INTERNET RECESSION

This is a discussion on whether it is still possible to make a good living from scratch with just a website and good SEO coding / and or PPC (pay per click search engine marketing)....

This extract is based on personal experiences of running web sites , the extract is included as a reality check for GoodSites clients , and site visitors , if you agree or disagee send in your opinions for possible inclusion on these pages

Goodsites was started (under a different name) back in the infancy days of the internet when there was less competition from other advertisers , and earning an income from Google (and some of the smaller search engines) was very feasible indeed. Forunes were not made but it was well worth the time delveloping sites

But today the DOT COM bubble has expanded to near bursting point for anyone wanting to try their hand at tuning a profit solely from the net . Many businesses , ours included , are struggling or presenty not making any profit , and in limbo with several sites in a dormant mode , looking for doors to open (which may remain shut).

So today things have changed dramatically ! Anyone trying to start up a business and rely entirely on the search engines stands very little chance of making a living , you will be luck to make even pocket money, don't believe all the hype of many forums saying "i am making £1000s" by bid arbitrage etc.. Perhaps those forum posters are making that amount but they are in the vast minority and are unlikely to be recent startups . Many are people or networks looking to make money out of you , for instance they could be an affiliate network - they make there money buying attracting literally 1000s of webmasters knowing each individual is unlikely to make even a handful of sales , but put altogether will make them a vast fortune!

When this business started bid if prices on google were just 1p to get a good converting customer wanting an "Elton John CD" ie: the bid price on Google , now it is 70p when i last checked with a minimum bid activation of £5! If you were to be mad enough to bid 70p (a quick keyword tool search will show there are companies willing to do this) allowing for say 2% conversion (it's v. unusual to get much higher than 6%) you would have to pay £35 to get one sale . The moral is for startups don't get drawn into a bid war , if you can get a visitor for a few pence stay well clear! (Only a suggestion) . If you have any experience - good or bad i'd love to hear so i can publish experiences on this page .

So PPC is looking a "No brainer" for making any kind of profit , and santa is no longer helping you with the search engines , Google recently delivered another sting in the tail for small businesses - "supplementary search results" - how it works : you created a great webpage using all the SEO tools to optimise for Google (that they recommend on their Webmaster tools page) and then wait several weeks (or even months) in the hope that your efforts will pay off and you will get a good search engine ranking , but now more and more pages are going in a "supplementary" index , even whole sites are getting put in their (to check if you pages are in the dreaded supplementary pages enter this command in the google search box site:<yourdomain> , this lists all your pages in both indexes) , there's a v. good chance especially if you are a new site that most if not all your pages are in there , and once in you WILL NOT RANK on the main pages all you SEO efforts will be a complete waste of time .

Google is just reflecting the economic situation , the no of advertisers has grown exponentially , there is no longer a niche product to go after "pink spikey pineapples" are probably already being marketed by companies willing to pay huge PPC costs , and saturated organic results.

Off the back of all this are so called SEO specialists luring unwary webmasters into parting with literally £1000s of pounds per page (in some instances) to get no1 rankings (they usually choose a "niche niche" keyword like "pretty in pink spikey pineapples" - anyone can get no1 for this!).

So is there anyway to get lots of visitors to your sites and have a viable business ?

The answer is perhaps 2 fold : first you CAN get 10000s of visitors immediately - if you search for "huge traffic" or similar on google you will see a plethora of advertsiers offering bulk purchase of visitors - TIP - this is a con! in most cases , sure they wil deliver 10000s of hits , but noone will buy anything on your site as they are not even human in most cases , simply automated bots! or if they are humans they are receiving some kind of incentive to click (they are not interested ata ll in your site but in the incentive). The second part of the answer has to be good old fashioned hard work! , ie : none-internet advertising , in a variety of mediums , whether you advertise in newspapers , flyers or the radio you can always put your website address on the advert . Unless you have a site that is compelling with things outstandingly good value , with a catchy domain name You will find it hard to get anyone to visit your site .

The good news is the price of a domain and hosting is next to nothing , so providing you are cautious and don't bid huge amounts on Adwords (you may find you are priced out alll together), you can atleast create the site and publish it to net in the hope that it will get somehow ranked on Google (or atleast MSN Yahoo and the other smaller sites). So you don't have much to lose if things (almost inevitably) go pear shapes regarding internet advertising.

The SMEs that are still turning a profit tend to be already established " bricks and mortar " stores and businesses , the internet is just another sales avenue for them , and Google will probably provide a higher quality scoring (leading to lower bid prices) for such businesses as to compared to affiliates or startups.

Then of course the other answer for startups is Ebay , many small businesses are choosing this option instead of a web site , but even this site is charging much higher fees , whilst offering less for merchants than they used to see our Ebay low down for some pros and cons on Ebay listings .

Have Your Say

about this topic , on our discussion forum , perhaps you are an insolvent internet business , or a wary starter .