The Break Up: End Your Love Affair With Google!

[bryanon]

Hey Guys,

Shameless self punt - Flippa published a recent myth-busting article of mine on their blog and I thought you guys here may benefit from it as well.

The article is titled "The Break Up: End Your Love Affair With Organic Traffic!" (its working title was "Google Traffic is Shit" ) and it's about organic traffic not being nearly as good, valuable or stable as many buyers out there believe it to be.

http://flippa.com/blog/the-break-up-end-your-love-affair-with-organic-traffic/

All feedback welcome

Bryan

 

[ok888]

I cant I just cant leave G right now or else I would die


Im enjoying every single moment that I had with G


I totally agree with the article I need to get my feet wet in media buying

 

[dcuthbert]

A well written article. It's all pretty common knowledge to anyone who has been in the game for a while, but could be helpful for people starting to get their feet wet.

One thing I picked up on was this line:

I've even seen several self-proclaimed ‘experts' go as far as suggesting  first time website buyers to stay away from any sites that rely on paid  traffic and only deal with those that receive "natural" organic traffic  from search engines.

Presumably by saying this you completely disagree with those experts? I have to say, I agree with them 100%.

Paid traffic can become very expensive when the website owner doesn't have experience, and a first time buyer is unlikely to have any experience. For that reason I would agree with these 'experts' and advise first time buyers to stay away from paid traffic until they have a better understanding of search engines, keyword research, split testing etc. They can play about with keyword research and try to gain organic traffic, all the time learning the trade.

A website with a history of genuine earnings from paid traffic will more than likely be well balanced, however one small change to the site could upset that balance. Without the expertise to analyse what has gone wrong, the website owner could find themselves making a very large loss, at least for a short time, while they try to balance it out, whereas a more experienced person could resolve it much quicker.

I do agree that paid traffic is a far better and more reliable long term source than search engine rankings though.

 

[gundamwing]

nice article and handsome on that picture

 

[papagate$$]

Paid traffic can become very expensive when the website owner doesn't have experience, and a first time buyer is unlikely to have any experience. For that reason I would agree with these 'experts' and advise first time buyers to stay away from paid traffic until they have a better understanding of search engines, keyword research, split testing etc. They can play about with keyword research and try to gain organic traffic, all the time learning the trade.

Fair point, but many paid traffic sites will have a plug and play campaign that the buyer can use the seller's previous experience for things such as ppc. Of course it would not be wise for a buyer to try out large scale ppc campaigns or media buys with no experience in these things, but for most cases, the buyer would just have to follow what the seller already has succeeded in doing.

 

[bryanon]

A well written article. It's all pretty common knowledge to anyone who has been in the game for a while, but could be helpful for people starting to get their feet wet.

Thanks! You'd be surprised to see, though, how many people who have "been in the game" for ages wouldn't consider it common knowledge! It's a little sad really but it looks like people are slowly starting to educate themselves a bit more than they used to and realising that buying a site isn't really the same as buying 2 kilos of apples, so hopefully the situation will be much better in the near future.

One thing I picked up on was this line:

I've even seen several self-proclaimed ‘experts' go as far as suggesting  first time website buyers to stay away from any sites that rely on paid  traffic and only deal with those that receive "natural" organic traffic  from search engines.

Presumably by saying this you completely disagree with those experts? I have to say, I agree with them 100%.

Paid traffic can become very expensive when the website owner doesn't have experience, and a first time buyer is unlikely to have any experience. For that reason I would agree with these 'experts' and advise first time buyers to stay away from paid traffic until they have a better understanding of search engines, keyword research, split testing etc. They can play about with keyword research and try to gain organic traffic, all the time learning the trade.

A website with a history of genuine earnings from paid traffic will more than likely be well balanced, however one small change to the site could upset that balance. Without the expertise to analyse what has gone wrong, the website owner could find themselves making a very large loss, at least for a short time, while they try to balance it out, whereas a more experienced person could resolve it much quicker.

I do agree that paid traffic is a far better and more reliable long term source than search engine rankings though.

I do indeed disagree with them.

Even though what you say (a small change could result in a disaster) is correct, the very same applies to organic traffic and search rankings. A major difference, however, is that with paid traffic there aren't many external factors affecting the established balance, whereas with organic traffic there are.

On that note, I would never advise anybody not familiar with managing web properties to make sizable investments into sites at all - regardless of the traffic type. The situation is quite similar to that of buying bricks & mortar businesses - you don't go buying a grocery shop if you have absolutely no experience in running a shop, or a similar small business. There are obviously people who do that but more often than not, they either fail or have major difficulties with their newly acquired business, no matter how decent the foundation.

Bryan

 

[dcuthbert]

Fair point, but many paid traffic sites will have a plug and play campaign that the buyer can use the seller's previous experience for things such as ppc. Of course it would not be wise for a buyer to try out large scale ppc campaigns or media buys with no experience in these things, but for most cases, the buyer would just have to follow what the seller already has succeeded in doing.

If the buyer is merely following the steps which the previous owner took then they won't get an understanding of how it works, and therefore what to do if it goes wrong. Very few products' sales will remain constant month after month for several years, so chances are the new owner would need to make changes sooner or later.

Thanks! You'd be surprised to see, though, how many people who have "been in the game" for ages wouldn't consider it common knowledge! It's a little sad really but it looks like people are slowly starting to educate themselves a bit more than they used to and realising that buying a site isn't really the same as buying 2 kilos of apples, so hopefully the situation will be much better in the near future.

I do indeed disagree with them.

Even though what you say (a small change could result in a disaster) is correct, the very same applies to organic traffic and search rankings. A major difference, however, is that with paid traffic there aren't many external factors affecting the established balance, whereas with organic traffic there are.

On that note, I would never advise anybody not familiar with managing web properties to make sizable investments into sites at all - regardless of the traffic type. The situation is quite similar to that of buying bricks & mortar businesses - you don't go buying a grocery shop if you have absolutely no experience in running a shop, or a similar small business. There are obviously people who do that but more often than not, they either fail or have major difficulties with their newly acquired business, no matter how decent the foundation.

Bryan

I completely agree that the chances of search engine rankings changing are far greater than the chances of paid traffic conversions falling considerably.

What I was getting at was - if the new owner decides to change any aspect of the website (particularly the layout) then conversions would most likely change. If the conversions fall on a site where the traffic is from a free source (ie search engine rankings) then although the website potentially stops making money, at least the owner isn't making a loss (unless of course hosting fees etc exceed income), whereas a small drop in conversions when using paid traffic could easily lead to the owner making losses (unless they pause the PPC campaign quickly).


I have a background in risk management which is why I'm looking at it from that sense - there's a risk probability and impact chart which would highlight this perfectly. With paid traffic the probability is considerably lower, however the impact is far higher.


I would also consider the income source - the owner doesn't have full control over income sources, so if sales drop for any reason (new competitor, poor press etc) then the owner could easily start making a loss with no idea of how to turn it around. This also increases the probability in the risk assessment.


That's why I would always recommend that a buyer learns their trade the free way before going with higher risk strategies.