The Future of SEO and Making Money Online
Another random post by yours truly — the laziest blog poster online. Sorry, I’ve really let this blog go the past year. To be honest, I’ve created an alter ego writing articles on a different internet marketing blog the past while — so I suppose all the posts I should have put on this site have been going there. But once in a while, that old nostalgia comes back to me and I’ll throw something on this blog. This is one of those posts.
Google and Panda
To make money online, you need to keep evolving your strategies. I’ve learned this over the three years I’ve been doing this. If you don’t change your strategy, you are going to fail online. Sometimes, you need to radically shift the way of doing things.
I first started out gaming the search engines to make easy money. It was easy to spit out a bunch of crap and make some quick money. But that’s not really the case anymore (you can do it, but you’re sites don’t stick around for long). Gaming the SERPs has become harder and harder though, as the the years have gone by. In fact, I would posit that it’s in fact easier to just create solid websites that offer a lot of value to the searcher and spend time “networking” to build legit links. If you do it the right way (build a legit site, network for legit links, do proper online marketing as opposed to SEO trickery), your work will stick around and you can keep building on it. Eventually, you WILL make money.
The Panda updates have been a real nightmare for many webmasters, SEO’s, and internet marketers.
Let’s see, there’s been
- Panda 1 — VERY bad for UGC and Webmasters
- Panda 2 — BAD for smaller websites (longer tail searches)
- Panda 2.1 — More Bad for Webmasters
- Panda 2.2 — Bad again
- Panda 2.3 — Reports of webmasters regaining some of lost panda ranking (an actual positive change)
I think the average internet market has felt the effects of the Panda updates — some have been wiped out, some have been hurt only a little, and some a lot. A few have gained through the Pandas (and likely only those who have really built a solid foundation from the start). There have been a ton of legit sites penalized as well though, so I don’t want to say only good sites have made it through the Panda unscathed — there have been a lot of false positives hit by the Panda too.
Most of these Panda updates are perpetuating the Brandspam that we are all getting familiar with. Large brand names (Amazon, Wikipedia, etc) being given blind authority to rank for anything. It was bad before the Pandas but it’s worse now. Google assumes that Brand = Trust. To some degree, this may be accurate — brand names have more money and will throw more money into online marketing. The quality of the information/products *may* be higher. I would like to say Google will change this in the future, but I don’t see this going away. The solution for the little guy is to “brand” yourself as well. You don’t have to have to be a corporation or have a XXXXXX budget to create a brand. There are some things YOU, the small guy, can do to mimic the brand signals over time so Google things YOU are a brand too. Mind you, it takes time. Perhaps I’ll have a post about this in the future.
My whole theory on all the Panda updates is that the early panda’s went after sites that were dominating the single and two word keywords (the mega traffic terms), while some of the later Panda updated targeted the longer tail rankings (which is why some smaller sites/mini sites, were effected since these types of sites usually target longer tails).
Here’s the bottom line with Google: they are not your friend, especially if you are making your sole income. What’s best for Google is not always best for webmasters. If you want to play this game called Making Money Online, you’ve got to work within those constraints.
The Death of The Informational Site?
Informational types sites, I believe, have a shelf-life. Or at least, the usual small niche sites you see peppering the web have a shelf life. Smallish sites making money from adsense/hawking affiliate products might be make something now, but in 3 years, in 5 years, in 10 years? I think not. The direction of Search seems to be favoring Brands and large scale sites, and expert niche sites. Small sites are getting pushed out.
My feeling is that you have to go big or go home now. You are either going to be an Ant or an Elephant but not in between. And it’s the ants that get crushed by the elephants.
Sorry, the 20 page site that you update three times a year won’t be outranking a dedicated niche-authority sites with daily (insightful) posts. And as we move forward the next few years, it’s GOING to take an niche site that offers the best information online, frequent updates, tons of real articles about the topic, and an active community who end up ranking on the front page for that niche term. That’s the direction we are going. If you are going to make an information site, it’s got to be big, it’s got to offer real value, and it needs to be maintained.
Affiliate Only Sites = No NO
I’ve noticed there seems to be a bit of a craze with some people who have been switching from Adsense mini sites to Amazon mini sites; the reason being, that Adsense is more dangerous and unstable than Amazon. Yes, having Amazon ONLY sites is safer than having adsense because you are not on the “map” as much to Google. But that doesn’t mean you are safe — either form one of the thousands of outsourced Indians working for Google who manually inspect websites. You are also not safe from the various big search updates that come along seemingly every month or two now. They WILL/ARE weeding out affiliate sites from the index.
Because of this, I feel that really pushing the heavy affiliate site model is NOT the way to make a stable income online. You might make an income, now, (perhaps a LOT of income) but chances are you won’t be keeping that income in the future.
Case in point. I had an affiliate site ranking for a single keyword health term. The site was getting about 1500 uniques per day. Two days ago, Google dedindexed the site out of the blue. I had about 30 posts on the site. The theme was pretty plain (I would even say, a bit ugly and certainly not very pretty). The information was great, the posts were huge (5000 word ones), but I was VERY aggressive with affiliate links through the posts and site. Looks like one of my competitors reported the site (you get that if you start ranking high for competative single work terms) or Google manually inspects sites ranking for competitive terms to make sure they qualify for that position. Whatever the case, it was deindexed. I now have to change the theme, strip out all the affiliate links and sales stuff, add a few more posts, and beg google for a re-inclusion with a sob story.
That might scare some of you people who make money tricking the search engines, small posts ONLY to hawk affiliate products, and create (fugly) blogs with the sole purpose of funneling as many clicks to Amazon, but this sort of model is NOT the way to make a long term income. Ask yourself this: does my sites provide real value to the searcher or is it simply a funnel to some affiliate product. If the answer is the later, your site might not be sticking around for the long term. YOU WILL LOSE YOUR SITE EVENTUALLY. I’m not just speaking out of my ass here either — it’s happened to me multiple times.
I’m not saying don’t throw on affiliate links on your site or don’t make a site with no intention of making money. We all want to make money. But if you are going to go the affiliate route, you need to REALLY strike a fine balance between affiliate hawking and legit content. To keep an affiliate site that getting a good amount of traffic in the index/ranking, you are going to have to offer EXTRA good content and have a LOT of content that’s DOES NOT CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS.
Google (rightly) views affiliate/review sites with a lot of suspicion because:
1. Affiliate sites often create one more level between the searcher and the product they are looking for anyways
2. Affiliate sites usually don’t provide real information (it’s biased — all focused on getting a click or sale)
If you are going to go the route of an all out “affiliate” site, you may be better off just creating an eCommerce store directly — certainly this seems to be what Google prefers anyways. Ecommerce sites are legit service-based sites. Affiliate sites are parasites (according to google).
Some food for thought anyways.
Value Matters
The key is VALUE right now. The web is very quickly mirroring the real world. The name of the game is NOT SEO, but good marketing. If you can market creatively both online and offline, you can attract interest, visitors, links, and ultimately, money. The new approach is to set up a REAL business online. Sell products directly (not affiliate marketing) offering something that your competition does not or set yourself up as a market/niche expert. For some of you who have some solid sites up and running and have used your time to test out markets, you are in a good position to set up a real business online. Others who are churning out crap and spamming automated links in order to rank — you won’t be around for long. My recommendation is to approach creating a website like you would setting up a real world online business. If your approach is to set up a wordpress blog, outsource 10 articles from the Philippines, run some Article Marketing program, comment spam, and profile spam, you won’t be making any real money in this game anymore.
Do backlinks matter? Of course they do! I really don’t see any way around the backlink issue — they will always be the most relevant (and important) ranking factor. But social factors are going to be a big part of ranking in the future. The quality of the backlinks will be even more important. It’s been getting harder and harder to game google with automated links and this is no doubt only going to become harder in the future as the search engines get smarter and smarter. Having a “clean” backlink profile will become even more important that it is. Why build your empire on sand — and building crappy links IS building your empire on sand.
One issue with gaming the serps is that if you do manage to game your way to the top for some competitive keywords, your competition won’t have any qualms about going through your backlink profile and reporting anything suspicious to the Google spam team. At that point, it’s only a matter of time before your site either gets penalized or deindexed. This had actually happened to me a few times.
Personal Stuff
I’m about a week away from leaving Canada and moving abroad. I’ve been talking about this for a while, but it’s finally going to happen. I’ll be living in Thailand and Bali and making various forays through South East Asia, Nepal, and Tibet over the next year or two. Yes, I will still be working online while traveling.
For those who are interested, I’ll send a link to my personal landscape photography site so you can keep track of my pictures/journey. No doubt I’ll pop on this blog once in a while when the (rare) mood strikes me.
Work hard guys and make money online.
Ben
Hey Ben,
I’d love to see more of your amazing photos! Please send me the link to your photography site.
Cheers
K
I miss you already Ben 🙁 I probably speak for alot of us when I say you’ve really helped me out with showing how the online world works. You’re also super motivational and I’m gonna try to keep working at my sites until I can quit my day job (and beyond!) Thanks to you I still make little monthly challenges for myself, like 100 posts on my site in one month lol. Anyway thanks a bunch for everything once again, hope you have a blast abroad in Asia 🙂
Can you send the link to the other internet marketing blog you’ve been posting to?
Thanks,
Staz
Glad you’ve found my blog useful! It’s been a pretty fun ride with this blog. The landscape has changed quite a bit with the search engines, but there is still money to be made for sure, especially if you’re committed for the long haul!
I’ve been keeping my alter site in the lowdown, but since you ask, here it is: authorityincome.com. Just don’t give out my identity 😉
Ben, I love your photos and would like a link to your photo blog too. I hope you enjoy your travels 😀
I would really love a link to your personal blog – I am planning to head out to South East Asia too so would be great to keep up with what you’re doing. Sounds exciting!
Really food to see a post pop up here again, Ben. Even better when it’s a post I can agree with 100%. I wonder how many people will read it and actually understand what you said.
I still get a lot of queries from people asking questions like, “Are 15 pages enough to be an authority site?”, or, because I live in the Philippines, all sorts of questions about how much they should pay their Philippine spam link mavens, etc.
Personally, I love Panda. It’s weeded out tons of people who ‘don’t get it” and my income has shot up ever since.
Great on seeing the light and leaving North America. I abandoned the USA treadmill five years ago and it’s the best move I ever made. If I wasn’t “married into” the Philippines I’d probably be living in Thailand myself … I lived there two years and it still tugs at my heartstrings daily.
Give me a shout if you ever decide to take a look at the Philippines. Frankly it’s a much more friendly place to live, visa and tax-wise, but Thailand gets the good publicity. Be well
Nice to hear from you, Ben! I though you were in some kind of hibernation or something! 🙂
Wonderful photos, by the way!
Ben, I would like to see your personal landscape photography site, could you send me the link?
FABU pix, as usual, Ben, and stellar insights, as well. I’d love the link to your personal landscape photography site — you have such a pure and distinct TALENT, and I have no doubt you’ll find a way to support yourself with this passion someday.
Safe travels to you!
Nice to see a new post on here, very insightful as usual. I’d love to have the link to your photo and travel blog.
You’re about to live my dream, and why I’m trying to make a full time income online. Live and travel abroad, taking photos. Congrats on finally making the move.
Pete
I bought AMR from your backlinkreview link. i am facing some problem with decapthcher and deathby captcha. Looks like sites without captcha is signing up.
Do you think UAV is full waste of time? How can we do affiliate marketing by big content site?
Hey Rahul,
Download the beta AMR version from their forum – works with the de-captchers…
New beta version from the forums will fix that.
Hey Ben how are you. I have been following your blog for some time now, and sort of see you as an authority figure in this crazy world of Internet marketing.
Just a quick question here for you and i would really love to hear what you have to say about it. I found this other blog recently it is nichepursuits or something ran by a guy named Spencer. He is making like 15k a month with Adsense. Now, the kicker here is that he is making this 15k using small niche websites. He says he has around 200 or so of these small niche websites.
Now i read your post about small niche websites ages ago when i first got into this stuff. I read that all of your portfolio was de-indexed and what not. Now, from what i understand the niche websites you created were obviously made for adsense. I believe you said something like you were creating content simply to get the reader to click on an ad to make money.
So, would is be safe to assume that these websites didn’t really offer any value to the readers? This would especially be true in this day and age with Google trying to shift so much emphasis on quality content. The guy over at the nichepursuits is obviously using small, targeted niche websites for his 15k a month income. The difference here, is that these small niche websites he created actually offer quality content for the reader.
I believe he builds the websites with the sole purpose to please the searcher, which is inevitably what Google wants, and puts a lot of work into these smaller sites. He says he has been doing this for around 5 or six years now with no problems. He says he had a huge amount of sites de-indexed when he was first starting but only because his sites were hacked and loaded with malicious code.
Well this is turning out to be much longer than i thought it was going to be, lol. Anyway! What i am trying to ask here is what are your insights on building niche websites that actually offer great quality content. Personally, i dont see anything wrong with making 100 small, targeted niche websites so long as they are built up with quality content that really helps the searcher. I mean like real quality content that is easy to read, relevant pictures, the whole nine yards right.
What would be your insight if for example i were to start building small niche sites monetized with adsense, say i ended up with 100 or so. Do you believe they would be fine as long as they really helped the searcher. What i am getting at here is what do you think about going the niche website route using adsense like this guy has, so long as you are really providing content that is quality and helps the user for the keyword the niche site is targeting.
This guy has been doing this niche site thing for years, but he has only created quality niche websites from the start. Seemingly he has had zero problems using this method. It is safe to say that his adsense account has probably had people from google looking into it. I couldn’t imagine anyone making 15k a month through adsense for years upon years without getting their sites looked into at all.
So what are your thoughts Ben i would love to hear your take on the situation. I am especially interested in your thoughts currently since it seems as if you are heading into the whole “give the searcher quality content that they can use” scene. It seems like your really shifting towards adding real quality content to the web.
The small niche websites im talking about are by no means the kind of stuff you see constantly in search today. I mean like a genuine helpful small niche website that is created for the searcher with monetization kind of as an afterthought. Im not saying a site created with no intention to make money, because that is really why we are all in this business after all right? I mean a quality niche website that is created with the searcher in mind as the first thought.
Anyway, i probably used the word quality about 8000 times in those last few paragraphs. I apologize if this was too much for you to read! Haha, anyway, just to summarize the final question, what are your thoughts regarding say a large portfolio of niche websites that are really made for the user experience, monetized with adsense.
Big comment!
I personally don’t believe you can have 100 quality “small” niche sites. You simply can’t maintain that many. The issue these days is that Google is getting stricter and stricter in what they define as quality content. As the web gets more competitive, it’s the sites with the best content, the best links (which just might come because the site offers a better experience than other sites) that are filtering to the top.
I did start out with micro sites, but I firmly believe that’s a model with a time limit. Why have 100 sites when you can have one, two, or three that make just as much money? You simply can’t maintain 100 sites to any level of quality without have a fleet of people taking care of those sites for you.
If by niche site you mean a 5 to 10 pager that you set and forget, then NO, this is not a good model to pursue. Why? Because you are far better off putting that vast amount of time into a couple sites that can be stellar sites than 100’s of small time mediocre ones with minimal content.
I am in no way saying you can’t make a living (or a lot of money) with 100’s of micro sites. I just don’t feel it’s a sustainable model for the future. Each Google update, micro type sites get smoked. Do you really want to base your future on a risky model?
Hey Ben,
Thanks for your reply! Since i wrote this comment to you i have sort of had a new vision. I have left the mindset of creating website simply for a specific monetization method like adsense or amazon. I am now in the mindset of just focusing on creating quality, helpful content for the searcher.
My new plan is to just start up a couple of sites, and work on them as i can to make them quality, useful, websites. Since they are all going to be new websites i expect at some point many of them might go into the place we dare not speak of! (haha)
My current goal is to end up with around 10 or so high quality useful websites. I want to monetize these websites with adsense. Obviously 10 websites is quite a lot for one person but it will help me because if one of them goes in the toilet, or sandbox, or whatever for awhile i have others to focus my attention on.
It is really helpful for me to work on 10 sites because it gives me a huge amounts of diversity not just in niche selection, but in my mind to keep my going. I will start a website, work on one until it has a decent amount of quality content, then begin another. I want to spread all of my efforts out across all of my sites.
I have discarded the whole idea of 100s of niche sites because as you said in your reply, it is highly unlikely i will be able to make so many websites that arnt just half-assed medicore quality websites.
Im actually really excited, it is kind of sad that it seems as if the last 8 months to a year i have been in a very bad mindset. I was always thinking about the money and not about creating quality websites that offer real value that WILL last the test of time, or atleast longer than the spam websites would.
I want to try to outsource as much as i can, when i say outsource i mean the high quality 20$ an article shit from american copywriting websites. I believe you said something about starting some authority websites awhile back, how is that going for you? What do you make the bulk of your income from these days if you dont mind me asking?
Anyway, another biggie comment here for you! Haha. So what are your thoughts about my new gameplan. I want to get as much insight as i can from someone who has been playing this game for much longer than me. Hope you are having fun with life and doing what you really love with all your online income.
Kenny R.
You’ll find with your online stuff the 80 / 20 rule applies — 20 percent of your stuff will make 80 percent of your earnings. It works the same for me — a handful of sites makes 80 percent of my income with the rest spread out with the 80. I may write a post about this on my authorityincome.com site.
These days, I honestly would say don’t start 10 sites for the sake of 10 sites. Create sties about topics that you are interested in, even passionate about. Is it a good idea to ONLY have one site? I think not — you do want to hit up different niches and even have MORE than one site in your best niches as a backup. But the best sort of sites will be those you have a personal interest in the topic. You will just be more willing to work harder on the site, maintain better quality, etc. At least in the startup phase of a site, it’s hard to keep things going strong on sites about topics you don’t give a damn about, ESPECIALLY if they don’t make you any money or won’t for a long while.
I’m not saying don’t make a site about topics that don’t interest you. Many a real world sucessful business is started in some niche the owner doesn’t know anything about or care about (but the opportunity exists). But that person puts some SERIOUS work into it or hires the people to maintain/start/run that business for him. Same principal applies to websites. If you don’t have the knowledge and expertise yourself, then you PAY someone to do/produce it for you.
Life is good for me. I’ve moved to Thailand/SE for the next year and glad I did!
Best,
Ben
Hey Ben, it’s been a long time coming and this post really hit the nail on the head. I’ve noticed that many of my informational sites took a hit with the PANDA update… Some are still making money and doing fairly well…
Thanks to a few people though, I had a shift in my focus from focusing primarily on “internet marketing” to actually writing stuff that makes a difference (or could make a difference). Plus I’m actually writing now about stuff I care about instead of loans, insurance, etc. so it’s A LOT easier and feels a lot less like “WORK” and closer to “FUN”…
I’ve noticed that my websites that are still doing well (i.e. haven’t been affected by PANDA) have been aged and have gotten legit links from other sites with trust-rank/decent page rank.
Linking to some of my websites from garbage article directories has actually had a detrimental impact on several of my sites and although I’m not 100% positive it was a result of the linking, I think it very well could be.
This post really hit home based on my experiences the past couple years… I’d say that people should be focused on:
1. Providing value (inject some personality)
2. Updating their website fairly often (daily if possible) – I’ve noticed that a lot of websites that are doing really well these days update often… I know that updating frequently has always had a slight impact in the rankings, but I think it’s starting to have even more of an impact… (I may be wrong though).
3. Getting backlinks from legitimate TRUSTED sources – yeah it’s harder, but one link from a solid site is going to help a lot… these article directories that have every post giving out 2 links are something I’d probably stay away from (BMR is a prime example)… They may even work now for you, but who knows what kind of update Google will release next.
4. Be writing about something you actually give a damn about
– This is probably the best advice anyone could give… If you really want to enjoy your time online, write about something you care about. Otherwise if your goal is to quit your 9 to 5 job at McDonalds and you build a business around writing about acne cures when you really don’t give two shits about anything acne related, it’s going to feel like another 9 to 5 that you’re going to try to escape… you may then turn to outsourcing, then try to outsource your outsourcing, and before you know it you won’t even know why you’re alive – you’re so caught up in maintaining something you don’t care about…haha (that’s a little extreme) but the cycle will continue until you actually pick something that you care about
5. Working hard – don’t think you’re going to get something for nothing… common sense.
Ben, thanks for another brilliant synopsis of what’s changing these days and how peeps should adapt. Also your pictures are phenomenal. I definitely would enjoy checking up on your photography website so feel free to share the link. Do you put them up for sale? And what kind of camera are you using?
EXACTLY:
***In fact, I would posit that it’s in fact easier to just create solid websites that offer a lot of value to the searcher and spend time “networking” to build legit links. If you do it the right way (build a legit site, network for legit links, do proper online marketing as opposed to SEO trickery), your work will stick around and you can keep building on it. Eventually, you WILL make money.***
Good to hear from you mate.
My thoughts:
Yes, the whole “internet marketing thing” from the perspective of just churning out shitty sites for the SERPS to score some money is dying. Goodness knows I’ve got enough crappy sites (skeletons in the closet as I call them), but my push these days has been to create quality sites about topics I actually have an interest in. And the topics I don’t care about, hire legit web developers to develop a quality looking site and pay experts to write the content. I do say you don’t have to be an expert or passionate about a topic to make a site about it (but it sure as hell helps if you are if you plan on doing the work yourself), but if you are not, then OUTSOURCE people who know about the topic (and not those crappy 5 dollar a day generic articles either). Websites are really like real world businesses in pretty much everything. If you treat your sites like you would a new business you are starting, you’ll do ok in a few years. You wouldn’t create a travel insurance company without knowing anything about travel insurance.
Another thing to think about investing in is premium domains, even generic domains, and developing authority sites on them. The internet looks to be around for the next 50 years and domains are limited. If you are in for the long haul, it may be worth paying for a generic domain for the advantage it brings. A premium domain gives you a huge leg up in terms of “trust” from your readers. The value of your site (if you develop it), also sky rockets if you ever sell it. What would you, as a reader trust more: travelinsurance.org or cheaptravelinsuranceworld.com. If both sites are developed and making money, which do you think would command a higher value, even if they take in the same amount of traffic? In this regard, I’ve put my money where my mouth is (just last month I threw down over 30k for a domain name, and I’ve done this several times over). Worth thinking about if you are going to make a career out of this stuff.
You wouldn’t hire a bunch of joe workers from the street who know nothing about the topic, would you? But this sort of mentality pervades the online IM world. Really, people who come to websites are not stupid — they can smell shit a mile a while. If your site actually GIVES real, legit info, people know and appreciate and word spreads.
I’ll post some links to my photography sites shortly. Still developing them.
Cheers
Ben