Many months ago I remember someone mentioning how SEO was “broke money.” I couldn’t believe that person said that, but then I realized he was a CPA Network owner who was simply protecting his business. Slow money doesn’t fit in at CPA Networks, then again most CPA Networks have no clue how to utilize SEO and CPA offers, making them work in harmony.
The people who say SEO is “broke money” is always going to be either:
1. Someone who has no clue on how to REALLY make SEO sites rank (much less convert), and…
2. CPA Network owner.
We always hear about how “X” made $20,000 every day for 30 days. That’s awesome. It really is. The problem is — how much money did they spend to make $20,000 every day? I’m guessing $10-$15k per day, if not more. So let’s exaggerate and say that they made $10k per day for 30 days and then the offer they were killing it with was pulled… that’s $300k per month. Excellent money, no doubt!
But there’s still a problem. Most people who suddenly produce these numbers have never been there before and, honestly, got lucky. Most of them will spend that money on douchebag type stuff that is meaningless in life and makes most down to earth confused. We see it all the time, and some people have the balls to admit it on their own blogs (UberAffiliate gets props for that). It’s not easy to make $300k a year, much less a month, so when we see a person hit these numbers we’re all pretty curious about how they did it, and the fact is — most of them talk about it after the money is dried up for them. Campaigns die quickly in the CPA world, that’s just a fact.
So what does this have to do with SEO? A lot, actually. I’ve been a huge SEO advocate for years, but that doesn’t mean I bash paid traffic. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact…
It’s human nature to get worked up over seeing someone say “I made $600k in a month,” right? Of course it is. We’re in this business for that sole reason: money, and lots of it. But how much profit comes from those numbers, and how much money did they make after that? Most likely not much more after it died pretty quickly.
Now what if someone said that their SEO site made $20k per month? Doesn’t really compare to the look of that $600k, I’ll be honest. But let’s take a deeper look at those numbers.
Most SEO sites last for years (in my experience). It’s not hard to rank a site if you’ve been doing it for a while, even in more competitive environments. We don’t always need #1 rankings for keywords like “diet.” In fact, we don’t care about those keywords anyways, but let’s stay on topic (I know it’s just me, but pretend we’re having a conversation so I don’t feel crazy while typing this).
In my experience, most of my SEO sites last for 3-4 years, depending on what they’re about. I try to stay pretty general or very exact. Very rarely do I go in between. I either produce a branded (Authoritative) website or an Exact Match Domain (EMD) for a specific product, service or niche. Now if someone states that they’ve got an SEO website producing $20k per month, that might end up being pretty decent after all. If a website lasted 3 years and produced $20k per month — that comes out to be $720k in those 3 years. Of course, most Affiliates also have more sites, but we’re trying to stick to some basic numbers.
With paid traffic you pay for…well, the traffic. So $600k is RARELY profit for those who brag about those numbers. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it’s not realistic. $720k for SEO in those 3 years costs…I guess you’d have to say we’re using a Dedicated Server, so we’ll be generous and say $200 per month x 36, which equals $7200. So $720,000 – $7200 is still not bad, right?
Now there’s always going to be people who will still bash SEO and say that these numbers don’t matter, but my point is that SEO is slow traffic, which is not appreciated by those who need fast sales. Those people will always bash SEO, and that’s OK. It creates less competition!
I’ve always told members of Affiliit.com to be diverse with their traffic. Use PPC for their SEO sites if they’re quality sites. I also believe that there’s more to Internet Marketing than building SEO’d sites and running PPC to them. You should always test different traffic sources and offers and find out what’s best for YOU. Not everyone is going to be successful in SEO or PPC or Media Buys or whatever… everyone is different and everyone has their strengths. This post is for those SEO’s in Affiliate Marketing that hear people bash SEO.
Now, to dig a bit deeper — what about other SEO sites that make $500k+ per month? That’s for another post, but that’s real. Don’t let the unknowing make you feel the need to switch before you get moving, prove them wrong and ignore those with an agenda!
