SEO Frustration...

[Sethnic]

Hi.

So I have built a site around a theme, provided actionable content around the theme. I did some basic keyword research. Did some neat PHP programming (self-taught). Trying to help the visitor solve a problem. Site has been online for a couple of years.

But my site has no rank for those keywords. No one comes through them.

Since it's an affiliate site, I found repeatedly that PPC does not make economic sense. PPC clickers are surfers, and the lead conversion almost never covers the cost of the ads.

So I am now converting to the Dan Sullivan based "Who Not How" approach and basically saying "I don't care to know how to do SEO anymore, I'm the wrong person to do it."

The problem has become that all the professional SEO companies I've seen are not built for small affiliate sites, where the margins are small and someone else handles the deliverables. Some don't even answer inquiries.

So my question is, where can I find a Who that will work to grow a small affiliate site and earn their keep by getting it profitable for me? Is it a Fiverr thing? Seems a bit untrustworthy. Ideas welcome.

 

[Graybeard]

Affiliate sites are just middlemen --that is how *Google* sees them anyway.

Affiliate payouts are not enough (in many cases) for PPC to work --especially now with adwords since they changed their name to Google ads and raised the bid price.

Search engines, particularly Google, have become the new "affiliate" that demands payment in advance (ergo: PPC).

So, why help your competitor?

All is not lost --but just developing content towards an affiliate link click may not work.

So, I think you will only find snake-oil salesmen to answer your question. You are looking for the wrong answers IMHO. If you want to try that route --insist on proof and talk to that person's/entity's real clients and see some real numbers.

 

[Honeybadger]

It's good to ask these questions
Seems like you're frustrated, but you haven't given up
That's good, quitters never win & winners never quit (Vince Lombardi)
I'll answer your questions one-by-one

So I have built a site around a theme, provided actionable content around the theme. I did some basic keyword research. Did some neat PHP programming (self-taught). Trying to help the visitor solve a problem. Site has been online for a couple of years.

• How often do you update your site?
• Are you tracking your Google rankings vs your competitors?
• How do you compare (technically) to the top 5 sites for each of your top 10 keywords?
• Is your site the fastest? most smartphone friendly? best-optimized? best answer?

But my site has no rank for those keywords. No one comes through them.

The Google Algorithm is a mathematical formula, which as I understand it (could be wrong), scores indexed content against multiple sites (in a fraction of a second) then delivers the results it considers to be most relevant to a user's search, simply put, Google doesn't consider your web pages to be the most relevant when compared to your competitors - to find out why you need to perform competitor analysis

Since it's an affiliate site, I found repeatedly that PPC does not make economic sense. PPC clickers are surfers, and the lead conversion almost never covers the cost of the ads.

I know next to nothing about PPC
But organic and paid visitors (often) end up on the same web page
Not always, depends on the campaign
But both sets of visitors are looking for answers to questions

So I am now converting to the Dan Sullivan based "Who Not How" approach and basically saying "I don't care to know how to do SEO anymore, I'm the wrong person to do it."

I only listen to 2 groups for SEO information

1. Search engine companies
   
2. Search engine software companies

SEO gurus don't interest me
Maybe they have some useful information (?)
I find it better to go direct to the source
SEO is much easier & clearer since Google created the new official SEO site -->
developers.google.com/search
Just follow the guidelines (not that hard really)

The problem has become that all the professional SEO companies I've seen are not built for small affiliate sites, where the margins are small and someone else handles the deliverables. Some don't even answer inquiries.

Professional SEO companies?
What does "professional" mean?
dictionary.com/browse/professional
Adjective, "following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain"
That means they make enough money (with your money) to pay bills by specializing in something
Very rarely does it mean hard business results
To get business results they need to understand your business
Very few SEO companies that can actually get business results will go anywhere near the little guy
They want big corporates where the cash is guaranteed, and the product is more mainstream and easier to promote
This is why it's better to in-house your SEO
Do it yourself

So my question is, where can I find a Who that will work to grow a small affiliate site and earn their keep by getting it profitable for me? Is it a Fiverr thing? Seems a bit untrustworthy. Ideas welcome.

I'm not someone who bashes Fiverr
Some people find great value there, others get scammed like a drunken tourist
How about this -->
Spend 1 hour a day on Google Search Central
Do it every week day, Monday thru Friday
After 1 year you have 260 hours of SEO knowledge
Guess who is now an SEO professional?

 

[T J Tutor]

PPC clickers are surfers

I beg to differ!

SEO clickers are the surfers, PPC clickers are highly targeted and if you do your research correctly, target the correct geos and demographics, then clicks become very successful. Hell, that is the reason those of us that buy traffic pay for the traffic.

You need a set of brains on paid traffic. If paid traffic only delivered surfers, do you really think guys like me would be willing to spend $500 to $1000 per day on clicks? Better yet, I know more than a hundred marketers that are spending more than $10k and $20k a day on paid clicks.

So my question is, where can I find a Who that will work to grow a small affiliate site and earn their keep by getting it profitable for me? Is it a Fiverr thing? Seems a bit untrustworthy. Ideas welcome.

If they can do it for themselves, why would they do it for you for less?

 

[T J Tutor]

So, I think you will only find snake-oil salesmen to answer your question. You are looking for the wrong answers IMHO.

^^^^^THIS THIS THIS^^^^^

 

[T J Tutor]

It's good to ask these questions

YES!

Seems like you're frustrated, but you haven't given up
That's good, quitters never win & winners never quit (Vince Lombardi)

He needs a true plan, and it will require learning to do the job before attempting to add a team member to do it IMHO!

I'll answer your questions one-by-one

Because you are always there for the members!

SEO gurus don't interest me

I think maybe Neil Patel has provided some influence on your successes.

 

[Honeybadger]

If paid traffic only delivered surfers, do you really think guys like me would be willing to spend $500 to $1000 per day on clicks? Better yet, in know more than a hundred marketers that are spending more than $10k and $20k a day on paid clicks.

I had no idea these sums were being spent daily on Google Ads !!

 

[T J Tutor]

Since it's an affiliate site, I found repeatedly that PPC does not make economic sense.

Well, it is likely due to your site having the appearance of an affiliate site. The first lesson for anyone building an affiliate site today is to know that Google hates affiliate sites that look like affiliate sites. Make the site about something and use affiliate links sprinkled about the "valuable content", and in banners, that will give way to clicks and conversions.

A friend of mine has a site about pigs. I know, it sounds stupid, until you look at his conversion rates. He has more than 100 pages and more than 400 archived pages. He adds valuable content nearly everyday and most of that is from contributors that are well established in the swine industry. My point is that he earns $8k to $10k a month just from the affiliate links on the site. It is, by all intent and purposes, an affiliate site that Google actually likes because it is a content site in the eyes of Google. This is the part most miss when developing affiliate sites, they need real, generous, and accurate content on a regular basis. Without that, any affiliate site will bomb in a big way these days.

An affiliate needs to emulate what the brand(s) they are promoting actually do on their own sites sometimes.

 

[T J Tutor]

I had no idea these sums were being spent daily on Google Ads !!

Oh yes, there are some affiliate businesses out there spending $20MM a year on ads to earn average 35% net on return! I remember a few years back when Ryan Deiss was interviewed and said his $63MM year was a disappointment to himself!

 

[Honeybadger]

Well, it is likely due to your site having the appearance of an affiliate site. The first lesson for anyone building an affiliate site today is to know that Google hates affiliate sites that look like affiliate sites. Make the site about something and use affiliate links sprinkled about the "valuable content", and in banners, that will give way to clicks and conversions.

A friend of mine has a site about pigs. I know, it sounds stupid, until you look at his conversion rates. He has more than 100 pages and more than 400 archived pages. He adds valuable content nearly everyday and most of that is from contributors that are well established in the swine industry. My point is that he earns $8k to $10k a month just from the affiliate links on the site. It is, by all intent and purposes, an affiliate site that Google actually likes because it is a content site in the eyes of Google. This is the part most miss when developing affiliate sites, they need real, generous, and accurate content on a regular basis. Without that, any affiliate site will bomb in a big way these days.

An affiliate needs to emulate what the brand(s) they are promoting actually do on their own sites sometimes.

This is such a good post
Please can you frame it
--> I update ALL my sites EVERY day
Increases 'returning visitor' metric in Google Analytics
Returning visitors always have higher conversion rate
Value, value, value, commission, value, value, value, value, commission ..

 

[iamb]

Hi.
Site has been online for a couple of years.
But my site has no rank for those keywords. No one comes through them.

Please clarify if you mean your site has been online for 2 years and it's not showing up at all in the SERPS or you mean it's not ranking high up in the SERPs to bring in traffic?

As in not on page #1 position 1-10 for example?

Reason why i ask is because i know countless of affiliate sites ranking high and making a decent income.
I think other members have already mentioned it: the key is to build a "real information business" in your niche.

In other words you need good, useful content for your visitors.

Organic search can be profitable when done right. If you have covered your onsite SEO properly you stand a pretty good chance of ranking.

How high will depend on your content and the numbers of sites linking back to you.

There is no getting around about backlinks, at least from my experience - unless you are leveraging an already powerful and trusted site such as medium.com for your content publishing.

Long story short, you don't need a pro or an agency to sort out your SEO thing. You can do it yourself by following some basic principles.

Sign-up for a free trial of ahref and run a site audit. You will be surprised by little improvements you could make to your site to take it to the next level.

For each of your keyword, look at the top pages and model what they are doing.

Success leaves clues so no need to re-invent the wheel, just improve upon what is already working.

Feel free to ask specific questions you may have on SEO and I will be happy to help.
I am no SEO guru but i think i have learned few things that work for organic search.

 

[Sethnic]

Wow, that's a lot of information you folks have shared. Thanks, and let me elaborate a bit.

My site actually has solid content, not just pages filled with aff links. It's built as an information site with affiliate links to select merchants who provide services that directly relate to the content. Those links are either on a sidebar or at the end of the content. I almost never put up a banner, although I'm considering adding native ads. I hesitate, because that might kill the SEO.

The pages are fairly well optimized, and my Ahrefs backlink score is 29. But the keywords are nowhere. The best one is at beyond 400 on Bing, 260 on Yahoo and nowhere on Google. The main content has been edited a lot of late, and I've added a blog section where I try to put up a new article every week.

So I will certainly do more research to see what the problem could be.. And the question of why someone who is a wiz at SEO would do it for me and not for himself is, at first glance, a strong question. Why would I seek to brainstorm with someone who could then take the idea and do it themself?

But that's just the thing. Some people LOVE doing all that SEO stuff, and some people (me, for example) decidedly do not. Some people love coming up with content ideas and writing copy, and others would much rather do all the geeky things to promote it, schema tags, meta tags, backlinks, etc...

Are most of you folks doing your AFF work solo? And, my thinking is, if you are making good profit from it, then it IS possible! That's why I persevere... but still searching for the push over the ridge, and I think it's a Who, not a How. A Who who comes with the How installed, as it were.

 

[Honeybadger]

If you give the best answer and your site is properly optimized (for users and search engines) then you will rank and get traffic, otherwise you just won't get seen

There are 2 options if you are serious about search rankings

1. Get serious yourself, even if you don't enjoy it (makes money)
   
2. Pay a serious person to do it for you (if it's financially viable for you)

Have you read, listed and applied all of Google Webmaster Guidelines?

Sorry alot of people complain about Google rankings, but they haven't really gone beyond the surface of what is required to rank high enough on Google (an other SE's) to get enough traffic that converts into clicks & commissions, SEO requires meticulous attention to detail, the list of things you can do to optimize your content goes on and on ..

 

[Graybeard]

Who can you afford is the real question?
People that are good are working for major websites or clients with money.

The information is out there but the "secret magic sauce" varies with the targets and really changes with time IMHO. Today's hero is tomorrow's shit-head.
Seen this happen many times over.​

 

[Sethnic]

Thanks. This just in .. I did engage a Fiverr SEO-pert and he just sent, 20 mins ago, me a whopping amount of information. So I'll digest it all, and see where we're at. It may be the niche, and it just may be a matter of time for things to grow. I do understand that sticky is important, so I'm going to add a video to the home page..
When you've put SO much effort in, you don't want to roll over so fast. I'll create content in other niches as well, but for now this is my "affiliate university."

 

[Honeybadger]

Thanks. This just in .. I did engage a Fiverr SEO-pert and he just sent, 20 mins ago, me a whopping amount of information. So I'll digest it all, and see where we're at. It may be the niche, and it just may be a matter of time for things to grow. I do understand that sticky is important, so I'm going to add a video to the home page..
When you've put SO much effort in, you don't want to roll over so fast. I'll create content in other niches as well, but for now this is my "affiliate university."

Golden Tip --> If you want to rank on Google, get your information direct from Google

 

[T J Tutor]

Golden Tip --> If you want to rank on Google, get your information direct from Google

WHAT?????

You mean, give them what they want, and they will gladly give you what you want?

WOW, who would have thought!?

I think we should make it harder, you know, like doing it BlackHat!

 

[Sethnic]

WHAT?????

You mean, give them what they want, and they will gladly give you what you want?

WOW, who would have thought!?

I think we should make it harder, you know, like doing it BlackHat!

So going out to the yard and sacrificing a hot dog to the light of the full moon won't help?

 

[Honeybadger]

So going out to the yard and sacrificing a hot dog to the light of the full moon won't help?

It will help if 5,000 users per month are searching for "what's the best food to sacrifice to the light of the full moon?"

 

[T J Tutor]

So going out to the yard and sacrificing a hot dog to the light of the full moon won't help?

Oh my yes, but don't forget the hot dog moonlight dance while making the sacrifice!

 

[Honeybadger]

Ignore Google Webmaster Guidelines
Just watch Hot Dog Dance TV

 

[Honeybadger]

@Sethnic
Did you sacrifice your hotdog to the light of the full moon on Saturday?