Why most websites never make money
Id love to know the stats but I’m betting that the vast majority of new websites started by amateurs online never make any money. There’s many reasons why but the end result seems to be the same for so many people, they spend lots of time/money getting the site up and running and then nothing happens for months and they cant work out why. Before giving up they usually try offline marketing methods in an attempt to get things going, like leaflet drops, business cards in supermarkets and even launch parties (my favourite).
The thing is no matter the size or function of your site unless you embrace SEO, PPC or both then your doomed to failure. The problem is though both these skills are time consuming to learn and implement, but isn’t everything? Even when you know seo it still takes plenty of time to get results so that combined with running the site could make it hard to achieve part-time, but anythings possible.
Ok so after all that negativity what do you actually have to do to make it with your site?
- You have to get out there and connect with other bloggers and websites, this is at the core of Internet marketing. A good way to get started is guest posting, this is were you write a post or article for someone else’s site and in exchange they give you a link back, sounds simple but trust me its still a lot of work. As we know incoming links help both with search engines and your overall popularity so no-matter how long it takes you’ve got to do it. If your not sure where to get started myblogguest is a free forum where you can write guest posts for other webmasters.
- You have to stand out at least a little bit because there’s a million sites out there all doing the same thing. Honestly if you want to build up return visitors you’ve got to give them a reason to come back. Ultimately you’ve got to give your audience what they want and in a clear structure they can understand. So if your an online store offer discounts the competition cant because even though you take a hit in the short term on price the exposure you gain long term is always worth it.
- Consistency is another big part of the equation, are you going to stick with this gig? Are you going to be getting new links for your site on a weekly basis. Will you be creating content for your site for the next 12 months every week to keep it fresh? Obviously the amount of work required is going to depend on the niche your in but even so the work is going to be there until you reach your goal, are you prepared for that?
So that’s my problem, I’m just a realist I suppose but better that I think than one of the get rich quick gurus. I’m always looking for legitimate ways to earn money online that actually deliver a return for the time spent. I cant imagine anything worse than spending lots of time and money on some system that I didn’t fundamentally understand, are you prepared to trust in luck? Or do you want to spend time learning a process like Internet marketing which is already proven?
What is Pay Per Click? It’s not cheap and not easy
I promise this is going to be a short post, mainly because I’m not that experienced in pay per click and also its way too detailed a subject to explain in a single article. At a basic level PPC is where you pay a search engine directly for traffic that has searched for a specific keyword, the only difference between PPC and SEO is that you’re paying, it’s the same visitors searching for the same things. I suppose there is one other really crucial difference and that’s that you can lose money with PPC in a way that you can’t with just organic rankings. When I say you can lose money what I mean is that you could buy this traffic for any keyword but there’s no guarantee the traffic is going to convert into sales, it’s a risky business.
So it may sound quite simple so far, i.e. all you gotta do is give google some money and they display your ad on the search results, but it’s not so easy. For a start there’s a few mystery formulas that decide how much you per for each click on your ad. Google weighs up the quality of your site and your account history to work out how much they want to charge you (I told you it was strange). Another big headache is picking the right keywords because if you pick the wrong one (doesn’t covert into sales) then you’re going to be out some money. Also bear in mind that to do a proper test to see if a keyword is profitable you’re going to have to stick with it for a while, I heard on average £400 before you can call it a day.
As far as I know there are two basic forms of PPC for earning money that marketers are using. The first is where your selling something online directly to people and you want to increase both sales and awareness of your store. The second method is where internet marketers create landing pages for offers provided by affiliate companies, i.e. they don’t actually sell the product they just forward you on. I suppose the second method seems pretty simple but the reality is that finding traffic that converts can be very difficult and also expensive if there’s lots of competition. However I do firmly believe that when it comes to income the top affiliate marketers who work with PPC are the ones making the most money on the web out of all of us. I’ve heard stories of PPC gurus making upwards of £500,000 on a single offer!
One common theme I do see with all PPC people is they are stats junkies! You see the margins in pay per click can be very close, quite often people are relying on scale to make any money. For example if you have a campaign where you spend:
75p per click X 10,000 clicks = £7,500
Conversion ratio of 5% = 50 sales
Commission per sale needs to be £150 + before you make a profit.
As you can see there’s a few scary numbers there, the most important one though is your conversion ratio. Even a 1-2% swing can be the difference between a profit and a loss.
I suppose it’s the “loss” factor that has so far stopped me from getting into the PPC game, with organic marketing the most I can lose is my own time, and while that is valuable too I can live with it. So that’s all I have on pay per click for the moment, let me know if any of you guys are having success with it or thinking about trying.
Be an individual to really earn some money online
Ok so you want to learn how to make some money online but the start everything can seem pretty confusing right? Youve got a million and 1 bloggers all telling you that they have a new method that know-one has ever thought of and it can be yours for just £99, sound familiar? So i suppose the first thing you have to ask when you read these people is:
“If your making millions from this system then why do you need to sell it on the internet”
Its a good question and one that most people hawking these products wont have a serious answer for. I suppose at the same time there are enough people willing to ignore common sense and buy these ebooks or whatever it is in the hope that it could be the solution to all of their financial problems. Now i know its always good to be optimistic in life but you have to be a realist too! The most important thing to remember is that with any “system” the more people using it inevitably the less money is available for everyone. It just stands to reason as the minute a market gets saturated prices go down.
With this in mind i really don’t think there is any such thing as a “get rich quick” scheme because as far as i can see the only people who could possibly get rich are the ones running it. On the whole the people who really make it in the “make money online” niche are those who strike out on their own to earn a living. Now this doesn’t mean they have to come up with some revolutionary idea every day. Quite often the most successful money making ideas are just variations on other people’s ideas with a different spin etc. Also quite often it can just be that this individual puts alot more effort (and sometimes money) into making the process work, motivation can be huge and not just on the internet business world but everywhere.
One of biggest problems people have with Google and other search engines is that they don’t actually say how they work. For some people this is a problem as they want a nice safe system that they can follow but this is never going to be the case with SEO or even PPC, there is just too much money at stake and too much competition. Indeed even within the internet money making world people don’t share “real” information that often, after all would you give a competitor information that could ultimately lead to you making less money? I didn’t think so! So there you have it a little “reality check” for some who think they can just buy the latest ebook and get rich online in a fortnight!