Search Engine Optimization for Network Marketing
Seo is a large part of what I live and sleep each day. It is part of the fabric of my being at this time. I have been doing search engine optimization from before Stanford university did the fated deal with the two guys that started Google.
A little seo history
Back in the days when Altavista, Yahoo and OpenText were kings of the roost, that’s when search engine optimization was born. And that’s when I raked in incredible amounts of 7 figure money for the gaming industry.
Search engine optimization has always been about getting your website not merely on the first page of the biggest search engines but squarely and consistently in the top 3 of the serps ( search engine result pages ).
Is it always about Volume of Visitors ?
If you are running a business in which volume is not the key, but highly qualified visitors are, then any position on page one of google or Yahoo is going to potentially bring you business. How you converse with that potential customer when they arrive at your web page is often in the realm of “the lost art of online conversions” – which is another topic.
If you are on the first page but in position number 5 or number 7 or number 10 then your traffic is truly a trickle compared to what websites in the number one, two and three positions are getting.
If 100 visitors a day review a certain Google serp, and your website is in position 7 thru 10, you may be lucky to get just 3 of those visitors. Don’t ever think that humans evenly click on the top 10 positions. Positions 5 though 10 may get a combined 12 visitors while position 3 all on its own gets 6, and positions one and two combined may get 25-30.
Lol, by now you are laughing and saying, “Hey, any way we cut, dice and slice these numbers Trevor, they simply don’t add up to 100″.
You would be correct, but you can stop laughing because of the 100 visitors to that search page, a few will click on the paid ads at the top and right and perhaps more than 50% will simply try another search term or phrase.
Ha ha, ok, I am laughing now, “Isn’t this what you do too” ?
Getting people to click
The game however isn’t all about just getting into the top 10 positions on the search engines, its primarily about getting your potential visitors to take action ( on your listing in the search results ).
I should mention at this point, that it is possible for a site in position 3 to get more traffic than positions 1 and 2 if the title tag is extraordinarily compelling and the search topic is such that there is a higher level of interest for real solutions than mere casual searching.
A number 3 position with a title like : “Discover how an unbelievable 2 in 3 cancer patients have been cured by …”
may get more clicks than a title like “More cancer information”
Ze most frequent vequest I am asked Vor !
Oddly, enough, when a client comes to me and says, “Hey, I wanna be on the first page of Google, next week and for these 5 sets of key word phrases”, my first thought ( after the you’re dreaming phase ) is almost never about using seo techniques.
Why not SEO ?
Because traditionally, search engine optimization for top 10 keyword results has taken months to achieve. Furthermore, in a truly highly competitive product area where there is a ton of money involved and many seo firms taking tens of thousands of dollars monthly to push their client’s site to the top, getting a page one result on google in the natural search results is nearly impossible.
Highly competitive keywords such as diamonds,credit cards, mortgages etc come to mind.
In the old days, when Google was just getting its feet wet, getting a first page result for almost anything was more a result of onpage search engine optimization techniques. Seo specialists used to spam the title of the page with 3 or more variations of their keywords – the real estate industry is still doing this. The specialists would then ensure a keyword density of 4-6% on the page in question and with just a few links coming back to that page, this would be enough to put that page into serious contention.
That was pre-Google and even in the early Google days it still worked. And unfortunately I saw some real estate guys use this spam technique just last month and Google gave them credit for it – though it shouldn’t have.
Lately, the mode of operation for getting first page results has revolved around getting links back to your page from other sites that are in your related field. It helps considerably if a number of these links have the exact keyword that your page is attempting to rank on.
The movie “Field of Dreams” comes to mind at this point. And the phrase, “If You Build it They will come…” sounds better while being said than the real world reality. In most cases, when it comes to online ventures, this is really just pure and utter myth.
There are tens of millions of dying websites testifying loud and clear that if you build it, they won’t necessarily come.
The mantra being passed on, from the top, is just keep adding great content to your site and other people will link to you and the more links you get is the better you will be ranked and the whole world will go around merrily.
What is not being said, but heavily implied here by the Google team who makes these things up — is that other webmasters who take “a shine” or “who heart” your beautiful website are going to link to your website using the exact same set of keywords that you so badly need to rank for. Can you chew gum and say “incredible coincidence” 5 times really quickly ?
This is as likely as the tired kid who just ran 3 blocks, to catch the ice-cream truck, giving away his newly purchased triple vanilla ice cream cone moments later. I would like to say, “It seriously ain’t gonna happen“, but some of you would contradict me ,so ok, let’s leave it at — “Yes, it happens but not as frequently as that kid is going to give away his ice cream …“.
So, if people won’t voluntarily link back to your website using the keywords that you really need to rank highly on the search engines, what should or can you do?
Immediate qualified traffic
Well, to begin with, if traffic to your website this afternoon is what you want, then don’t fool around with traditional seo. Only email campaigns, highly specialized video seo and blog/forum posting in high traffic areas like google forums,Yahoo Answers or massive Web2.0 properties like Facebook/Myspace can give you significant free traffic 1 hour from now and that’s if you really know what you are doing. All of these tend to be labor intensive and require more than a little ingenuity – but they are free!
Take the Adwords tutorial at adwords.google.com and familiarize yourself with what buying traffic really means. Google will try to coerce you into opening up an Adwords account right then and there. I say, “Tread softly, spend time in the Google Adwords groups reading at how other people have lost their shirt/skirt and try not to do the same”
If you are unsure then find an expert whom you feel comfortable with and try to work a deal in which they set up your Adword campaigns while you learn their tips and tricks.
Ahhh, I smell the odor of burned Adwords Cashola
So, you have been burned by that Google Adwords thing already, and now you really want to pursue seo because you have heard that long 
term its free traffic. I would say, don’t turn your back on Adwords, with the right technique it is sometimes possible to get traffic that Google claims is going to cost you $2 per click for just 15 or 20 cents per click.
Sometimes you can get it from Google and sometimes you just have to look elsewhere because almost certainly that traffic can be bought in various places for 1 to 10 cents per click.
So, you have heard all that and you still want to pursue seo despite the fact that I said that traditionally it can take 2 to 3 months.
Good for you. Tomorrow, I will investigate how we get people to link back on the keywords that we need to rank highly and one can subsequently get into the top 10 results, sometimes in as little as 7 days and how I have done it in an hour.
Stay tuned …
Hey Trevor,
Great post. Google is certainly going down a different route than SEO and one way you can increase your site is to add the Google Friend Connect widget. Join GFC directory, link to a few other sites in your niche and start to get targeted, relevent traffic that Google can easily index as niche specific. Different approach and takes a little time but it should start to work if you're consistent with it.
Neil Ashworth
Trevor my man
What a pleasure it was to see your name and this link come up in my google alert for network marketing
How did you do that ‘Black Magic’?
After so many weeks I am able to find a blog providing good information about the affiliate programs. I am glad to see that there are still few persons on the internet who are NOT using auto blog posters. Creating a blog like yours and maintaining it are difficult tasks but you managed it. Ok! Come to the point. However, you have tried to give good information about affiliate programs but I am still against affiliate programs. I mean fault is not in the affiliate programs but in the people. They do not want to work hard and leave the programs after some time. Now, you might be thinking, if I am against affiliate programs then why I am here at your blog. Actually I am doing some sort of research on affiliate programs and when started reading your blog, I sticked to it and could not stop myself writing comment. I am not so much against affiliate programs, but my nature is a sort of experimenting. I keep on doing experiments for making money in new ways. If you visit my website, clicking on my name in this comment then you are bound to get amazed. If, I write more about my site then you will think that I am spamming and I do not want to get my comment considered as spam. So, again from the begining, you have done a very good job! Hard work is appreciated! Well done! Thanks for providing such a nice detailed information. Keep it up!
Its not SEO, not even Online Marketing tactics that matters …. All that matters is value to visitors!
MarC, you have a point, quite a strong one too. However, if you can't get the customers to the front door, the fact that you are literally giving away platinum and diamonds on the inside, is lost to the very customers who would have died to get their hands on your products and services.
In theory, thats where the seo comes into play, it is just to get them to the front door. What happens next is or should be in the realm of sem ( search engine marketing )
BigT
MarC, Rightly said, value to the visitors should be the top most effort of the businessman. Now, the question is that how to get more and more visitors, because only when you are having visitors you can give them any value.
great post here. worth my time to read here. thanks for sharing bro
I see several virtues in the post:
1- no prolixity
2- rich content
3- it looks helpful for me
Much thanks!
Search Engine Optimization for Network Marketing is a must to do for any internet marketer. In spite of having a good site if you do not get the required amount of traffic then everything goes in vein.
This post make me want to learn much more about SEO , fuc* your post seem easy to do yet so fuc*in hard to be done….. Thanks for the info . awesome