Will my website ever be seen?

[grumpyoldman]

Hi,
I've just read this from a well known marketer called Steven Wagenheim.
I'm glad I read it before I bought hosting.
Anybody have any comments on it? Quote starts here
The people at the top of the search engines are there NOT because of search engine optimization but because they paid through the nose for these spots. How much? Anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 per year for EACH search engine. And the reason I know this is true is because a site that I did a couple of years ago, racehippie, spent thousands on search engine optimization. I told them beforehand that it was pointless but they wanted it done anyway. So I went ahead and did it. Pulled out all the stops and made sure their site was as optimized as possible. Did all the submissions, paid, so we got a better spot and to THIS DAY they still haven't made it up to page 10. And there are only 60,000 page results for nascar racing, which is the topic they feature. My point is this. You CAN'T win the search engine wars. It's a war you can't win and whatever money you do spend on it is wasted. This is the first thing I tell people who want me to design a web site for them. The truth is, most people don't need a web site because it won't do them any good anyway because nobody is going to find it unless they mortgage their future to get a top listing. So search engines are NOT the way to go for promoting your business.
The difference between a message board and a BLOG is that message boards are a place you go to in order to post your ad. A BLOG is a site that YOU set up yourself to post your own observations, links to other sites and if you like, ads to YOUR programs. The problem with BLOGS is no different than simply trying to promote your own web site. How are you going to get people to see it? Just having it on the Internet isn't going to get it seen and I've already been over search engine optimization and how worthless that is. So trying to advertise your business through your BLOG is like trying to catch overflowing water from a sink with a tea strainer. These are great for having fun and putting up just about anything you like, but for serious advertising they aren't very practical. At least the message boards have a good steady stream of traffic coming in so for that 30 minutes or so your ad will be seen. BLOGS? They may be here to stay but they're not going to make you much money.

[jkeifer]

Hmmmm, Interesting quote.
I get most of my traffic from my blog and writing articles. I use wordpress, and everytime I write a blog entry, it's pinged all over the internet which works out great for me and search engine ranking.
I have to disagree with SEO being a total waste. With that said, I also think that people that pay 5 figures for SEO are being duped. SEO isn't really that hard.

About 6 weeks ago for example, I optimized my cloaker website for the search engines following some simple general rules. I'm already ranked number 11 on Google for the keyword "link cloakers". Last week I was number 14 and before optimizing, I was at number 260!
Now instead of spending half my profits on PPC, I'm getting free traffic out the ying yang.
I suspect, however that most of my free traffic is the result of writing articles. I discovered a great tool from James Brausch called "Artemis Pro" to do my articles and auto submit to hundreds of sites. The great thing about this software is that you re-write a few different versions of each paragraph and the software will shuffle the versions into thousands of unique articles, thus avoiding the duplicate content penalty of Google. It's ingenious! Artemis can be found on www.artemispro.com .

I think the author was one of those poor saps that spent his life savings on SEO and got burned. I guess I don't blame him for being a little bitter. If he knew a few basic tricks, he probably would have developed a different outlook on SEO.

The one message I do agree with from this quote is not to depend on the search engines for your bread & butter. You should definately have multiple traffic generation strategies. I prefer the most - article marketing, blogging, Optimizing Website for Search Engines (no brainer) and Pay Per Click if I have a new website where I need to get the ball rolling. The free techniques take a few weeks to start seeing anything real, but it's really worth it in the long run!

[grumpyoldman]

A really good reply.
The guy that wrote that is actually one of the most respected marketers on Warrior Forum.
I'm afraid blogs"getting pinged all over the internet" is a little beyond my obviously limited imagination. If I were to write a blog it would go onto a page on a blog site and there it will sit. If someone finds their way there by accident they may read it, if they don't they won't. I don't see how it can magically move itself anywhere else.
I really don't understand how you can "optimise" the words link cloaker. Words are just words. Nothing I could do is going to make my words 'link cloaker' look any different to anyone else's words 'link cloaker'. The same letters are used and, hopefully, in the same order.
You, obviously, know a lot of things that will remain a mystery to ordinary people like me. Website optimisation is, to you, a no-brainer. To me, it's a nebulous phrase that means absolutely nothing. If you start a site you just hope someone sees it. You can't make it physically "do" anything. Optimising, I suppose, is just making it look good so that anyone that does stumble upon it tells their friends about it.
You could well be right about article writing and blogging. I, unfortunately, have neither the educational nor the journalistic skills to do either.
I was surprised that there are 'hundreds' of article sites. I wonder why? In 14 years on the net I've never encountered an article or blog site although I had an idea that they existed. Indeed, I can't really see why anyone would want to visit one. Certainly not to read MY opinions on anything. It's not logical to believe that any article, obviously written by an amateur, would ever sell a product.
I have looked at artemispro. A very impressive sales page. I still don't know what it's supposed to do but I'm sure it does it well. The bit about articles "shrinking" made me smile. Do sentences or paragraphs 'fall out'? One would think that if one placed an article somewhere, it would remain there, in its entirity, until the poster physically deleted it; or a few sentences, just to make it 'shrink'.
Anyway, what do I know

[BradleyD.Haslam]

[grumpyoldman]

Hi Brad,
I thank you for a very comprehensive reply.

To be perfectly honest, my posts are not thought out at all. I just write as I think. Sometimes, I must admit, it's quite difficult for the fingers to keep up and then I have to go back and correct all the spelling and grammatical errors. I am a little pedantic about spelling and grammar. It makes me cringe when I see sales pages with errors on them. There is no way I would buy the product if the seller can't even take the time to write his advertisement correctly.

There is a wonderful old saying "There are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics".
Statistics being the biggest lies of all. Surely your present administration has demonstrated to you the amazingly elastic properties of statistics.

Do you really think that the warrior forum
is full of smarter people leading
less intelligent people toward the smarter person's goal?
Or a bunch of con artists, preying off of the gullible?

Well, that is a hard question. I have had quite a number of contacts on the Warrior Forum and they have all been more than helpful and very free with advice. In fact, the friendliness has been overwhelming. I always seem to have the nagging feeling, however, that on the Warrior Forum I am just a very little minnow swimming in an ocean full of very large sharks. Very much like here, actually!

Your father, no doubt is a very clever man, as was mine.
I'm not sure, however, that he could learn everything on your list. Possibly.
I, also, cannot do any of the things on your list.
To be truthful, I don't want to play guitar, ride a horse, fix a motor or use a welder. I wouldn't mind using photoshop but I'm afraid it would be beyond me.
I've been trying, for six months to use NVU to design a website. So far I've not managed to get enough on the page to be worth saving. In fact, I look at it every day and I've not yet worked out how to put a border on the page. The tutorial for ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS loses me halfway down the first page. I've never looked at page 2.

I'm afraid, Brad, that even with all your obvious optimism and enthusiasm for life, you'd never be able to teach me any of those things.

As for the things I could teach you. No, I'm sure that there aren't any. I suppose that I could teach you to cook, but everyone knows how to do that already. That's one of the many things that you can't teach on line.

Life experiences - I have none of them to pass on.
My list of 'never haves' is very long. Lived alone since I was 18 (now 56), never married, never been to a dinner party, never been on a yacht, never ridden a motor bike, never owned a home or a car, never been on a vacation, never 'gone for a drive' with someone special, never spent Christmas Day with anyone...
To quote you, "and the list is endless..."

Please don't think that I am discontent with my lot. Far from it. Unlike you, I believe that your life is mapped out the moment you are born and nothing you do will alter it. You are born a success or you are born a failure. Sadly, for most people, it's all over before you find out which you are. To quote Shakespere's Richard 3rd "I wasted time - now time wasteth me".

As you noted, I am very well educated (in Great Britain), but the education has never been used. Fate, you see, laughs at us all.

I came into IM secure in the knowledge that I would never make a profit from it. I was under no illusions. There are a couple of dozen people making millions and the remainder are spending millions. I even worked out how much of my pension I could afford to lose each month and tailored my 'ambitions' around that amount.
I will keep trying, just don't expect me to be ever posting that I've made $500 this month.
I lose about $50 each month on my eBay store, although I sell 100+ items. Sadly, the thirst for knowledge does not extend to eBay. $2 for an eBook is BIG MONEY! I often feel that if I discovered a cure for cancer and put it in an eBook I'd have to list on eBay for 99 cents and then no-one would buy it.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your comments. They are illuminating though not uplifting (don't be offended - I'm never uplifted). British, you see. No emotion. Sedate and quiet does it. The American style seminars with 'motivational speakers' are a hoot.
I just can't take them seriously. It defies logic that anyone would willingly pay good money to have inanities shouted at them by some half-baked lunatic.
Hardly "inspirational".

I'll keep surfing the two or three forums I have found. It's always interesting to see how the other half lives.

I do envy people with the ability to take advantage of what there is to offer. Many have told me to write articles. I have written one eBook but it didn't sell. I just listed it on eBay. I didn't promote it in any way. I wonder what JVs are? JVs are what millionaires do.
I really shouldn't write articles about something that I know nothing about. I'd soon be found out to be a fake. Looking up a couple of things on the net does NOT qualify anybody to write on a subject. Years working in that particular field qualifies one.

This was intended to be very short. It's your fault -you got me started. To make up for the inconvenience I won't make another post until September.
See ya,
Grumpy
Live Long and Prosper - LOL

[jkeifer]

Grumpy,
You just wrote two great articles right here in the forum. I have to disagree that you are a "no talent". Your writing is very interesting & I enjoy reading your posts.

I think the only thing holding you back is your own mindset. You're so convinced that you will always be a loser. Don't you realize how that will shape your future? Personally, I believe that we predetermine our own destiny.

When I first got into IM, I didn't know the first thing about blogs, copywriting, getting traffic, etc. I simply had to take action. 98% of the people interested in internet marketing will spend their lives in the forums, reading various "how-to" e-books, buying the next latest and greatest thing, but never really focus on the single most important element. Creating a vision of what you want to do, and taking action on that vision to make it a reality by sticking to it and being willing to learn along the way.

98% however, will never do that. That's just the way it is. It's fun to make money, but it takes prep work too. When a painter paints a car, the painting part is fun, but before that you have to prepare the car, tape off the edges, cover the windows, bumpers, etc.
The same analogy can apply to IM.

You said you've never been to a dinner party, or riding a motorbike, etc. Who's fault is that? Destiny's?

I don't know much about cooking, but I bet a guy like you could sell me a cooking course, video or ebook that would really help me to impress my wife someday. Don't sell yourself short.

Why bother with IM if you're already planning to be a failure? In response to your Shakesphere quote, I have to ask - Why waste this time before it wastes you? Time is our most valuable asset and can never be recovered once lost.

It's funny that you mentioned NVU. I designed my amazingcloaker.com website using NVU and my next product is a course for raw beginners on how to design a profitable salespage using open source products like NVU. I would like to give you a complimentary copy of the course when it's ready if you're interested, but you really have to do something about that mindset thing, grumpy. Just let me know. Have a great day!

[grumpyoldman]

Hi jkeifer,

What a nice post.

Of course, you are totally correct about mindset. Unfortunately, though, that is instilled by your parents at avery early age and can never be changed. Hence my list of 'nevers'. However, one thing I am glad about is no children. Parents can be very destuctive beings. There's an old Arabic saying, translated, "There's nothing in this world more evil than a mother's love". Certainly no disrespect meant to ladies - when I was younger, I loved them!
The saying means that no matter how much mental and emotional damage she does to her child, she believes , without a shadow of a doubt, that it's for his/her own good.
My brother and I were brought up to believe that everyone else was better than us. Any attempt at self-improvement resulted in a beating and the admonission "Don't get big ideas. You're a nobody from a Cornish fishing village and that's all you'll ever be". Try copping that for the first 17 years of your life and still have a positive mindset.
Hey, what am I writing about this crap for?

NVU - so glad that you can use it. I spent 3 hours on it again today - must be over 100 now. Nothing.
The speil says that if you can use Word, you can use this. Well, I can make word turn cartwheels but this bears no resemblance whatsoever to Word.
I have a logo. I finally got it in the top left hand corner of my page. Next I wanted to put text BESIDE it to make a sort of banner. Was it going to let me do that. NO WAY! In Word I'd just put in a text box write my stuff, add border, fill colour etc. There's not this facility on NVU. The text, if on the same line, must start at the bottom right corner of the image. Tables must always start at the left margin - I don't know how they work anyway. All this and I've got the "absolute beginner's tutorial"!. Can't comprehend a word of it!
OK. Turn the damn thing off and go watch Oprah, even though she's way more painful than NVU.

Articles writing and blogging is a non-starter, I'm afraid.
At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I have only ever read one blog in my life, and that was by accident; as for articles, I wouldn't know where to look for an article site. Ezines is just such a an hilarious word that I cannot take it seriously.
Simply believe me, I could never write an article. If I had the educational or journalistic qualifications that it takes to write an article, Rupert Murdoch would be looking for me.

I have, however written a cookbook 'The Grumpy Old Chef's Pasta Master Class' that a few of the Warriors have given good reviews to. One of them is giving it away as a list builder on his site. To prove how ego driven I am, I took all my affiliate links out before I sent him the eBook in Word, with free PLR.
To give him his due, he did offer to buy the give-away rights, but you can't charge for things like that. Especially as I'd had it in eBay for 4 months and only sold one copy at $3.80.
If you'd like a copy, gratis, of course, just contact me. I have no idea how you do that through this forum but I'd take pleasure in sending it to you. The same goes for any others who may be unfortunate enough to read this load of drivel.

Interesting to read about prep. I was a chef for 35 years. I think I know just a little about prep. I have been doing prep for a website since last August and, no doubt, I'll still be doing it next August.

Regarding IM, I'm certainly not planning to be a failure, I'm just prepared for the most likely outcome. It really doesn't matter either way. Losing money each month on eBay is still preferable to watching Oprah every day!

I'll be off now,,Keep it rolling in. Someone has to!

[BradleyD.Haslam]

Hey Grumpy,

Found something...



Have you ever googled your nickname?
It's a familiar and loved name.
Maybe it could be used?
Look at how others have done it:
http://www.google.com/search?q=grumpy
(right up top= "Grumpy's home page" )

[its_me_shaners]

I'd be interested to know what sources or stats you have to show what you claim.

"These are great for having fun and putting up just about anything you like, but for serious advertising they aren't very practical."
"BLOGS? They may be here to stay but they're not going to make you much money."
I think you should go tell darren rowse or yaro starak that they might just throw in the towel

Bottom line is Spiders don't buy products or click ads PEOPLE DO. Get your product in front of eyeballs not spiders. You'll feel better once you have some money in your pocket. As I'm sure any affiliate big or small will tell you.
If you have decent traffic to your blog(s) try getting some advertisers to buy ad space on your blog.

I'm personally still up in the air about these auto content spinners and re-fabricators, I just smell spam when I read about those things. Might be my misconception though.
One suggestion i do have though is to do a business plan and see what you wind up with. You may or may not find that e-commerce is or is not for you! You have two choices really you can be the problem or you can be the solution to the problem. But whining and griping about failure doesn't get you any closer to your goals now does it. Read the bios of any marketer you'll see they've had their failures and still rose to the top . Why? positive mental attitude and a willingness to take action to correct them. crappy news you got rooked by an seo company. I think snake oil comes in many different flavours but still leaves a bad taste in your mouth and sadly their are lots of snake oil sales men out there. Youre not going to make a bajillion bux over night and there is no silver bullet to over night success. Any and every success is filled with labour, ask any marketer how many sleepless nights theyve spent slaving on the computer to learn and churn their sites out till they got to a point where they could out source it. Learn from this it takes work, its takes drive and sometime hurdles get thrown in the mix but in the end what happened to you yesterday is SO WHAT, what are you going to do today !!!
Cheers and beers from Canada
Shane

[grumpyoldman]

Hi its_me_shaners,

I didn't write those comments about SEOs, they're from a a guy called Steven Wagenheim and, unfortunately, I can't remember his site. I'm happy to admit that I know absolutely nothing about SEO, wouldn't know where to start. I just list an item and hope someone sees it. Having them buy it extends way past 'hope' to 'dream'.
I agree with you about positive attitude. Trouble is, no-one can tell me where you get one from.

Personally, I don't have a blog. I have never been able to understand this narcissistic desire to self-promote. I haven't even had a photo taken in 40 years, (except for the usual government ones). I've only ever read one blog and didn't really understand what it was and what it was supposed to do. I've noticed that eBay have lately started asking me if I want to blog about my store. I don't see why. If people want something from my store, they'll come. If they don't, a blog won't make any difference.

I have worked in the Hospitality Industry all my life and a business plan is, indeed, vital. the difference there is that I was selling a tangible product to real people. Physical targets that you could understand. IM seems to be, by it's very nature, a hit-and-miss affair. More luck than judgement. It makes it very interesting as you really have no control over your sales potential. You could have 2 sites, same products, same price, same sales page etc. and one would sell 1000 items and the other one nil items. Just the luck of the draw. No business plan is going to change that.
I guess, however, that a business plan comes into its own when you get an IM Info eBook that sells for $27 when exactly the same eBook, that I paid $27 for, languishes in my eBay store for $1 and does not sell a copy although $1 is closer to the true value.
I'm not sure if you'd call that a business plan or a conspiracy to defraud (LOL).

I know all about sleepless nights. I sat up all night Wednesday watching videos on the basics of building a web site - six months with WYSIWYG programs and not one page done yet- and Thursday morning I had a sudden enlightenment. I had no idea what the woman was talking about! She must have thought that I'd been building sites all my life.
So, I got more videos. I've got more videos than Blockbuster!
I regularly spend 12 - 16 hours a day at the computer, 7 days a week. keeping a positive attitude is difficult when there is no progress. But I don't give up. I try to laugh at myself for being so stupid and useless. That lightens the load. It's humourously pathetic when an eight year old child understands more about something than I do. Maybe my cat could show me how to build a site?

What am I going to do today? Well, I'm going to stock up on coffee and cigarettes and watch more videos. I notice that Brad has kindly given me some links.

Brad, the reason I'm not asking where to "learn HTML" is that I know that there's not a snowball in hell's chance of me even learing one phrase in HTML, so the question never arises.
I'm reasonably fluent in French, (or I used to be), passable in Italian and can watch the news or a movie in Spanish with good comprehension; but HTML, no way!!!
I must admit, and I know that I'm going to be flamed here, that, as I am British I have great difficulty understanding tutorials narrated by American females.
No, I'm not being smart, I'm serious. I really can hardly understand a word. I had to give up on one set of videos the other night.
Anyway, lads, off to the shops now. Smokes and coffee. That should do the trick!
Keep prospering, someone has to!
See ya,(I too had a picture to put in here, but I have no idea how to do it).
Grumpy.

[jkeifer]

Grumpy,
Sounds like you're certainly putting in the time on that website. That's admirable. I think its_me_shaners & BradleyD Haslam have some good advice worth following.

Regarding your dilemma with the lack of text boxes. Use a table instead. Just insert table in NVU just like you would in Word. Make it 2 rows, two columns.
Highlight both columns in the second row and right click and select "join cells" to make the second row span two columns. Now put the pic in the 1st row, left column and the text in the right. When your text reaches the bottom of the pic, continue in the next row of the table to give it that proper over all placement relative to the picture.

My video course will be for the raw beginner who knows absolutely nothing about web design, and no html is required, although there will be some html hints along the way so that you will begin to understand it without even realizing it. My offer to you is still open, Grumpy if you want it. No strings attached. Just email me if you're interested. (support@amazingcloaker.com)

I think as you become more savvy in this game, you'll discover that IM is far from a crap shoot. There are many, many things that you can do to drive traffic into your store. Traffic is kinda like a river packed full of fish and your store is sitting in the water near the bank of that river out of the fish flow. Your store is full of food that appeals to some of those fish who are very hungry. If you do absolutely nothing, you may get a random fish every once in a while who stumbled your way. If you do specific things to become visible and attract more fish into your space, then you will have much different results. Blogging, SEO, etc. are some ways to get some of those fishys (traffic) swimming your way. What you do and how much will help determine the numbers and the quality of your fish. You want to attract the fish that like the food that you offer.
Ok, maybe that's a corny analogy, but it's worth pondering just the same.

Blogging will also help to build trust with your visitors and they will begin to relate to you as they follow your blog. People feel more comfortable buying from a friend as opposed to an anonymous pitch man.

Grumpy, maybe the problem with your e-book is that it is priced waaaaaaaay too low. I'm not sure how many pages are in your book, but if it's longer than 20 or 30 pages, you should be least 20 to 25 bucks, especially if it's going to help someone cook like a pro. I know that seems insane when other ebooks on ebay are listing for 99 cents, but what you are currently doing is de-valuing your product. You are telling the world that your information is only worth a buck at best and probably apologizing for that as well. Most people will feel that such cheap info can just as easily be found for free simply by googling it, or that it's just not worth bothering with. Raising the price will attract a better quality buyer and people will feel your book offers something that those cheesy 1.00 ebooks can't touch.

BE self promoting! Let the world know that you have something very worthwhile to offer. YOU'RE worthwhile, don't be ashamed of it. Even if you're not confident about your ebook, put on that poker face and bluff you're confidence. Results will follow, and your confidence will grow. I've had trouble in the past with selling and started thinking some of my products weren't any good. With some advice from a very savvy marketer, I did the opposite of what my logic told me. I raised the price instead of pulling it and the problem was solved!

That's my 2 cents anyway. Hope it was helpful.
-Jack

[orion2000]

Hi grumpyoldman

Google the phrase "Pipeline Profits".

You can also pull up videos on google video and youtube
using the same phrase. I am planning to use this system to market my website. Let's hope for the best here. Do research it grumpoldman.

Kind Regards
Arzoo

[BradleyD.Haslam]

[grumpyoldman]

Hi orion2000

Thanks for the tip about pipeline profits.

It seems to be closed. I'm not surprised, really, when he is telling everyone that he made
FOURTEEN AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS in THREE DAYS.

This must be sone sort of a record in the "IM Sales Page Copy Writing" competition.
I thought the lady, from Texas, who had never touched a computer in her life until she attended an IM Seminar in Houston and then went home and made $78,000 in 30 hours, was good but she's just a loser compared to this guy!

Seriously though, thank you for your tips. Any and all information is appreciated.

I'm still plodding along, making my $5 daily sales on eBay, same as for the last eight months.
I won't give up but I won't advance much either.
Websites, blogging and so on are way beyond my limited capabilities. I just don't have the technical qualifications.
I'm very stubborn though. Even though I know I'll never do it, I still spend 12 hours a day on it.

Thanks again,

[orion2000]

Hi grumpyoldman

Listen dude! $5 a day sale is not good. Sincerly, I really like the idea that you always push through and spend time on it. But, man! there must be some way of boosting affiliate traffic. Hmm! Maybe its not the advertising/marketing part, maybe its the product itself. Like Rosalind said move on to a new product if one doesn't lead to much profit. So, perhaps change the product. What do you think? I hope I didn't out as offensive. I am speaking out of sincerity here. I hope to hear from you soon.

Kind Regards