5 Internet Marketing Strategies That Don’t Work
October 19th, 2009 by Court1. Image Search –> Anything that produces income. This strategy works great if you want to boost your ego, because it can be extremely effective for getting traffic. However, if you care about marketing or making money, image-search does almost nothing for you. I challenge anyone to take a stream of image searchers and to try to get them to act. Getting them to click ads is extremely difficult and getting them to make a purchase is even more difficult.
2. Personal Blogging –> Adsense. The bottom line is that people don’t really care about us. They are self interested. If you are trying to establish a blog while hoping that people are getting interested in YOU, you have a long road ahead of you. People care about what you can provide to them - they care about how you can solve their problems.
3. Social traffic –> Adsense. It doesn’t take degree from MIT to figure this one out. Social traffic rarely clicks ads of any kind. This happens because more often than not, these individuals are looking for entertainment. They also have a solid understanding of what ads are, and what they can expect to see if they click one. You can expect social traffic to click on an ad less than 0.25% of the time they hit one of your pages. That means you’ll need 400 social visitors to produce one click IF you’re lucky.
4. Social traffic –> Sales. Social traffic is also extremely difficult to sell to. Again, these people are looking for entertainment and honestly, are often information addicts. However, it is often possible to get them to subscribe to a feed and then convince them to make a purchase later.
5. PPC –> Adsense. People were making a killing with ‘Adsense Artbitrage’ a few short years ago. However, this is almost impossible to do in today’s climate. Google’s smart-pricing made this a LOT harder. There are still people claiming that it can be done, but as you might guess, these people are almost always trying to sell you a product that tells you how to do it.
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October 19th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
So so so true Court.
The worst part is that there are so many people out there trying to sell stuff that uses these methods to make money online. It’s not only a waste of money, it’s a waste of time. Time that could be spent doing things the right way to make money.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I admit that in the past I’ve tried the social media route as well as the arbitrage plan. I have the Excel spreadsheets with lots of red (and tears) on them to backup how much those don’t work. Sometimes you have to try something to know what does and doesn’t work, so I chalk it up as a learning experience.
I’ve never tried the image targeting myself. I have a friend who once had the #1 image on Google for the generic term “cow”. He can attest that even with the traffic he received, very little income was ever generated from that position (under $10 — ever).
October 19th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
I would add that some content doesn’t convert well regardless of where the traffic is coming from. Sports content is very hard to convert into sales from my experience.
October 20th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Is it possible to hide your images from showing up on an image search?
October 20th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Amanda usually whether you come up in an image search or not depends on what you name your images. If you use person-name.jpg, chances are you’ll come up in an image search for ‘person name’. If you use img4435.jpg for the same image, you won’t come up in an image search for ‘person name’.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:49 am
OK, so naming your image “mykeyword.jpg” has little SEO benefit–unless you want worthless image searchers visiting your site .
October 20th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Yep, those are definitely internet marketing strategies that don’t work. I think the biggest loser these days that people insist on sticking with is social traffic and Adsense or just about any other monetization method with social traffic… It just doesn’t convert!
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:39 am
I see what you guys are talking.
But if social traffic doesn’t work, why is Twitter and Facebook so popular?
I am sure these guys have better use for their time than to build a following on those platform.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Nice list. Would agree with the spirit of most of your points. But there are several cases to prove number 4 wrong. I would say, untargeted social ≠ sales. But it is more than possible to be successful at this.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:21 am
Now the social media is rocking the internet marketing most people believe the success..
November 24th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Yes, I agree with you. Social media is really a great help for internet marketers, specially for those, who are involved in affiliate marketing. It helps to grow their networking.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Well, I agree with most of the points but I think image optimization can work for the movie websites and social media can work for a few niches like Internet Marketing and Forex.
October 24th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
So image is not OK then that leaves me with vidoes…
That would work like miracle I guess, am I right?
YouTube videos —-> Adsense will work like gangbuster, right?
October 26th, 2009 at 4:00 am
I tried using PPC once and that was the biggest mistake that I ever made. It cost me several hundreds of dollars now I just stick with SEO as it is cheaper.
October 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Great site, thanks for the info
October 26th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I have to say, my Facebook ads did very well targeting small business groups. That was until the bids went from 25 cents to 2 dollars. My funds have now shifted to other places. Of course I was targeting local online marketing with local business owners which use Facebook to market their own business.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Interesting article. The Internet needs more posts like this that show people what doesn’t work.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Yes this is a total noob question but I must ask: I am a new member of The Keyword Academy with a new site, following the advise of Mark and Court. I’m in process of using the SEO techniques to get ranked. I thought the purpose was to get search engine traffic so that people come to the site and actually click the ads and I get paid…of course I eventually want to have something to sell them, but am I to understand that PPC and Adsense in this fashion is no longer realistic? Please advise honestly.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I am sure Court will answer you but IMO, you have to combine SEO with a managed PPC campaign. Organic traffic is best because you pay nothing for the traffic. The “trick”, of course finding the right keywords to target. Managing a PPC campaign is a long term commitment because you have to monitor what works and what doesn’t work then adjust accordingly.
BTW Court, great article. Your comment about social blogging is bang on. FB STILL can’t figure out how to make money with it.
and twitter has become so spammy I turned off all updates and blocked most of the followers.
Thanks for the post!
Bill
October 29th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Hi I really enjoyed reading your post it was very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Aly
October 29th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
So are you saying that you can’t make good money through Adsense PPC?
October 29th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Hi..
I have just downloaded your e book and it is very useful …Thanks .
October 29th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Informative and valuable post. I agree with most of your views. Its really true. Thanks for this post.
October 30th, 2009 at 3:11 am
Court is basing what he has written from experience. It’s funny how some of you are saying social traffic can make you money, or image search, etc. It’s nice to hear other people being able to do it but until you yourself make a ton of money using those techniques Court recommended to avoid, perhaps you should stop buying into the hype and start doing what actually work. Just a suggestion.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Is it just me Court, or are you letting a lot of spam comments through? Seems like there are quite a lot of “I agree with your article. When will you write more” comments.
I think what you wrote is pretty self evident to anyone in the game. Those that have disagreed and say they can prove otherwise, it would be nice to see an example.
October 31st, 2009 at 7:58 am
The days of making money from adsense are pretty much gone. We can no longer except to make a huge amount of money from it anymore. Also, I think the biggest part about social traffic is building a relationship first and then the sales will come
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:25 am
Hi Donny Gamble !! Its not like that. Last year I was doing SEO on a site which was a US based I dont want to mention the name. But that site was earning more than $ 400 per day. Then I thought I should also place adsence on my personal blog, and you know what happens its almost 5 months and I have earned only $ 3. The reason why? because I have 40 to 50 Visitors per day on my Blog. But in that case the traffic was more than 100000 per month.
So the key points are “Traffic” > “Theme” > “Keywords” of a website.
October 31st, 2009 at 11:05 am
Donny you are right, Adsense is dead and social marketing is where the money is made now. The sooner Internet marketers like you realize that the better they will do.
November 1st, 2009 at 12:06 am
Great information!..
Thanks for this one. Can you suggest other site with the same subject?
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Someone finally has the balls to tell the Emperor he’s got NO clothes. Thanks man! Unless you’re a very talented illustrator selling images or services, image search especially is a complete waste of your time. If you think it will help SEO, try again. Nice post!
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I agree. We just find our competitors steeling images we paid for because we made it easy for them to find.
November 4th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Very Useful information !!
November 4th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
nice tips, i’ll try
November 5th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
If you want to get involved, interact. Internet marketing is not just about dealing with Google’s algorithms but all the more dealing with actual human audience.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
One thing I like about image search is that you can point images to any specific link. I clicked on one picture and it took me to Amazon. I thought that was pretty clever. With all the personal blogs out there, what do you suggest to get a few sales?
November 8th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Hi, I really enjoyed your commentary.
You really hit the nail on the head.
It seems that these methods keep being rehashed into “new stuff” and when it comes right down to it, you can redesign and repackage these methods all you want, but if they don’t work, they just do not work!
I don’t like to waste time and most certainly do not like to waste my money that could be better spent on methods that truly give me direction to make money without all the “stuff and fluff”.
November 9th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I cannot completely agree with this blog posted here. As one of my fellow commentators said if social traffic is doesn’t work then why many people are using them and also many internet marketing consultants are using it and are successful by doing so. Except this, I agree all the other internet marketing strategies don’t work as expected.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:45 am
@robertphillips | Social traffic can convert but a social media campaign tends to bring the best rewards when approached from a buzz marketing point of view. Generate interest and ‘buzz’ and people will flock to your site to see what all the fuss is about. A percentage of these people will convert, however when compared to a metric such as organic search engine traffic the conversion rate will be significantly less. You have to carefully weigh up the potential ROI of any social media campaign before starting otherwise Court is right - it just doesn’t work.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Someone finally has the balls to tell the Emperor he’s got NO clothes. Thanks man! Unless you’re a very talented illustrator selling images or services, image search especially is a complete waste of your time. If you think it will help SEO, try again. Nice post!
November 15th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Great point I got my hands in PPC about 2 months ago and what a disaster! Of course I followed one of those heres how I did it. But there is so much compaction now the prices are so expensive theres no way you’ll make a profit unless maybe you own the product yourself and get 100% commissions from the sale.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:28 am
I really appreciate this article. It is always good to know what actually works and what doesn’t. I think it is great that useful information on how to create low maintenance income on the internet is posted. I will regard this in the future.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am
nice tutorial, i’ll keep following this blog
November 19th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Thanks for the Ebook. I just downloaded sucessfuly Ebook
November 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Thanks Bill G. for your feedback. Very helpful.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Nice post. A few contention that I think all most everybody here would agree. Personal blogging is way more an affiliate adsense or any for of business site, provided you are making an authority.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
This is a good post as usual. The only way to convert social media traffic is to wrap your offer in the information you are given them and this could be in the form of an article, video, review..etc.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Thanks for the ebook. Can’t wait to try the idea’s in it. Creating low maintenance income on internet is so helpful today.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Now the social media is rocking the internet marketing…
November 26th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I got some more stuff that does not work…
December 1st, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I think I am making the personal blogging mistake right now.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I think social media like twitter works if you use it right.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Viral video is a good concept. I believe it help me to pick up more traffic this month.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:51 am
Good article, and I agree with most of it, but ultimately, the success or failure of any one method really depends on what one is marketing.
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:14 am
I agree with a lot of what you are saying here but there are always contradictions.
For example:
If you work with a very targeted niche you will get a lot more traffic and buyers for the products as well. I have found that if you keep your niches very targeted and you only drive traffic that is interested in that niche you will have a lot more quality traffic and generate much more income successes.
December 4th, 2009 at 1:43 am
I am glad to visit your blog, because it is always updated and there are always new. information, or simply offer online success stories, many of which I could learn, the recommendation quality equipment, communicate with many people never even see
December 4th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Great article. It gives good insight. I’ve realized there are a lot of mistakes you can make if you aren’t properly informed.
December 4th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Great and informative article. This will help a lot of us correct our mistakes or adjust our marketing strategies. Thanks.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Very imformative. Now I can get a head start in the right direction with good tips.
December 8th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Thanks for the nice info.. I thought with huge traffic personal blog will generate income in adsense.. now i realize it’s not. Unless u sell links for you website in forum or else.
Thanks
December 10th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Thanks for the nice info…very useful…
December 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I have to agree with the post. As someone who’s dabbled in internet marketing for years, the days of ppc -adsense is long over. It was sure good while it lasted…
Social marketing seems to be good at establishing a brand and creating a following but not very effective for the quick sale.
December 17th, 2009 at 4:24 am
This is a good list although it would still depend on a publisher on how he can handle these promotional strategies in quick basis. What I found true here is the PPC advertising as it comes a little tough. On the other hand, blogging with AdSense has got more challenge though it will not be very hard as long as you got all the relevance intact and that you filter those keywords the way they should cater your audience.
December 18th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Ohh I 100% agree with the image traffic, I used get 1000 hits a day from that and in a month like 10 adsense clicks - major waste of time and it chews right through your bandwidth.
December 18th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Портал просто отличный, все бы такие!
December 18th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
that is very true,thanks for writing the truth and for the blog tips
December 18th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
you are very true, thanks for the truth and for theblog tips
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Thanks Court for this useful post. I think even beginners would also expect these strategies to be ineffective. But it’s surprising why many still make the same mistakes, in spite of the flood of information online. Perhaps for the lack of right mentor?
Jose
December 26th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I have been able to make money successfully with using social media. I agree with a previous reader..Twitter is a little spammy but if you go after a particular group, it can work out great for you.
December 28th, 2009 at 3:53 am
What is social media good for if you are not going to earn money from it? Link building?
December 28th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
nice article, thanks for the information, keep sharing…
December 29th, 2009 at 9:21 am
it really depends on what your goals are if it is direct / immediate sales than imo social network sites are not going to deliver however if you want to get people to visit.. and maybe hook them in to your site it can work. also links from social networking sites can be very beneficial. It is also pretty easy to do now so it is worth it IMO just to cover all your bases
December 29th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
what kind of business that is best for beginner?
December 30th, 2009 at 4:54 am
The bad division is that there are so various citizens not in there irritating to sell matter that uses these methods to build capital online. It’s not only a misuse of money, it’s a misuse of time. Time that might be spent liability effects the true system to make money.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:30 am
The most honest appraisal I’ve read so far especially about social media. I doubted that this was a good way to sell all along, like you say, people are there for entertainment not to buy. I’d feel quiet embarressed if I tried to sell to someone on social media sites.
January 1st, 2010 at 5:26 am
The post is really very informative and very useful and I would people in the business can really appreciate this guide post. Congrats.
January 2nd, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Я абсолютно не знаю английский язык, но я подпишусь на этот блог и буду читать его через переводчик. Этот комментарий пишу для того, что узнать, удалят его или нет.
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:41 pm
I agree with your post. These are not good marketing strategies, it will just cost you a lot of your money and time. Can you ever imagine selling something on a social media site? It’s bad advertising.
January 6th, 2010 at 1:05 am
It is interesting how over the last few years we have certainly seen a shift away from adsense and move into affiliate. People see the benefit in promotion of product rather than advertising.
January 7th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
What I can say is WOW….I need to stop reading for now…Almost 4 and half hour I read your blog..and its full with exciting information…keep the good work. Waiting for more post in future…:)
January 8th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Court,
What strategy do you have for a blog that won’t index? I’ve got a couple of sites that have been live with content posted (2 blog posts posted on seperate days actually) for 2 weeks. I tried adding a sitemap to 1 of them and even pointed a link from an article directory with no indexing whatsoever. The privacy setting is turned off under writing settings and I didn’t insert any no-indexing code so I don’t know what’s up.
I don’t really want to put anymore work into them until I know they’ll at least get a chance. Does this ever happen to you?
January 8th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
nice article, thanks for the information…
January 10th, 2010 at 1:02 am
I have been around long enough to know these things don’t work, but if you’re a newbie, you’re gonna fall for at least a couple of these things. I know I did!
January 10th, 2010 at 3:31 am
I like second point “Personal Blogging”
January 11th, 2010 at 1:40 am
I made the mistake of personal blogging and only realized later that it was not very effective marketing. People often fall for these bloopers because of the misleading information that is prevalent out there! Thanks for spreading the word and stating it like it is!
January 11th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Very very true. You have actually gone through some of the mistakes I made
January 14th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Sales result from targetting the correct market. I fully agree that trying to sell to social traffic is pointless. This is why my website is around the service that I offer and my market is pointed to people who need the service.
This is an excellent article, thank you.
January 15th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Well done , keep the good work !!!
January 16th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Thanks for the tips! Great site!
January 17th, 2010 at 2:31 am
It’s funny when people tell me they have a lot of traffic from Twitter but they are not making any money from their Adsense. This never gets old!
-Kai
P.S. I think your $1 trial for Keyword Academy is definitely worth over $100 to be honest. I learned a lot of new stuff from there.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
man this post on 5 Internet Marketing Strategies That Don’t Work was great and excillent each and everything is true and this is how it works.true.absolutely true.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
@Donny? The days of making money from adsense are gone? Okay, keep spreading the word.
January 21st, 2010 at 4:08 am
I’m not that social anyway so I’ll stay away from social sites!. As far as the rest of those dead money trails,I’ll stay away from them to. thanks for the upto date info. on those marketing techniques.
January 21st, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Great posts and tips! Thanks.
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:52 pm
I concur. I made very little money with adsense. Only 100 dollars in one year. Furthermore, most of my sales comes from word of mouth.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Great article. You never really think about it, but your definitely right about pay per clicks in social networking sites. It just doesn’t make any sense.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Great post! keep writing.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
nice post, for the longest time i’ve tired optimizing for images but i quickly learned its very hard.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I think you should add Twitter to your list also and make this the 6 Internet Marketing Strategies That Don’t Work.
Unless you have thousands of follows I don’t know how anyone makes sales with twitter.
February 1st, 2010 at 10:00 pm
You nailed this one! Entertainment and info junkies are not looking to click and buy!
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:04 am
I m agree with your article, but i have understood all points but i have not understood point 3 can anyone explain me the details of this point. I m very confused with Social traffic-Adsense. I know Adsense but i m very confused about social traffic-adsense. Please can anyone explain me.
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:12 pm
That was one hot niche elaboration. And you made it simple by comparing every two and how they conflict with each other (e.g :personal blogging–>adsense)
that was brilliant.
How to make money at home
February 5th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Hmm i disagree with the comment about not being able to monetize image searches, i currently make an extra $350 per month from image searches, so they can and do work, it just depends on how you’re doing it and what you’re trying to promote.
February 8th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I hope PPC doesn’t itself head down this path