The Harsh Reality Of Free SEO
Less than a year ago, I was primarily promoting Numis Network (a Network Marketing company) and new people were joining me daily… (Still are)
As soon as they joined my team, they’d ask “what next”…
So I’d tell them to go through the fast start training and to begin signing up new members. To them… It didn’t compute. I could imagine their faces at the time turning upside down as they thought… “What about the secrets” Dave?
As I always did, I told them “there are no secrets”. You gotta generate traffic, leads, send the leads to a presentation and the people will join. So the subsequent question was always “how the heck do I generate traffic”?
I used to go on by telling them if they wanted fast traffic, they would need to spend money. They would need to spend money on paid marketing, on things like PPC, solo ads, and media buys.
They always shook their heads and thought “damnit Dave… gimme the free stuff”. So I told them about SEO and how they could use it to generate free traffic.
99% of the time… People would start building blogs, doing SEO and attempting to make a buck or two by ranking in the search engines. Only to find out it would take them 3-6 months to see any substantial results. 95% of the time, the people failed and went on to try other things.
“Great story Dave… But what’s the point?”
The point is, SEO is kinda stupid and if you want to see fast results, you better forget the idea of using SEO to build your business. SEO is an excellent marketing strategy, but only for the wise that have time and money on their hands.
Another common misconception about SEO is that it’s free. The reality is that you need to spend a solid $500 on tools to get started properly…
- $100 For An Article Submitter
- $140/month For A Submitter Like Senuke X
- $100 Market Samurai
- $59 Scrapebox
- $100 For Spinner or $10/month-ish
- $59-$150/month For Blog Network Subscription
- $100 Bookmarking Demon
Now those are just the basic tools. There are countless others that will make your life easier, tools that you’ll need in the long run. That’s if you’re writing all of the articles yourself for submission. No longer can you rip articles off other people’s websites and just spin them with a tool.
You need your own content for submissions which can be a huge cost itself. You could rank well using one or two of the mentioned tools above, but not very easily.
The tools are just the beginning; if you really want to grow your business you need to be outsourcing. You need to be employing people overseas to use the tools for you. It all adds up, and ultimately; SEO isn’t free at all.
It’s 100% free if you want to manually build links and promote your website. But doing that will only result in endless frustration, limited traffic, and perhaps a mild heart attack. Manually doing your own SEO is a killer.
Just kidding… But my point is it’s very tedious and it’s not something you want to do for long. So the whole “FREE TRAFFIC” concept is majorly flawed. SEO isn’t free at all if you want to see substantial results within 3 months. You’d be stupid to think otherwise. I learned the hard way by manually doing everything for almost a year. That was before I started outsourcing.
So let’s say it’s going to cost you $500 to set up your SEO system for you to “manually” work it. It’ll probably take 3 months of very tedious and boring “work” to start seeing substantial results. That is if you don’t give up beforehand. That’s a huge problem; most people give up before they see results with SEO.
In fact, 98% of people give up before seeing results with SEO. So the reality is you’d be 50 times better off sticking $500 into paid marketing.
By paid marketing I mean any of the following:
- Solo Ads
- Direct Mailing
- Pay Per Click
- PPV
- Media Buys
- Content Network Traffic
The thing is, with paid marketing you see instant results. You’re effectively buying your way to the top of Google or any other search engine/website. With any paid marketing you do, you’re getting instant targeted traffic without any hassle. But it comes at a price; you usually pay per 1000 impressions or by the click.
So What Should A Beginner Do?
First, be ready to blow $500 at a bare minimum on paid traffic. If you can’t afford to blow $500, DO NOT spend $50 to a hundred bucks on a crappy article submitter to start doing SEO. That is the dumbest thing you could possibly do. Instead, save up; there’s no point in starting a business on a shoestring budget like that.
You’re better off working an extra shift at your J.O.B and putting aside $50-$100/week for paid traffic. Once you do have at least $500, pick one paid marketing strategy and learn it. Only once you’ve learned it should you invest your precious cash.
You probably won’t profit right away, you might not even break even. But you will gain experience and know how to tweak what you’re doing to profitability. The more you spend once properly educated, the closer you will get to a highly lucrative paid ad campaign.
With paid marketing, all you need to do is make more money per visitor than you spend. Using tracking software and tools you can calculate how much each visitor makes you on average. So if you’re making $50/sale and you’re paying $0.30 per click, you need to make at least one sale in every 166 visitors.
That means your sales page would only need to convert at 0.06%! Usually, a sales page will convert at 1% to 3% with cold targeted traffic. Let’s say 3%, that means you’d make one sale in every 30 or so visitors. If you’re making over $50 per sale, that means you can spend over a dollar per click and still be very profitable.
That’s the beauty of paid marketing; you can scale up very quickly unlike with SEO.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below.
Comments
Yaretzi Vargas
Great post, David! I completely agree with your points about paid traffic being faster than SEO. I’ve been trying to rank my site for months now with little results. Paid traffic seems like the way to go!
Sarah Johnson
Hmm, I’m not sure about this. SEO has worked for me in the past, but it does take a long time. Do you have any examples of success using paid traffic?
Mike Anderson
Fantastic article! You really hit the nail on the head with the costs involved in SEO. I wish someone had told me this earlier before I spent all that money on tools!
Lisa Green
I’ve been doing SEO for a while now, but your points about paid marketing have me reconsidering my strategy. Thanks for the insights!
Robert Brown
SEO is so time-consuming! I’ve been at it for six months and barely see any results. Paid marketing might be worth a shot.
Alexei Volkov
David, I must say, this post really resonated with me. I’ve been trying SEO for a while now, and it’s been such a slow process. After reading this, I’m convinced that paid marketing is worth giving a shot. Keep up the great work!
Emily Garcia
I find it hard to believe that SEO is such a bad idea. Are there any successful case studies or real examples of people who have seen fast success with paid marketing? I’d love to see some data before switching tactics.
Chris Wu
Thanks for this, David! I’m relatively new to online marketing, and I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of advice out there. Could you clarify which paid marketing method you think works best for someone on a limited budget?
Francesco Ricci
I’m not sure I fully agree with your take on SEO, David. While it can be slow, I think it still has value in the long run for building organic traffic. That said, your points about the cost of tools are absolutely spot on. Interesting post!
Samantha Lee
David! Long time, no talk! This post really takes me back to the early days when I was struggling with SEO. Hope all is well with you. Let’s catch up soon, maybe over coffee? Keep doing what you do!
Ivan Petrov
Your post reminded me of the time I tried to rely solely on SEO for my website. It was exhausting and brought minimal results. Once I started incorporating paid traffic, everything changed. I saw results much faster!
Olivia Fernandez
If you’re looking for alternatives to SEO, I’d highly recommend checking out Google Ads or Facebook Ads. These platforms allow you to quickly scale and target specific audiences, which is essential for fast growth. Great post, David!
Yuki Nakamura
I really appreciate this post, David! I’ve been stuck in the mindset that SEO is the only way to go, but now I realize there are better alternatives. I learned a lot from your perspective on paid marketing. Thank you!
