people, helping clients, etc.

Those all sound lovely. I'd consider giving up 5-20% of my income for a nice happy work life like this. I would suggest anyone saying they wouldn't give those up for a 20x pay rise, is a liar. Bear in mind the work load would be extremely flexible. There is nothing to stop you working mornings only, or picking your kid up from school every day. Or working in a charity shop 2 days a week, etc etc

jammy_basturd said:

Outside of SEO and lead gen. I imagine there are plenty of people that could work in the financials industry and earn a bucket load but have made the decision not to for one reason or another.

But we're not comparing working in a bank to working as a gardener or a plumber. They're a million miles apart. What most people seem unwilling or unable to grasp, is that if I'm seo'ing for Wong and you're seo'ing for a company that sells plant pots, we're both doing the exact same job.

jammy_basturd said:

In fact if I may be so blunt, in this topic and a number of others you've shown a certain amount of abrasiveness, ignorance and arrogance that I imagine turns quite a number of people away from such industries.

Thats fine, it needs someone to highlight whats going on to counteract the snake oil salesmen going on and on when they're hopeless at the job they're being paid to do Arrogant? Absolutely. I'm certainly not ignorant though... I'm a high level player in this industry and I understand it inside out

[Steve7777]

KFC, what about the VP of SEO at e.g. ebay or Amazon? Good pay, status, reliable income, stock options, nice office, perks etc. They probably don't earn as much as an affiliate on a good run but it's arguably a more desirable place to be. That's where good agency or client-side SEO guys are aiming for, and you don't get a shot at that by focussing on trying to rank your own affiliate sites.

[KFC]

Steve7777 said:

KFC, what about the VP of SEO at e.g. ebay or Amazon? Good pay, status, reliable income, stock options, nice office, perks etc. They probably don't earn as much as an affiliate on a good run but it's arguably a more desirable place to be. That's where good agency or client-side SEO guys are aiming for, and you don't get a shot at that by focussing on trying to rank your own affiliate sites.

Sure, very high end in house seo positions with stock options etc are a different ballgame. I wouldn't class them in the same group as the £300 hustlers at all.


How many eBays or Ubers are there in comparison to guys working seo though. You'd be better off buying lottery tickets. Moreso given generally the bigger startups are not UK based so thats another huge hurdle for anyone here.

You'd be far better off working as an affiliate, making a million or two then starting up your own biz and looking to get bought by Uber or whoever. Trying to rank someone for crappy little city related phrases for £300 a month is not the path into running the seo department of an billion dollar company. I think you'd be better getting in there via acquisition, or via their graduate program, a good degree, and some seo experience you already picked up along the way. Its a completely different skill set... they're going to laugh at you if you apply with a CV packed full of "hey I ranked for "plumber Milton Keynes" type things.

Edited by KFC on Wednesday 27th May 22:38

Edited by KFC on Wednesday 27th May 22:42

[jammy_basturd]

I've completely lost the point you're making in relation to the OP?

[KFC]

No relation to the OP whatsoever, I'm just answering the post immediately before mines.

[Hoofy]

FWIW, most jobs are meaningless st so don't kid yourself. I don't care if you're managing a £50m project unless it's going to improve some poor village in India, otherwise it's probably meaningless st and you might as well be cleaning toilets in a school. The only difference is that you get more money but have to work longer and probably take work home. Of course, you can consider yourself more successful with your bigger house (the cleaner probably has to rent). But it's still meaningless st. At least the cleaner's job means that kids don't die of something horrid caught when having a piss.

And that plumber you're doing SEO for, well, maybe he's a sex pest who sniffs customers' underwear so it's possible that you're helping him sustain his part-time panty sniffing habit.

Edited by Hoofy on Wednesday 27th May 22:55

[akirk]

Some fascinating discussion

worth noting though that what KFC is saying - while accurate may come across as being easy - it isn't, I would suspect that there might be a shedload of experience in there as well!

there is a lot of money to be made online, and a big chunk of it can be made passively, but it is not easy, I have known very experienced people get it wrong, and amateurs strike lucky and do well...

it is also worth noting that the meaning of SEO / use of the word has changed over time - it used to be all about fiddling the search engine results to promote your website - from keyword stuffing to auto re-writing articles etc. - as Google et al become more intelligent in their algorithms, so SEO has had to change - it is now more widely used as a handle on the bigger concept of getting footfall (relevant preferably) to your site - and may not even involve search engines at all... I have one passive income website where the vast majority of its traffic goes nowhere near a search engine, coming directly from relevant usergroups through other websites...

[Frimley111R]

KFC said:

Frimley111R said:

Agreed.

So how does that fit in with my debt lead gen post above... why aren't these seo guys using their super skills to rank sites like that and make some serious money?

I really can't come up with any other reason than "because I can't actually do it"

Because they are SEO experts and like what they do and have no interest in running a business themselves. No different from your FD leaving to start up a Financial Company or any employee tbh. Not everyone wants to own their own business or to make big money, they are mostly happy with doing what they are good at/enjoy and getting well paid for it.

[KFC]

Frimley111R said:

Because they are SEO experts and like what they do and have no interest in running a business themselves. No different from your FD leaving to start up a Financial Company or any employee tbh. Not everyone wants to own their own business or to make big money, they are mostly happy with doing what they are good at/enjoy and getting well paid for it.

You are still completely failing to understand this.

If I set up a website to funnel payday leads to Wonga, I'm not "running a business" in the traditional sense am I? I'm doing my current job, I'm seo'ing the site.


I don't honestly believe you could show me a single person who wouldn't modify slightly how they work, for a 20+ multiple pay rise, just because "they like their old job". The new one is basically the same thing

If anyone is telling you that, sorry but in 99.99% of times they're a liar.

[KFC]

Just clicked on your profile and I see you work for an SEO company, that explains your posts here then

[jammy_basturd]

KFC said:

You are still completely failing to understand this.

If I set up a website to funnel payday leads to Wonga, I'm not "running a business" in the traditional sense am I? I'm doing my current job, I'm seo'ing the site.


I don't honestly believe you could show me a single person who wouldn't modify slightly how they work, for a 20+ multiple pay rise, just because "they like their old job". The new one is basically the same thing

If anyone is telling you that, sorry but in 99.99% of times they're a liar.

So you're saying anyone doing SEO could earn £400-500k a year just by switching to affl. marketing?

And being in charge of bringing in your own salary is nothing like earning a salary at a company!

[hotchy]

KFC said:

You are still completely failing to understand this.

If I set up a website to funnel payday leads to Wonga, I'm not "running a business" in the traditional sense am I? I'm doing my current job, I'm seo'ing the site.


I don't honestly believe you could show me a single person who wouldn't modify slightly how they work, for a 20+ multiple pay rise, just because "they like their old job". The new one is basically the same thing

If anyone is telling you that, sorry but in 99.99% of times they're a liar.

Nah i enjoy waking up at 5am, driving my rust bucket and working for peanuts...

so what iv understood from you is your basically a small time "comopare the meerkat" type business that makes more money than ill ever see.. i knew i done the wrong uni course lol.

[jammy_basturd]

hotchy said:

Nah i enjoy waking up at 5am, driving my rust bucket and working for peanuts...

so what iv understood from you is your basically a small time "comopare the meerkat" type business that makes more money than ill ever see.. i knew i done the wrong uni course lol.

Basically, what KFC is saying is that it's a piece of piss to make 6 figure sums from affl. marketing and that anyone with a year or two of SEO experience could do it.

[CrouchingWayne]

I think he's suggesting a great SEO professional would run a series of their own sites making money from their own sites/leads, while the ones without the ability to do so (i.e. less SEO or marketing ability/skill) would instead try and sell their services to others.

I can see his point - reference my post above. A lot of these "expert" blogs seem to be trying to monetise those looking to get rich quick.

[KFC]

jammy_basturd said:

So you're saying anyone doing SEO could earn £400-500k a year just by switching to affl. marketing?

If they're genuinely good at it, sure. If they're not then they best just stick to selling it to other people.

jammy_basturd said:

And being in charge of bringing in your own salary is nothing like earning a salary at a company!

In SEO, there is very little difference. Lets say I'm working on my own with KFCloans.com. I sell all my traffic to wonga, they pay me per lead. You're working for JammyLtd.co.uk as the in-house seo. You get £3k a month, maybe a bonus on top. We're basically in the same boat - if we make a complete arse of the seo over the next few months, I won't generate any leads and Wonga will owe me nothing. You'll get fired. We'll both have arrived there by slightly different routes, but the end result is we're both earning nothing. Sure it might take longer for it to get to that result for you if they need to make you redundant rather than fire you (depending on what you've done that was so bad). But in real world terms I'm going to be the one with the job security. Since if you're earning mid 6 figures you should have a significant amount of savings to see you through lean periods. Someone working for £30k and having mortgage, car, wife etc isn't likely to be able to just say "i'm not going to find a job till next year". The payday affiliate likely could.

jammy_basturd said:

Basically, what KFC is saying is that it's a piece of piss to make 6 figure sums from affl. marketing and that anyone with a year or two of SEO experience could do it.

I'm saying if you're good at SEO , a 6 figure income from affiliate marketing is easy. If you're somewhere between st and average at seo you can make a reasonable living from it, selling it to other people.

[KFC]

CrouchingWayne said:

I think he's suggesting a great SEO professional would run a series of their own sites making money from their own sites/leads, while the ones without the ability to do so (i.e. less SEO or marketing ability/skill) would instead try and sell their services to others.

I can see his point - reference my post above. A lot of these "expert" blogs seem to be trying to monetise those looking to get rich quick.

Thanks, thats exactly correct.

The only problem with that is some self proclaimed seo experts ego won't let them admit they don't have the skills to do it. So they come up with excuses like "i don't really like the idea of doing that, you can keep your 20x pay increase"

[Hoofy]

Wait up. So I could start a small business called HoofySEO, charge a number of plumbers £300pm each, wait until they complain, then bin the burner phone, start up HoogySEO, charge different plumbers £300pm each, wait until they complain, then bin the burner phone, start up HoohySEO, charge different plumbers still...