Done with SEO/IM game - Building a Brand

[eqalias]

Hi everyone,
I read the book last year and it had a remarkable impact on me. I have dabbled in just about every SEO/IM/PPC adventure out there and while I had some success, it just turned into another job. Trying to hustle 15 sites with updated content that fit's Goog's 'rules' has been a hassle. I never cared for PPC too much and frankly, didn't do very well because of it. I even looked into blackhat (which is very interesting, btw) but it's not something that excites me. So, I've left it all behind and giving a solid go at what I have taken away from MJ's creed: build a brand and give people something they want.
Now granted, it's not an exact fit of his teachings because:
1. It's something I have a big interest in (which isn't necessarily bad but I know it's based on a selfish decision)
2. It likely wont make me a millionaire (but I think I have an honest shot at low 6-digits per year eventually)
I got to thinking of what I would do with myself if I met my financial goals at the old age of 42 and was free to do what I want. I know that the bulk of my day would be spent in my big, custom garage working on my dream cars and running a website related to my car niche. Honestly, that's the main reason I'd want to be 'rich' in the first place; to fund that goal.
Well I figured I might as well get started now (actually I did last week). The general niche is large enough that there are 350,000+ local searches per month for the generic keyword, and it can be sub-keyed down into thousands of terms, so I know the interest is out there (just going to car shows and talking to people confirms that though). Other then girls, it's been my favorite subject since I was 14 years old so I'm very excited.
As far as building a brand, the site has begun as a generic 'blog' format that gives people insight and information about the niche, spun with my own perspective. My plan is to build the website and add content for the next several months, I don't really want to worry about monetization until next year. There are thousands if related products I can push, sell or produce outright as I go, so I know that once the site builds traffic I'll have a way to capitalize on it with information that people can hopefully find informative and useful.
I want these to be my main objectives:
- useful content
- a site that people can trust, even if they don't always agree with my assessment
Well, that sums up my long overdue intro. I really don't have much to add to this thread other then the same advice everyone else gives: 'just do your legwork and try something'.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Funny, I just got an email today from someone totally disgusted with the affiliate marketing game -- I guess Google just erased his entire business with one change.

Welcome aboard.

 

[travisl]

Hey eqalias,

This is very interesting, and congratulations on making that decision.

From one internet marketer to another can I ask you this

If you have made the decision to wait to monetize until next year, will you at least be building an email list, social following, and return readers base? Also what are the motives of you waiting to monetize? Is it just because you want for first readers to feel like they trust you and that you're not trying to push anything on them? Or do you also have other motives.

Thanks and I hope this will be successful for you!

 

[Thriftypreneur]

Funny, I just got an email today from someone totally disgusted with the affiliate marketing game -- I guess Google just erased his entire business with one change.

Welcome aboard.

Why people continue to build around Google (or refuse to diversify) will always be lost on me. I understand that Google is the biggest kid on the playground, with the most candy (traffic), but when one algorithm shift can directly have a massive impact on your income, or wipe it out altogether, that's just not smart business.

Seeing these kinds of stories is saddening, because they're just so, so common to hear.

 

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[goodfella]

google is really in favour of brands nowadays but they have made it really hard for seo's to game the algorithm. Probably not the best time to be in the seo/im business because you honestly have so little control.

 

[eqalias]

If you have made the decision to wait to monetize until next year, will you at least be building an email list, social following, and return readers base? Also what are the motives of you waiting to monetize? Is it just because you want for first readers to feel like they trust you and that you're not trying to push anything on them? Or do you also have other motives.

Hi,
It's not so much a firm decision to wait on monetizing, it's just that I want to concentrate on building as much high quality content as possible before pushing forward with how it will make money (I have a lot of ideas I want to try so we'll see). And yes, the readers trust is a huge priority since I want the site to be listed for the long haul. The sites only 9 days old and I have 24 indexed posts, with 1 of those posts having 4 Facebook likes already (which I thought was interesting since I've done nothing to advertise the site at all). To me it's a good sign; build something my niche will find valuable and go from there. But seriously, I'll see how's it's shaping up towards the end of the year and evaluate from there.

 

[Mr Cracker]

The best of luck to you eqalias.

Building a brand is the best bet you can make, something that really sets you apart from others and actually makes people feel something good about your business. In my opinion if you provide value you are in miracle territory.

As a side note... I'm getting into the real estate business now, coded /designed my site from scratch. It's clean different and nice. Haven't launched it yet. I'm building a Brand, providing value.
I'm focusing on a local market for now but I need to do SEO first because I want to get most of my traffic from Google. Can you point me in the right direction please?

Thanks I appreciate it and good luck to you all.

EDIT : I just wanted to say I'm focusing on SEO for now to get my first customers because I don't really have enough money to advertise and get the word out. After I get my first customers I won't care much about SEO because if I provide value they will share their experience with others.

 

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[eqalias]

I'm focusing on a local market for now but I need to do SEO first because I want to get most of my traffic from Google. Can you point me in the right direction please?

I think your best bet would be to concentrate your keywords based on your location (Reno being an example) :
Reno foreclosures
Reno home values
Buy a foreclosure in Reno
Whats the home values in Reno like?

If I was doing what you're doing, that's the route I would take. Long tail keywords with you market will probably be your best friend. Make them flow naturally in your text. The more you mention what you do and where you do it, the easier time the search engines will categorize your site.
Also, any images you put on your website make sure you name them something along the lines of your keyword, and always use the keyword in the 'alt' text.
i.e 'reno_refinanced_home.png' alt= refinance reno home
You would not believe the amount of traffic I get from Google Images and you wouldn't believe the amount of people who name their images '0031masm0000642.jpg' or leave them at the default. Some of them convert, some don't. Just remember there's a thousand SEO or blackhat experts out there spamming the crap out of everything, so a new site needs all the optimization it can get.

 

[Mr Cracker]

I think your best bet would be to concentrate your keywords based on your location (Reno being an example) :
Reno foreclosures
Reno home values
Buy a foreclosure in Reno
Whats the home values in Reno like?

If I was doing what you're doing, that's the route I would take. Long tail keywords with you market will probably be your best friend. Make them flow naturally in your text. The more you mention what you do and where you do it, the easier time the search engines will categorize your site.
Also, any images you put on your website make sure you name them something along the lines of your keyword, and always use the keyword in the 'alt' text.
i.e 'reno_refinanced_home.png' alt= refinance reno home
You would not believe the amount of traffic I get from Google Images and you wouldn't believe the amount of people who name their images '0031masm0000642.jpg' or leave them at the default. Some of them convert, some don't. Just remember there's a thousand SEO or blackhat experts out there spamming the crap out of everything, so a new site needs all the optimization it can get.

I really really appreciate your help on this. I can code and design a site but I've never done SEO. If you need help with anything let me know.

Oh one last question, how do I know what keywords to target?

Thanks

 

[mlux]

Funny, I just got an email today from someone totally disgusted with the affiliate marketing game -- I guess Google just erased his entire business with one change.

Welcome to 2009. In 2008 I spent a little bit north of $250,000 on Adwords. In 2009 Google banned me because I was sending the traffic to high quality websites full of original content, but largely built around affiliate links. (Shoes were my niche. I was one of Zappos biggest affiliates for a few years there.)

I wasn't the only one this happened to. Google brought the ban hammer down on tons of affiliate marketers at the same time, some much bigger than me. (Imagine being able to tell dozens of $250,000 a year customers to go pound sand.)

The punchline, of course, was that Google was banning affiliate marketers because a) they were themselves affiliates of Zappos and other companies, and were showing their affiliate links in the google search results, above the adwords and b) were in the process of building their own affiliate marketing network, buying up some of the smaller players and roping in some decent brands.

Fast forward four years, and now this month Google is shutting down their Google Affiliate Network, once again screwing affiliate marketers big time.

I'm glad to say that I am not among their number.

 

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[eqalias]

I really really appreciate your help on this. I can code and design a site but I've never done SEO. If you need help with anything let me know.

Oh one last question, how do I know what keywords to target?

Thanks

Sorry I'm slow on the draw, most of my time is either being at work or adding content to the site. The keywords you go after would depend on the type of real estate you are in:
- flipping
- wholesale
- rentals
- rehabs
(make it about your local market)
etc (I only know enough about RE to make a fool of myself but you get the idea). I think if you start adding 'blog' type content (your thoughts, ideas, where your local market is headed, examples, etc) you will start picking up keywords you never even thought about. Also, I forgot to say that I would highly recommend starting a Youtube channel and make a couple high quality, short videos a week. In real estate, putting yourself out there would greatly promote you and your brand, as well as get you traffic from Youtube itself based on the keywords in the title and description. Make it interesting and entertaining and you will start to see the traffic come in. I'm doing similar. My site been up 2 weeks today and I'm amazed at the traffic trickling in already.
Overall I wouldn't worry to much about the keywords yet. Get your site into Google Webmaster/Analytics (it's free and really helps index your site quicker) and you will start seeing what keywords people are finding you with, and what keywords to add to your site.

 

[Daniel A]

This is pretty saddening. Internet/Affiliate marketing could just be a short term hustle then huh? I'm still new to it and I am learning more and more but I have heard these stories from others before and it does really seem like there is limited control, and that's not good...

 

[Mr Cracker]

Sq

Sorry I'm slow on the draw, most of my time is either being at work or adding content to the site. The keywords you go after would depend on the type of real estate you are in:
- flipping
- wholesale
- rentals
- rehabs
(make it about your local market)
etc (I only know enough about RE to make a fool of myself but you get the idea). I think if you start adding 'blog' type content (your thoughts, ideas, where your local market is headed, examples, etc) you will start picking up keywords you never even thought about. Also, I forgot to say that I would highly recommend starting a Youtube channel and make a couple high quality, short videos a week. In real estate, putting yourself out there would greatly promote you and your brand, as well as get you traffic from Youtube itself based on the keywords in the title and description. Make it interesting and entertaining and you will start to see the traffic come in. I'm doing similar. My site been up 2 weeks today and I'm amazed at the traffic trickling in already.
Overall I wouldn't worry to much about the keywords yet. Get your site into Google Webmaster/Analytics (it's free and really helps index your site quicker) and you will start seeing what keywords people are finding you with, and what keywords to add to your site.

Thanks for all the valuable info, I appreciate it. Glad your site is generating good traffic. So back to the topic, do you know a good resource / way to start learning IM? Is it worth learning? What makes it another job or fastlane?

 

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[Lexauton]

I haven't even created my own introductory thread yet, but I just wanted to write quick a greeting and thanks to Eqalias for throwing out some very helpful tips in his own intro thread, haha. of Course Mr.Cracker asked some great questions too.

Best of luck with your endeavors, EQ'-- I'm sure those years in IM will serve you and your niche richly.

 

[Mr Cracker]

thanks to Eqalias for throwing out some very helpful tips in his own intro thread, haha. of Course Mr.Cracker asked some great questions too.

He's probably tired of my questions by now lol