I’ve caught some flack lately for my stance on SEO.
To me nearly all SEO efforts are the art and science of trying to stay one step ahead of Google in order to get undeserving websites a higher ranking than they deserve. A great way to avoid all of that nonsense is to NOT CARE and NOT RELY on your Google rank. If you do rank well occasionally, it’s a bonus. If you don’t rank well don’t worry about it. Just use my proven Four C formula below.
Are you curious how much time I’ve spent working on, thinking about and paying people to assist me with SEO? Ready for the total?
It’s ZERO.
And yet (to grab one example), SilentSalesMachine.com (a simple one page website with a google pagerank of 5) gets loads of organic, search engine traffic. This is because people talk about it, they link to it, and it’s a great book according to the “crowd”.
Ready for the Four C’s?
I choose to create fantastic content that starts conversations and then the crowds find me every time. (I’ll call it my four C’s)
Each time I have an audience online paying attention to me I offer them the option of getting on my email list so I can contact them later with other stuff they might love (email marketing). Yep – it’s all that simple.
If you are spending your time, money, energy or heaven forbid you are building your career around figuring out ways to get Google “Love” for websites that only deserve Google “slight affection” (or worse), then I say embrace the 4 C formula now and only spend your money and time with people that get it.
Keep in mind this trend while you are making up your mind:
The Internet is increasingly LESS and LESS about “websites” and it’s more and more about RELATIONSHIPS, PEOPLE, TRUST and COMMUNITIES.
Being good at tricking google is not a skill that will get you through life much longer if I’m right.
Now, click the comment button and tell me all the reasons I’m nuts (I’m serious – I want your best shot!)
Additional reading:
The best traffic that I get to my sites, according to Google analytics, are visitors referred from other sites that like my stuff.
It’s not necessarily the biggest volume but it’s the most engaging and converts better.
So I agree. Time and effort is best spent building solid relationships – you really can’t buck the 80/20 rule for very long.
I know that you want someone to disagree with you. I would like to argue that your ideas are crazy and if I could only get the “Hot” SEO of the day I will be raking it in but, I have to confess that I think you are correct.
Even if Google loves you today everything will change tomorrow. But, they can’t change their relationships that you have developed with your readers.
Do I sound like I’m picking a fight with this one? 🙂 I am a bit tired of the hype…when I hear the term “SEO” my “hype-alert” warning light goes off in my head…and it’s almost always right.
Hi Jim,
This just in from the news desk (Linkedin’s weekly “Advertising and Marketing Update”). . .
SEO Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads, New Industry Report Says
Nov 2, 2011 at 9:05am ET by Matt McGee
http://searchengineland.com/seo-beats-ppc-social-media-for-generating-leads-99064?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=feed-main
Frankly, the “2011 State of Digital Marketing Report” may be right (see above).
However, if you are in a niche where there is a huge demand, need, and interest (you certainly are — people need to make money for themselves and stop thinking some employer holds the key to their future hopes and dreams) then I think the four C’s will take you further, with a lot less expense, then any other technique or approach available.
There is a price that has to be paid though. You have to spend the time, energy, focus and dedication needed to become an expert, a master at what you preach and teach.
You certainly have proven that it is worth the investment, and you continue to provide all the necessary tools and training needed to do just that to anyone interested in following in your footsteps.
The cool thing is that the approach you have taken is one that can be adapted to virtually any niche. If someone is passionate about something, and wants to make money at it, they’ve already got a well worn path to follow.
Thanks Jim for all you’ve done and continue to do for the on-and-offline community.
Well Jim I don’t know if you’re nuts about SEO but I have to tell you that your stance on this brings great relief. I say TO HECK WITH SEO. if the goal can be achieved with other methods. Thanks a lot. I bought Your Silent Sales Machine book way back in 2004 but it didn’t do me much good at the time because I was new to the computer and was still figuring out how to copy and paste and so most of it was above my primitive comprehension. However, now that I ‘get it’ somewhat anyway, I find your stuff very helpful and very encouraging. Cheers, Keep up the good work! Betty
It is ironic that people who give you “flak” don’t talk about your high volume of sales ! Isn’t sales ( and repeat sales) the golden indicator of how you attract and convert ? All the SEO knowledge in the world do not help if you cannot convert. Thank you…..Larry
PS Waiting anxiously for the Free Marketing 101 book I won in last Wednesdays drawing !
Jim,
I’m not an expert or anything near but, I have had the privilege of sending
the “G” to fly a kite long time ago. (actually, I said something can’t repeat here)
Writing original content articles, forums, free ads and give aways bring me
all the traffic I need, so far.
Of course it takes work…but, who cares if I’m doing what I love..? I don’t!!
Cheers,
George
I think adding some simple SEO awareness to all articles posted online is important.
I write the articles for my subscribers anyway. I might as well spend a few
minutes increasing the chances the search engines will index them
highly while I’m putting them online.
Consider this, I haven’t sent a newsletter out with an affiliate link to the Silent Sales ebook in years, but still get sales every month. They are down now because you haven’t been publicizing your book and the review is dated, but 3 years ago I was getting an average of 11 sales a month from the page on my site. That’s over $100 a month in commissions because of an extra few minutes work when I converted the newsletter article into a web article.
If you could get between 5 and 20 new newsletter subscribers a day as a result of spending an extra 3-5 minutes a week when you put your articles online would it be worth the time?
Basically all I do is make sure to include some items on the page that help the search engines decide what the page is about. (Title, URL, and a few uses of the phrase. I also check for word usage so I can use words people search for. EX: “tips” is better than “advice.”) Off the page, I use anchor text in links pointing at the page in the navigation.
I also spend about 30 minutes a month keeping up with what the search engines are doing. Another hour a month is spent keeping the site fresh by deleting or updating older articles and removing links that have gone bad.
Some of my articles are on page one of the Google SERPS and I did nothing but cover the topic completely. Wasn’t even thinking about keywords or anything like that.
…and that’s how it’s supposed to work. Google is pretty smart, and as they start to integrate the opinion of the “crowd” they’ll get even smarter. Bottom line: Best Content Wins. Average content rises and falls randomly. Poor content might be seen for a short time (hooray SEO!), but it’s gone in a puff of smoke very quickly.
That is important to keep site of if you want your stuff to perform well over the long haul. Good content will keep you high in the SERPS, I am sure, because you get a high page rank from Google that way, and the longer you are up there the stronger your page is in ranking.
very true indeed. its getting harder and harder to rely on Google if you are not providing quality content these days.
Jim
Your Money,
Seo does not guarantee conversion,people are mesmerized with traffic it is important but the right traffic leads to new customers,that’s all that really matter s any way
I like being called “money”… Thx Pete.
Wow! I am relieved to hear what you have to say. I compare Google to a puppeteer who has us all dancing while they pull the strings. All my SEO purchases haven’t helped me a bit. I haven’t earned much on Adsense, nor on my affiliate JV sites. I have bought and tried many guru techniques for sites, but nothing. It just can’t be that simple as good content. You do a lot of “marketing” and your one page site doesn’t have much content, or is it in all the links and categories? I am trying to follow your lead in my one pager as well, and following Multi Profits Monthly right now. My niche is Meditation and Healing .
Advice?
You don’t need a website. You need an audience. Your success starts with understanding that concept. Here’s a blog post on the topic:
https://www.jimcockrum.com/blog/?p=308 (adjust your volume – somehow I wound up with an auto-play audio of the blog post on that site)
Your first step towards success is FINDING AN INFLUENTIAL PARTNER. Next, make that partner look like a hero while growing your email list. Then you are off to the races…
When it comes to giving you my best shot as to why you’re nuts thinking this way I keep on shooting air-balls – sorry!
You miss every shot you don’t take though…take a shot! I need a challenge here!! 😉
What about a little SEO AND great content. Wouldn’t that just provide extra leverage to your great content – more people see it and more people share it.
Perhaps you are not fulfilling your full potential Jim? Did you ever think of it that way?
Of course I’m not fulfilling my full potential online, but neither is anyone that sleeps/eats/drinks SEO either! Right? I don’t see myself ever waking up each day to check to see how much google happens to like me that day. People like that should also try day trading!
Let’s assume, for example, that someone claimed they could tell us all how to tell when “SEO” is working and they had condensed it into a predictable formula that worked consistently (I call these attempts “scams”). Even then I STILL wouldn’t be interested because as soon as that information became public, it would be useless from overuse (if it worked), and we’d all be waiting on the next “super secret awesomesauce” trick.
Oh wait – that is what’s happening isn’t it? Over and over and over…
Each time the dust settles though which sites continue to creep towards the top? The BEST CONTENT sites that the most people find the most useful. That’s who keeps on winning! I want to have those kinds of sites!
Until someone can tell me what SEO even is, and how to know when it’s working I’ll just keep creating great content and keep trying to grow my audience through creative partnerships. I’ll continue to NOT care about SEO and keep watching my sites continue to rise and (and sometimes fall) in the SERP’s just like all the other sites riding the sea of Google waves.
So I guess my short answer to your question is this. Yes, I’ve considered
SEO, but no I’m not interested.
Hi Jim,
I’m encountering small local businesses all the time that have good services to offer the local community, with a little template site that appears nowhere on Google. Getting them some representation on Page One of Google for local keywords is extremely valuable to them because without visibility they get no sales from the search engines.
Great content is not the answer for these businesses – all they want is some online visibility in their local market and they can get that by using relevant keywords in their content to attract targeted traffic and structuring their pages and content correctly.
Anyway ‘great content’ does NOT always mean great ‘service provider’ or ‘great product’ it just means you are good at providing content, (which may or may not have been copied from somewhere else!)
You may be able to write like Shakespeare on the subject of plumbing but it does not mean you are qualified to fix my leaking tap.
Also, understanding your competitive position in the market dictates your approach to getting the client visibility – in low competition, local markets it is relatively easy – but it helps to understand the principles of SEO to understand your competitive position. You then don’t waste resources creating a site the size of Amazon to get page one position for ‘plumber in Warwick’ or a keyword that virtually nobody searches on.
The plumber in Warwick is not interested in creating a site with great content – he just wants to know the shortest route to a page one position – and understanding SEO will help to achieve that in the most efficient way.
Yours warmly
Mark
P.S. Is that challenging enough?
Ahh…I’m SO glad you brought that up! Because I agree with you 100% for LOCAL SEARCH!
With LOCAL search, the game is WIDE OPEN so doing a few simple things for “brick-n-mortar” businesses to help get them found online is a great biz model. I have an entire membership website (OfflineBiz.com) where we teach that stuff- because it WORKS GREAT (did I mention we have 10,000+ members?). It works so well because most businesses haven’t even claimed their Google listing yet! Over time though (5-8 years from now maybe?) the CROWD will increasingly determine who ranks well on Google (or whatever search services dominate), and as that happens more and more consistently even plumbers will have to be the “best” at what they do if they want top billing on the web. You can’t fool “the crowd” for very long and “the crowd” is never wrong when it comes to search.
Jim, personally I don’t think you’re nuts, I just think you are a visionary. You are able to see trends long before most of your peers and that’s what make you the great leader you are. But then again most people of ideas were considered to be nuts at some time!
Thank you – very kind.
I don’t know why I just don’t listen to you more often. I hate SEO. I get it, sort of, but have no desire to sit and look up keywords and all that crap…(another C for ya -ha). I just bought a WSO on 30 minute SEO and the thought of sitting through it is more than I can take… Guess I’ll be asking for a refund.
You ARE nuts. But who of us isn’t? HA!
Thanks
Firecracker
P.S. Anyone reading this that is NOT a member of Offline Biz, you need to be. It is awesomesauce. (I was not paid to say that, but I WILL take gifts 😉
Thanks Lesley – you rock!
Jim, I agree wholeheartedly with the principle behind what you’re saying but would challenge it just a little. First the parts I agree with!
1. I have come to believe that SEO can be used for one of the biggest scams I’ve ever seen in the online marketing world. A relatively small company in Atlanta that I know, paid $2,000/month for over six months to a “SEO consultant” and had pretty much no change in traffic. When we took a good look at their business, website, marketing efforts and pr, it was clear that they were naturally doing almost all the basic things they needed to be optimized for search – thus wasting over $12,000.
2. Your “4 C formula” is impeccable and a wonderfully simple summation of what Internet marketing is all about! I also agree emphatically with your closing comments about the Internet being more and more about relationships rather than websites. The faster businesses embrace and internalize that reality the lower their stress level will be.
On the other hand (where I disagree – sort of), I feel that the conversation throughout the comments and your post itself is risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater. SEO has been bastardized greatly over the last decade and what has been forgotten – or perhaps never properly explained – is the true purpose of the whole thing.
While I studied it in graduate school and practiced SEO (not black-hat, I promise), I never grasped the simpleness of the process until I read “The Google Story”, by David Vise and Mark Malseed, and understood the principles and process on which search engines as we know them today are based – simply put: to provide the best, most relevant content for the word or words that the SEARCHER has asked for. The focus is on the person looking for the content, not the person/company providing the content. And that’s where they spend millions of dollars trying to perfect the process and guard against businesses tricking the system to get content that is not the most relevant there.
If we remember what search engines existence is for and what they are trying to do, following basic SEO principles will a) not be nearly as complicated as the myriad of quacks trying to keep it complicated and confusing would lead us to believe it is, and b) will make it as easy as possible for the search engines to match our content with the appropriate searchers.
I say I only sort of disagree with you because while you say you don’t do any SEO, you do in fact follow several basic SEO principles across your sites. I’m part-way through your “Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off” book and several of the principles and tools you write about and practice across your sites fulfills a great deal of basic SEO. Using WordPress, for example has automatically optimized most of your sites (titles of images, permalink and page structure, etc.), in ways that would take forethought and deliberation on most other website platforms, and many of your other recommendations and ideas have the bi-product of fulfilling basic SEO principles.
My point is simply that awareness of basic SEO principles and applying them to all the different things one does both on and offline, can help make sure that the search engines are able to see and review your content and organize it where it should best go. It’s sort of like having a brick and mortar business and refusing to put a sign on the building or address marker visible to the public, or making your number unlisted – OK not a perfect comparison but. . . It shouldn’t be your primary focus and definitely shouldn’t be a large expenditure (if at all), but would hesitate to throw it out completely.
My god this is far too long for a comment on your blog and I apologize! I’ve immensely enjoyed all I’ve read from you so far and this is the first thing I didn’t wholeheartedly agree with :). Thanks for the great content!
Brian Matthews
Great comments – and I feel the support you are expressing.
The term “SEO” has become so synonymous with “fooling the search engines” that I’m OK with throwing the term entirely out of my strategy and replacing it with the mantra of “just create great content worth talking about”.
If the SEO “die-hards” chose to call some of my online activity “white hat SEO” etc. that’s fine, but I’m not doing any of what I’m doing online to impress the search engines, so it’s within my right to reject the term entirely as part of my strategies. To be clear, I do absolutely zero “intentional SEO” in my efforts to grow my business no matter what others chose to call it.
You put together a very thorough reply – I hope many others will read and grasp what we are both saying here.
Social media is “hot” for now sure…but ultimately having a list of people that WANT to hear from you is the ultimate goal. Facebook, twitter, etc. will come and go (like myspace did), but having an email list and/or other contact info is invaluable. Use social media to build that list.
I just discovered you! Ok I’m late to the game. I know. I just started my first blog and am so relieved to not have to worry about SEO as I hear I need to study! This made my day!
🙂 Welcome to sanity!
I realized that this is an answered prayer from God. I started back in 2011 with trying out online marketing. I realized I was losing out. I researched online for good rated online marketers and Jim Cockrum came up.
I realized that all these online marketing and Seo gurus were doing nothing but selling sham products that wouldn’t make me no money. I always see them online selling marketing products but no wisdom on making money online. Jim has stayed the same and consistent with his products.
I only teach the stuff that works well for my team and i. It’s that simple.
Thanks for the kind note.
I only teach the stuff that works well for my team and i. It’s that simple.
Thanks for the kind note.
I wish I seen this post and your other post on seo much sooner. I bought a course called Local Lead Gen Mastery. Which is about doing local seo in a way thats setting up what we call virtual assets, rank them in google and in maps and start charging for the phone calls and we use a phone tracking software to forward the calls to local businesses. I’m not bashing the course or anything, but let me just say I am extremely frustrated by seo its not even funny. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours building the website and trying to rank. I believe nowadays local seo is really no different than affiliate marketing. I’m just a “local affiliate” because I’m still trying to bring revenue to someone else’s business. I feel like I wasted all of my time. And this is a legit business model to where I’ve heard other people succeeding, but unfortunately it just hasn’t worked for me. From now on I’m not going to focus on anything that relies 100% on organic search. Selling your own products is the way to go, especially physical products. I’d rather focus on ppc techniques at least thats something I have more control over and get feedback more quickly to find out what I’m doing wrong. And I’d venture to say ranking locally is just as hard as ranking international affiliate sites imo. I’m feeling mentally destroyed because I’ve been at this for over four months and don’t even have my first client or any legit calls coming in, only telemarketers from the 300 crappy citations I was taught to buy.
I can feel your frustration – I’m so sorry. I’ve heard many people tell me stories of SEO confusion and frustration. I ignore SEO entirely myself and THRIVE without it.
Have you read the Silent Sales Machine book yet? I think you’d find it very useful -it’s only $5 on Amazon. It explains how the world of ecommerce REALLY works based on thousands of success stories.