Introductions Thread

[timaay]

So I'll reserve this thread... I'm trying to build content sites at this point. Anyone have any success building directories combined with content sites? Example (not my site just an example) build a directory of electricians in the US and then populate the site with electricians across the US and then articles about all the keywords relating to electrical work that local electricians find valuable. Anyone doing anything like that?

 

[charlo]

Hey folks,

This forum is a hidden gem, I love the avalanche technique!

I’m in the SEO game since 2016. After several internships, I got an apprenticeship in a big company and it’s leveled up my SEO. I realized I didn’t know as much as I thought. During this time, I launched a bunch of websites to make money and improve my knowledge. I didn’t make a dime (except with a website I sold for $400 lol) because of the shiny syndrome object, lack of motivation and focus, but I got some good SEO results though.

Then I started my first job in an agency. Found out that the company was toxic af and was selling shitty SEO services to clients who were happy to pay. I thought I would have a real SEO job but in fact, I have to write poor quality 500 words blog posts every day or create SEO reports trying to hide the bad performances to keep clients. Eventually, I quit after 2 months, thinking that life was too short to work for a**holes and do things I hate.

So this year, I’m trying to build my SEO agency because I want to do what I like, have freedom, and work anywhere I want (I got inspired by Kyle Roof's story and Glen Allsopp's blog post about the agency business model). And to be honest, this is freaking hard, especially when you are alone. I’m not good at sales and I hate to share stuff on social media. For now, I work with some small clients but I want to get bigger ones. I’m far away from what I was aiming but I don’t want to give up. So I hustle and hope to make it one day (I don’t even want to become a millionaire, just to get a nice income and do cool sh*t). Furthermore, I still have some of my niche websites and would like to work on them in my free time but I think I have to focus on the agency first and then use the money I earn to invest in my websites. I will try to share my journey and some insights with you as things progress.

Feel free to share any tips you have or mistakes to avoid.

Thanks

 

[ToffeeLa]

Well, hopefully, since you have worked for an agency you will have an idea of what the market for SEO services is like and will not be tempted - as many new start-ups in any niche are - to undercharge for your services. I think that is a big hurdle that many new service providers struggle to get over: the temptation to compete on price.

And tips from experience? If you do what you agreed when you said you would do it at the price you said you would do it for, then you will never want for word-of-mouth work and you will be ahead of 50-75% of competing businesses. I was amazed when I set up on my own how so many businesses were run in such an amateur and inefficient manner.

 

[timaay]

As early as you can document everything you do. Even if it's just you, if you hire or even just need to outsource because of burn out you'll need to ensure the quality of your work remains the same. I mean literally everything like, login to this page: URL, then input this data, next step, next step, literally everything.

The biggest thing I struggled with was taking myself out of the equation. Once you get around 20 or so clients you'll be at your breaking point and will need help. When I went through that phase I lost a bunch of clients because no one could (or wanted to) do as good of job or cared as much as I did. When you're starting out that sounds like a good problem to have but trust me it's a scary nightmare because all of your hard work is on the line.

If you share some of your current struggles I can offer whatever advice I have and good luck to you!

 

[Philip J. Fry]

As early as you can document everything you do. Even if it's just you, if you hire or even just need to outsource because of burn out you'll need to ensure the quality of your work remains the same. I mean literally everything like, login to this page: URL, then input this data, next step, next step, literally everything.

The biggest thing I struggled with was taking myself out of the equation. Once you get around 20 or so clients you'll be at your breaking point and will need help. When I went through that phase I lost a bunch of clients because no one could (or wanted to) do as good of job or cared as much as I did. When you're starting out that sounds like a good problem to have but trust me it's a scary nightmare because all of your hard work is on the line.

If you share some of your current struggles I can offer whatever advice I have and good luck to you!

So, that's one perspective, that you should micro manage your employees to ensure that their work is quality; but, another one is to hire quality employees -- human capital as it is called -- who has more talent than you. You don't want to hire robots who'll work on an assembly line for you, unless that is literally what you want. You want to hire the best employees who can bring knowledge and experience to your team.

As someone who hired robots before, yes, they're good for repetitive tasks such as data entry. However, I know they can't do something creative, unique, or innovative. There's a limit to low skilled workers. IMO, for an agency, you need a mix of low skilled workers and high skilled workers. The hard part is finding them, both low and high skilled, and retaining them. I'm against churning the workforce to keep payroll low, although keeping the savings rate high is important. I'd rather keep a low staff count and have really good work done and use low skilled workers to do the grunt work. You want to enable highly skilled employees to be creative, innovative, and empowered. The low skilled one need to be trained on what to do.

For example, for an agency, find people who are better at link building than you and hire them. Find people who are better at public relations campaigns and design than you and hire them. You can easily find data entry people to do mass outreach when the person in charge of outreach is creative and makes multiple, creative campaigns every day.

 

[harrytwatter]

So, that's one perspective, that you should micro manage your employees to ensure that their work is quality; but, another one is to hire quality employees -- human capital as it is called -- who has more talent than you.

I think this is actually a key competitive differentiator in today's world. The minimal-viable-deliverable fulfilled almost entirely by vendors who outsource to mechanical turk types model is saturated imo. To stand out hiring qualified professionals capable of critical thinking and creative problem solving can help provide a competitive advantage. Bespoke custom solutions vs standardized AF dribble.

This would also allow you to confidently charge top dollar. Go straight to the top, your life will be considerably less stressful vs fighting over crumbs with budget-oriented clients.

 

[Ryuzaki]

During this time, I launched a bunch of websites to make money and improve my knowledge. I didn’t make a dime (except with a website I sold for $400 lol) because of the shiny syndrome object, lack of motivation and focus, but I got some good SEO results though.

I'll be "that guy" and say that you should probably get some SEO wins under your belt before you start selling SEO as a service. You can't have gotten good SEO results if you didn't make a dime besides selling a site for $400.

SEO has had a bad wrap for a long time due to fly-by-night agencies started by people who can't walk the walk. I'm sure you have some experience from the agencies you've worked in, but when you set out on your own, you failed. Now you're going to take that same skillset that failed you and it will fail your clients too.

So I'll reserve this thread... I'm trying to build content sites at this point. Anyone have any success building directories combined with content sites? Example (not my site just an example) build a directory of electricians in the US and then populate the site with electricians across the US and then articles about all the keywords relating to electrical work that local electricians find valuable. Anyone doing anything like that?

I did this in the past in the addiction and rehab sectors before Google really started turning the dial up on YMYL and banning a lot of it from Adwords, etc. Back when it was doable.

I grabbed some tax-payer funded databases, remixed the data, and built a directory for all of the states. Paid some data-entry VA's to find logos and images store-front signs. Built a bot to grab latitude and longitude to populate a Google map for the page. Did a lot to generate pay-per-call leads and eventually sold the lot after I realized the ship had sailed.

What you end up getting with these directories is a ton of bot traffic searching up fragments of addresses and stuff. But you get real visits too. My directories killed it with pay-per-call because I overwhelmed them with choices and offered to help make the choice for them in regards to insurance and everything else. But it also collected a lot of Adsense clicks (that's how long ago this was) of high CPC. Was a fun ride.

Would I do it again in any other vertical other than health and mental illness related stuff? It's not been as attractive to me as other options. But it is a way for a solopreneur to roll out sizable sites without getting into the whole business structure of hiring writers, editors, managers, and all that.

 

[freshpeppermint]

So I'll reserve this thread... I'm trying to build content sites at this point. Anyone have any success building directories combined with content sites? Example (not my site just an example) build a directory of electricians in the US and then populate the site with electricians across the US and then articles about all the keywords relating to electrical work that local electricians find valuable. Anyone doing anything like that?

I will say what I was planning on doing but I don't I am going to do this anymore.

I was basically going to create a minecraft server listing website. Server owners pay BIG money to be listed on minecraft server listing websites because the more players they get the more money they make. The top sites out there are making 100k+ per month from offering just 10 spots for auction. So many server owners upload their servers on these sites so they gain more players and as you get voted more, your server's rank on the site goes higher and higher. And the players get in game rewards for voting. (This would be considered directory site correct?)

I was thinking of maybe incorporating something like this into the niche site I am making. It's hard though, it has to be like a thing people create, share and have a leaderboards. This way the user's generate the content and I get tons of traffic from it without having to spend money on content and stuff.

 

[timaay]

Thank you guys, very helpful responses... I love this forum!

the reason I was thinking of going this route (in all honesty I've already started) was that if we are looking at a pure traffic play with media vine, etc... these keywords for these local businesses are easy to rank for and don't require a ton of content I just don't know how much the media vine ads, etc... will pay out on that type of traffic? I've never done a pure content play like this. I imagine you can get into pay per listing or pay per call as you all have indicated but I'm looking at it like getting cheap/easy traffic for their business name as a keyword?

Is that a feasible way to go? (i'm already knee deep so hope so, LOL) but thank you to anyone chimining in i appreciate you :-)

-----

I'm not going to quote anyone here as I believe we are all here to help the OP but i will say the 'romanticism' about hiring high end creatives and letting them go to work is something I will leave to you all:-) I've been down that road, done that. I will tell you that no one has the same drive, same work ethic, same stick toitnevess as you do. There is no such thing as hiring a smart/creative person and "letting them do their thing." Just doesn't exist.

Why is McDonalds, In-n-Out, even Home Depot, Starbucks, etc... such large enterprises? Not saying you/we are building a franchise but if you start out, as someone who was considering buying my agency about 7 or 8 years ago put it, "free wheeling it" then you are at a disadvantage.

Just understand that you can still hire/smart creative people and ask them to work within your process. You process should be smart and creative, right? You, the owner, are the one creating it. I never said make a dumb process and hire dumb robots to run it... you should do the best work you can, document it... and then hire people to work within that process. If you luck into being able to afford or hire people that know more than you, just simply be open to modifying your process - it is never a done deal, it's an evolving process/framework that you are after and it's allowed to get better of time

 

[Ryuzaki]

these keywords for these local businesses are easy to rank for and don't require a ton of content I just don't know how much the media vine ads, etc... will pay out on that type of traffic?

I'm 99% certain you won't even get into the network with a directory site. Maybe if you got in first with a site and then added a directory to the site, that'd be a different story. But it'd never pass the approval stage.

 

[timaay]

Thank you @Ryuzaki I totally value your opinion and would love to get your opinion about it... I'll send you an email about it. I have been passively building it as an adjunct to what my agency does so I'm hoping it's considered quality but I defer to the experts like you, than you so much!

 

[ggpaul]

Hey folks,

Paul here. I wanted to drop by and say hello. I got into online marketing (primarily SEO) back in 2011. I learned affiliate marketing first, and then I got my first 9-5 at a big e-commerce company. Fast forward to 2020, I was able to land a gig for a super affiliate site. I was able to work both jobs (wfh perk), and so it was nice making both earnings from my e-commerce + the super affiliate.

However, that came to an end.. the super affiliate site was then sold, I was let go, and I have my 9-5 e-commerce left. Granted, I still have my e-commerce job but having that extra $$ from the other job, helped me invest my money even more so without hurting the bank for my affiliate sites.

Anyway, I just feel like I'm back in square one since I've been with this current company for 10 years now, and I always want to eventually quit so I can fully commit to my passion(s) which is running my own website. Losing that second job just feels like it will take longer for me to get there.

Oh - I also got a newborn child lol .

In all seriousness, (I haven't gotten into too much detail), I did hit a depression point because of losing that second job / that additional income.

And sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind as I don't even know where to start again. So here I am!

 

[charlo]

Thank you all for your useful advice! Btw, I’m in a non English market but I think it’s the same.

the temptation to compete on price.

Yes, I guess it’s a common mistake, especially in the agency business where margins are low. If I want to provide real results I have to charge a decent price.

The biggest thing I struggled with was taking myself out of the equation

This is maybe the most difficult part!

Right now my current struggle is finding clients. I tried to cold email websites giving some personalized seo advice but I didn't get results so far. I will double down on that. I also think Linkedin can be a good source of leads if I post good content on a regular basis.

About hiring hight skilled people, I’m not at this stage yet but I guess the challenge is to attract that kind of people when you’re not the super hot agency that everyone is talking about.

I'll be "that guy" and say that you should probably get some SEO wins under your belt before you start selling SEO as a service. You can't have gotten good SEO results if you didn't make a dime besides selling a site for $400.

At least you’re honest I like that and you’re probably right. However, when I was looking for clients I found a good amount of websites, especially e-com, that have some good organic traffic despite the fact their on-page SEO sucks (no h1, title not optimized, 0 content on category pages, no blog…). And those websites still rank on the first page for a bunch of commercial keywords. So I’m pretty confident I can help them win some positions and make more sales.

Also, I’m thinking of partnering up with someone. I know a guy who has good SEO experience and he could be interested. To be honest, I’m the kind of guy who wants to do everything by itself (probably an ego issue) but it's silly, it would be easier to work with someone.

Another struggle I have is sticking to a plan and avoiding the FOMO. Like pretty much everyone here I’m interested in a lot of web things (programming, marketing, SEO) and business, so the temptation to try everything is high. At least I'm aware of that and I know I should focus and have a long-term vision. One thing I’m sure of is I don’t want to get stuck in a job I don’t like and be miserable all my life.

 

[illmasterj]

Right now my current struggle is finding clients. I tried to cold email websites giving some personalized seo advice but I didn't get results so far

Yeah, this is the part where we rewind a few months and I tell you "don't quit until you have at least 3 contacts ready to put you on retainer right away".

SEO is a trust based industry. The only "transactional" stuff are the software/tools, cheap content and maybe some backlink providers.

Cold selling in a trust based industry means a long sales cycle. You are ready to sell, but they aren't ready to buy. So you are left with maintaining relationships for a long time (until they are ready to buy), or finding the right prospect at the right time (and ideally not getting your domain burner for spam in the mean while).

But at this point you aren't in the SEO game anymore. You are in sales.

Best bets for you at this time are to:
1. Get in touch with agencies who need 3rd party help (links, tech dev work, anything else they can't do in house)
2. Call anyone you personally know with a business (trust already exists) and try to sell them (commission based if needed, to build a track record)
3. Find businesses that are already buying your service (for example, guest posts) and find a way to convert them to your service (better quality, better price, more reliable, etc)

 

[SmokeTree]

One of the biggest decisions you'll want to make is whether you want outside advice about your process or suggestions to improve, and it sounds from your post here that you do. If you do, hire top talent, explain your process in detail then listen to what they have to say because they absolutely will bring next level things to the table you never thought of. If you have a process you don't want improved or messed with, go after the "good/decent" writers/developers/etc that just get the job done to the spec and nothing more. Their output will be a direct result of your input in the best of circumstances so hopefully you have something that kicks that much ass on its own. The vast majority of the top tier folks I know (myself included) are picky about the jobs they agree to and most are super quick to pass on anything that smacks of micromanagement because zero of them have an employee mindset.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Hi, @ggpaul, you said you're back to square one. Does that mean your affiliate sites you invested in didn't succeed?

I hope you're feeling better and can get things in perspective. Feeling depressed and like you're going crazy might be an over-reaction if you still have a job in the industry you want to be in. Food on the table, clothes on your back, home to live in, working from home. Doesn't sound too bad to me. Many of us here have gone into debt or back to zero money several times before seeing success, literally eating 10¢ ramen packs and living in their cars.

Congrats on the new child, by the way. Big things!

 

[ggpaul]

Hey Ryuzaki,

Yeah unfortunately..I was hoping that while I was with both jobs, that I had a robust strategy that I can send off to a couple of teammates. But that didn't pan out .

The good news is...I did lock in and started working on one of my sites, doing it all on my own and noticed an uptick in traffic. However, it still seems like a long ways ahead of me.

And thank you for hoping that I'm feeling better.

I absolutely do not like the current job I'm in for the past 8 years now, but it's tough when it's the "chillest" job in the sense that I have the energy to work on my side work (affiliate marketing). But it just gets frustrating that I'm not having any sort of luck that my sites are blowing up.

Yes - you're right though, the gratitude aspect, food on the table, clothes, home, etc.

I wonder - maybe I need to hit rock bottom to really figure this out? I do see a therapists hoping that it would help with my mindset on things.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I wonder - maybe I need to hit rock bottom to really figure this out?

No, you don't need to do that. That's what really dense people have to do to get a big wake up call.

I'd suggest to not be thinking about concepts such as "luck" and be thinking about working hard and consistently and learning more and applying yourself to your one project that is showing promise, and work to grow it. Nothing will replace doing the work. You either have to do it yourself or pay someone to do it.

You CAN replace the income from your day job you hate and you CAN escape that life into one you desire to have. You can do it, for sure. But the work must be done first!

 

[ggpaul]

Thanks, Ryu, really appreciate it.

It's just been so frustrating, grinding it out even with two jobs and not seeing the results. Obviously, I'm not the only person and there are thousands and millions out there.

I've gone through several threads here, with kitchen sink method, as well as KGR method. And I'm trying. My frustrations seem to be ignited when I hear success stories as well from those that started SEO a year or two ago - and they're making 30-50k a month.

But hopefully, I can just keep my head down and keep applying.

 

[DanielS]

I've gone through several threads here, with kitchen sink method, as well as KGR method. And I'm trying. My frustrations seem to be ignited when I hear success stories as well from those that started SEO a year or two ago - and they're making 30-50k a month.

Just focus on what you do and use their successes as inspiration for yourself. I don't get jealous of other people's "quick" successes- I get angry with myself because I know I'm just as good at this stuff as they are (chances are, you are too).

The game really is simple- publish content that targets low competition keywords and keep publishing for as long as it takes to reach your desired milestone. Then, keep publishing. Add in some backlinks and traffic leaking to build the brand. Repeat.

Nothing is guaranteed but it's a lot simpler than people make it out to be online (myself included). The 99% who don't succeed will always be louder than the 1% who do. The key is patience- something I struggle with.

 

[ToffeeLa]

The key is patience- something I struggle with.

The key is working out what your individual advantage (your personal USP, if you like) is to set you above the rest of the herd.

There are thousands of 'webmasters' all over the globe trying to succeed with KGR in crypto or selling internet marketing programme subscriptions. It doesn't matter how much patience they have, 75% will fail because they are ignorant and/or lazy and the other 24% will fail because they are average.

 

[ggpaul]

Thanks, everyone for responding.

There are several things that I'm working on. For sure, journaling, and waking up with a different perspective. This is a progress for me, in the sense of having more gratitude. I can still be motivated to quit my 9-5, but I still have to enjoy the roses.

And to just keep grinding out, but not just grinding, really think ahead of what I can do better for the user and not just to rank and bank in the SERPS.

 

[Zyzz]

This forum was recommended by someone on Reddit and I found it interesting. So I am a 19yo guy from a 3rd world country who started building websites at 16, I didn't take it seriously but I made some bucks in my first year.

I learned SEO from youtube, blogs, and forums and I was able to take a website from 0 to 100k monthly PVs in less than 6 months (this was around 2019 and the site tanked cos I did pure Blackhat).

Currently, building niche sites and my monetization model is mainly ads. Nice to meet you guys.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Nice to meet you, @Zyzz. Yeah, Blackhat stuff can work but it's always temporary. Which means you aren't building assets that can produce income streams in your absence. Which means you can't have accumulating and snowballing revenue streams. If I wasn't doing spam and PBNs at your age, I'd be a bazillionaire. I'd definitely build a business (rather than something you know will tank) now, so when you're my age you're retired and living a life of extreme luxury. Since time plays a huge role in SEO, the sooner you can start the better. If you're serious, in 10 years you should be sitting on tens of millions, possibly hundreds.

 

[Zyzz]

Thanks Ryazuki, I stopped doing Blackhat SEO and my biggest site is performing quite well. Still scaling and building more sites to reduce risks.