Search Engine Traffic Free?
One of the first pieces of advice I was given when I started out online was to set up a blog. Why? Because it would allow me to build an online presence while I learned. I could improve my blog as my knowledge improved.
Besides, search engine traffic is free, right? I mean, you don’t have to pay Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other pay per click marketing firm to get traffic to your site.
That last paragraph may be the reason so many online marketers fail. They don’t look close enough at the real cost of search engine traffic. They try to do everything themselves and end up investing untold hours of their time that they are led to believe has no value.
I’m here to tell you if you don’t put a dollar value on your time, you will never succeed online.
What Top Earning Super Affiliates Do
I’ve blogged before about ways to place a value on your time. Basically, it involves deciding on a target income and breaking down how much each hour of your time is worth.
If you are somebody who can do the technical side of site building quickly, buys quality content and uses low cost link building methods, traffic to your site will be relatively cheap.
If you are like so many struggling online entrepreneurs that spend tons of time trying to build, populate, monetize and optimize your site, your cost of traffic will be staggering if you stop to evaluate it.
Before you say that learning these various skills will pay dividends in the future, I urge extreme caution here. While it’s true learning to build a site, for instance, MAY help defray site building costs in the future, you need to look at the top money makers first. By an overwhelming majority, the people who have become top earning super affiliates have learned to outsource almost everything between the idea and the paycheck.
Go ahead and ask them. I have. And yes, there are those who have honed their skills over many years and can do all of it themselves. They are rare and most of them still use outsourcing for tasks they can do but choose not to.
What You Can Do About It
Here are my suggestions:
- Find a mentor-this takes some time but if you spend time on forums for your niche or products you are interested in promoting, you can strike up one of these relationships.
- Do the work you can get done quickly yourself and outsource as much of the rest as you can-again, forums and blogs in your niche can point you to these sources.
- Don’t EVER take your time for granted and don’t use the past as your guide. Use your target daily, monthly, weekly or annual income instead. If you don’t, you’ll doom yourself to be stuck at an income level forever.
I hope this post has given you some food for thought. Please leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.
Jake says
First visit to your blog and great advice i see right off the bat! I consider my self still pretty much a noob when it comes to most of this stuff.. I have learned sooo much but have soooo much to learn!
Just thinking outloud… right now i want to just have fun! I want to learn and i've talked about this on my blog, but i want to be able to just be me and not have to worry “too much”!
The way i see it, i can have a great time with my blog and learn the ropes at the same time! As time goes on, i hope that i will reach that place your post is about… that my time will be more valuable and i can maybe take all i have learned and put that towards a more “productive site”.
Make sense?
gronesy says
Hi Jake,
By all means enjoy yourself and get acclimated to blogging. It's especially easy when it's about something you care.
My post was really about trying to avoid the “I'm working my ass off and no money's coming in” snafu. I've seen way too many people really struggling to make even a side income because they're trying to do too much. Something's gotta give for them.
If you think about, Jake, your time already has value to you. Even if it's just opportunity cost. What I'm saying is a lot of people put off placing a value on their time until “I make a million dollars” or something like that. It's a catch-22 because that mindset is exactly what keeps a lot of people from really exploding the business side of their blogs.
Off my soapbox now.
Thanks for stopping by and contributing. Hope you'll add me to your feed reader while you're at it.
Jeff
gronesy says
Hi Mike,
When I first started out it would amaze you what stuff I was trying to pass off as work. Sure, it was related directly to online business but it was unfocused.
That's actually another area people do well with outsourcing-namely tasks that allow you to wander aimlessly. A lot of the busy work tasks like article research can degrade quickly into web surfing. For me, that's when I know I've got to pay somebody to do it. That way, I can accomplish a lot more with the things that I know I'll stay on task with.
Who have you used for article writing, if I may ask?
Jeff
mike says
we often overlook all of the time we put into our internet work and write it off as “free” work, whether it be a full time gig or just a side project.
i have outsourced some articles, which i have had mixed results with. i am considering looking into other areas that i can outsource as well.
very good information. thanks.
mike says
various people on elance and getafreelancer
gronesy says
Here is one that was suggested by somebody I respect and trust. He has had tons of work done by them and they all pass the CopyScape test. Low cost and high quality. I have not used them yet but have 3 sites that I'll be buying content for this month.
http://www.cyberhubonline.com/articles.html
That is NOT an affiliate link of any kind nor am I connected with CyberHub in any way.
Let me know how it goes if you use them.
BTW, your site is a good looking one. I recognize the theme. Did you do the header graphics yourself?
Jake says
I see your point and i agree! I think since I have a full time job and this is a “sideline” I may look at it differently than others do, to an extent…
I CAN relate what you are saying more to my Niche sites… Those sites do stress me more because they are my income from internet marketing… so my original comment i guess was more thinking along the lines of my jakecpunut.com blog where i just try to have fun and if i make money along the way, cool.. if not.. i'm not gonna stress..
for me i need that outlet to be able to have a stress free place where it doesn't matter if i make it or not… the stuff i am learning however is invaluable and i KNOW it will be of great help in the future!
Thanks again for the great post and the thoughts you put in my head!
Definitely will be subscribing!
gronesy says
Hi Jake,
I'm completely with you about stress-free zones. I have two other
sites that are just about my passions-music and birding.
Don't forget that Jeremy Shoemaker (shoemoney) started his empire
just as an outlet for his passions as well. The cool thing is that
if you apply what you learn in one area to your passion site you may
just wake up one day and find it's making good money.
Jeff
gronesy says
Hi Randon,
I totally agree with you. I hear people spending all kinds of time
on websites that will never get a visitor because they have no time
for SEO stuff.
Ask any top affiliate-unless it looks like a total spam blog, a site
can make plenty of money if the traffic items are taken care of
first. We can always go back and touch stuff up to our liking
later. The important thing is to get it indexed and get it ranking
for keywords or the whole project is a waste.
That job-U site is coming along nicely.
Thanks for stopping by and telling us what you think. Hope to hear
from you again soon.
Jeff
Randon says
Thanks for the advise, and what you said about outsourcing is SOO true. Another thing, it will take LOTS of time to learn how to effectively build good looking websites, that's time you could use doing other things like networking and galvanizing support.
Check me out at Job-U.com
gronesy says
Hi Randon,
I totally agree with you. I hear people spending all kinds of time
on websites that will never get a visitor because they have no time
for SEO stuff.
Ask any top affiliate-unless it looks like a total spam blog, a site
can make plenty of money if the traffic items are taken care of
first. We can always go back and touch stuff up to our liking
later. The important thing is to get it indexed and get it ranking
for keywords or the whole project is a waste.
That job-U site is coming along nicely.
Thanks for stopping by and telling us what you think. Hope to hear
from you again soon.
Jeff