A question from a reader:

“A friend of mine proposed I start a blog and he be the web developer. What’s a reasonable split for profits?”

It depends on who is doing what work. To be honest, the web developer isn’t really needed after the initial set up. They only need to tweak the website. If they aren’t involved with the marketing or the content creation, then that’s the all the money they should get on the front end.

I’m guessing you don’t know a lot about internet marketing based on what you’re asking, because you would have known that from the get go. So, you’ll probably be easily pushed around by your business partner, which is never a good situation to be in.

So in this case, I feel as if you are being set up to being used. What really counts on the internet is the ability to direct attention and then them to focus their attention on something else. After you can do that, then your next task is to get them to take an action. Whether that be clicking a link, getting an opt in, or getting a sale. The marketing is what counts and not the look of the site.

I would clearly define who is working on what and what that work means for the business. You can just as easily open up your website and use WordPress. After you have done that, then you can choose a template and get plug ins that will be at least usable in the beginning.
The web designer will want to build everything but it’s not totally necessary and can slow down your ability to make money. You have to remember that a designer or web developer’s first priorities are: the look of the page, and the gadgets underneath it. It’s not to make money; it’s to make things clean and neat either on the page or in the code. As a business owner, your main priority is to get money in the door, everything else is secondary.

Is a web developer necessary to start a blog? Absolutely not, in fact, it’s probably just going to slow you down because their goals are different than yours. Also the content you will develop has nothing to do with them, so you should take most of the money in my opinion, because you are the marketing, it is not the web developer who is the marketer. They only build, they don’t market. If you are doing the long term marketing, then you should get the most money. That’s just how I see it.

Not what your looking for? Type in “internet marketing”, “SEO”, or “Google Adwords” to find more information about this topic.

Custom Search

I got to thinking today about how to make money. I mean, like walk away money, like you walk away from your job and still be ok. I’m not talking about not doing any work kind of money, because that doesn’t exist. But, I realized a lie that we are all told and believe in, and most of us don’t question it.

“What do you want to do with your life?”

We all expect one answer, because that’s what we understand. We have to say something like, “doctor, lawyer, garbage guy (ok maybe not this one, but why do we hate people who do this for a living), or whatever.” The truth is that most people aren’t going to make the kind of money they need by being one type of professional or another unless they are those things I listed before. At least, you’re not going to be free if you’re doing one thing only, especially for those people without a degree.

Focus is deadly in some cases, and can be deadly in business in the right circumstances. Let’s say you’re a personal trainer in a small city, and you pick up x amount of clients with your marketing efforts. What we are all led to believe is that there are more clients in the area, not that you might have hit the top end with your marketing systems. Maybe, you have hit the top of your client generation model, and you haven’t even started approaching the point of paying your bills. But, through stubbornness and the inability to look at the situation in the right way, you keep plugging away, but it won’t get better. Why? Because you’ve already optimized the system to its peak. You better look outside for other opportunities or your dead in the water and your bank account goes empty.

One of the worst ways to live is to depend on employee income only, because if big jerk boss decides to fire you, then you’re done. You’ve also wasted time building jerk’s business, and once you’re fired, you have nothing. They go along just fine with the work you put into their business and they don’t give you anything for it. In fact, they’ll probably take credit for it in the future.

Robert Kiyosaki talks about, “minding your own business.” He’s party wrong. I would say, “You should mind your own BUSINESSES.” You shouldn’t expect one source of income to cover everything, we have an expression for that, but no one ever applies it to money.

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

I wonder what depending on a boss to write you a check is like… Hmm…

Not what your looking for? Type in “internet marketing”, “SEO”, or “Google Adwords” to find more information about this topic.

Custom Search

Yeah anything below page 100 is the ghetto of SEO. There’s the thieves who come by and try to pilfer you while you sleep destitute in the SEO street (SEO companies who don’t really know anything, believe me I’ve seen my fair share). Then there are people who are with you on the street who steal from you (taking your content or your sales funnels). It’s literally a ghetto in every sense of the word.

You know the feeling when you’re buried in the search results, yeah that was me. There was no traffic and there were no sales. That sucked really bad.

If you’ve ever been that desperate, then you know what I’m talking about.

If you keep opening your inbox and hoping that someone will give you money mystically, then I know what you feel like. I was there. There’s nothing worse than worrying where your next pay check is going to come from because you don’t have the skill to run the business the right way.

When you’ve got to fill the fridge and you have to use your skills to do it, you don’t mess around. You get to work and you fill the fridge.

How did I fill the fridge?

By working my _ss off and getting my page up all the way up to position 18 (I actually made it all the way up to position 3 when I decided to test what one of the major links directory did for me, it turns out it makes 15 positions of difference).

If there’s something that being in the SEO ghetto gives you, it’s clarity about what works and what doesn’t. You just can’t sit around and wait for your website to go, you have to make it go. That’s what I did. I focused on what worked and totally ignored whatever else happened my way (because 90% of it was crap). In fact, most of what you read from internet marketing guru’s in relation to SEO is pure unadulterated crap.

WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILER BELOW THAT THE INTERNET GURU’S WILL NEVER TELL YOU

The biggest secret in internet marketing is that the guru’s never build their own lists on their own. They used joint ventures to build their lists from bigger names. They actually couldn’t run an internet marketing business without contacts, they don’t know SEO at all, so if you run over to them and try to learn SEO, then good luck. In fact, 90% of what these marketers tell you to build traffic they do not do, and they have no business teaching.

If you want skills where you can literally build a business from nothing without help from anyone (because not every niche has a good marketer who has a list you can JV with) then you learn how to get traffic and convert it.

So what does this have to do with you?

I’m an SEO ninja. That’s what people call me, and my friends in the SEO business know I am. I’m also a PPC ninja (Perry Marshall even told me I should get a business card that says “Adwords Guru”. To be honest, I’m nowhere near as good as him (that’s what guru means to me) but I am well taught by names like Perry Marshall, Bryan Todd, and Sunny Hills. I don’t mean by books either, I have been in Perry’s Bobsled Run and received personalized coaching.)

If you want traffic, I can get that. I’m really good at it actually. I’ve been a professional SEO guy for over 2 years and I’ve taken a dentist’s site from 29 backlinks to over 400. Which brought him increases of 197 spots in position. Here’s the kicker, this was under 2 months of link building from myself.

All I’m really saying here, is that you don’t have to believe me, you just have to let me do my thing and prove to you that I’m good.

So what am I proposing to you, if you have a product or service then let’s work together and let’s make money. I’m accepting joint ventures with entrepreneurs who will stay out of my way and let me handle the conversion and the traffic. You give me the product.

You just want SEO or PPC? That’s cool with me. I haven’t set the prices yet so you’ll have to contact me for that. But if you’ve got a product you want to sell, get at me, I want to hear about it and I want to know if we can work together. E-mail me at info@scottbuendia.com to get my ear.

Now, I’m not an affiliate marketer (at least not at this point). Anyone who has spent time around my planet knows that I don’t really plug other people’s products. Especially when I do not own the product, I just can’t bring myself to do it. However, what I am good at is getting traffic and converting it when it gets there (as long as I have enough controls on how the product is talked about and sold). So if you’re an affiliate marketer who just entered the market, then here’s my advice for you.

1. Learn bum marketing but tweak it

Bum marketing is probably the fastest SEO you can do. But, like everyone else on the internet says, you should pick a lot of keywords and a lot of products to pitch. You should run with the ones that make money and ditch the ones that don’t. You’re probably going to figure it out real quick, don’t try to make a loser win, try to make your winners win more often. You don’t go laser targeted with this method, you go buck shot and try a lot of things. It’s probably the best thing you can do, the more niched you go (let’s say if you pick a niche like metal free dental implants in Portland), the more knowledge of the market you need. You should start here.

2. Don’t rush into pay per click

Pay per click is going to cost you money fast, if you don’t have experience in the market, I wouldn’t be likely to suggest that you go this route. You can literally lose your shirt in a matter of hours, you should be very careful about pay per click. In fact most of the people who go into pay per click have the wrong mindset when they get into the market. They usually want to make money now, but what you really end up doing is losing money now.

3. Get your funnel right

Too many people try to rush into making money too fast. If your funnel is all wrong then when you get to a high amount of people contacting your funnel, then you’re just going to be leaking potential earnings. Your funnel needs to be tested because you never know how the conversion is going to go on the sales page of the product’s owner. Your own funnel must do the selling as much as possible so you can control and test what message works best for your own market.

There are a few tips to get started making money on the internet. Listen to those types closely because you won’t a more honest truth. Good luck with your business in the future.

Being in business is the best competition you can be in. It doesn’t require athleticism, it doesn’t require some sort of physical prowess, and it’s you against your competition mentally. You have a great chance of defeating your opponent if you decide to do the things that your competition is not willing to do.

If you have employees they won’t come in as early and leave as late as you will. You are the driving force in your own business. You need to keep that thought in mind when you go to work every morning and you need to work like that fact is real. You have you care about your business when no one else will. It doesn’t matter who the nay sayers are, if you know what your 80/20 is in your business, then you can go out there and crush your competition because you put your attention in the right places.

You can get a lot done before your competition is even awake. That’s when you can make a lot of head way. A lot of companies are slow and are unable to move quickly. You can take advantage of that situation by working when the competition isn’t working. You just keep bobbing and weaving while everyone else is sleeping. You just sharpen your targeting scope and keep putting your rounds in the right places.

You should get enough sleep but you need you wake up early or stay awake when they are sleeping. You need to get an edge where ever you can (legally) in business. The fact is that you can beat a lot of competition (even the bigger brands) just by outworking them and staying a little bit later or getting in just a little bit earlier. So don’t delay in working harder and smarter. It’s your best chance of success.

“Believe me, Jim, I am emotionally compromised.” – Spock in the Star Trek

No one works the best under emotionally compromised situations (even the best sedation dentists in Portland, most professional SEO guys, or anyone for that matter) but you can still work. You don’t need to focus on the problem, but if you want to keep competing against strong competition, then you have to keep going. In fact, they are probably just waiting for you to slip up. So keep your defenses strong and keep plugging forward towards your goal. It’s the only thing you can do when the chips are down.

A lot of the history of man was shaped in moments when the greatest failure of that person or civilization had just occurred. In 9-11 we saw the best in people emerge as they tried to help each other. During a heart attack, the selfless go to save that person through CPR, it’s adversity that shows our true character. You really know someone when you see them act in the worst of circumstances.
You also need to allow yourself the time to breathe, but when it comes down to it. You have to get back on the horse and ride back into battle as soon as possible. If you can work inside of it while keeping inside social graces, then you’ll be golden on both levels (personal and career wise). You must do what you have to do at home, but then you must take care of the bills as well. You have to be strong and keep working for your family and your future.

So what can give you the difference in your life is your ability to control your emotions and keep plugging when everyone else would stop. If it makes sense for you to keep going, then you really should. You should also yourself the grieving time, but you need to keep going. It’s the best way to get to where you really want to go.

What is this tax?

The tax of not knowing internet marketing very well, and because of this, you end up buying and trying a lot of services and products that don’t do anything for your business. You got out there and try to get educated and do the things that you think can help your business, but you end up getting taken for a ride several times before you find someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

What’s the remedy for this?

Find someone who knows what they are talking about and listen to them. I can name a bunch of guru marketers (big name ones too, well big name ones who are actually rookie internet marketers, and the only reason they make money is that they built their lists on JV’s) who actually know very little to nothing about internet marketing. But I won’t, because I’m not throwing anyone under the bus in this post.

But, you need to be careful about who you listen to, and what they say. If they don’t help you make money out of the gate (as long as you do what they say you should do) then you should probably stop listening to them.

How fast can I learn not to listen to the wrong people?

Depends on the person I think. It took me a long time to find out who knew anything about the subject and it took me a long time to stop listening to the bad influences. In fact, most of the time, the people who don’t know anything about internet marketing usually sound like they know more (because you probably don’t know anything yet), so it’s difficult to keep track of who’s telling the truth. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can offer you is to listen to those people who tell you that advertising is science and testing needs to be the foundation that any business is built on. It’s not tricks and tips that build businesses, it’s cold hard facts. That’s where you’re going to make the most head way. So if someone makes that the foundation of their teaching, then you know you’ve found a winner.

Why?

No one wants to put an advertisement about your business on their website, especially when they have nothing to gain from doing linking with you.

What people want are informative articles about the subject in question. What they do want to have on their website is how to select the best dentist objectively, not from your own point of view. They will take a link in exchange for that information. But, if you advertise in your article, then you won’t get that link. It’s just that simple.

For example, one of the website owners I’m working for wrote an article and wanted me to syndicate it through my own channels. So I tried it (I won’t try this again) against my better judgement and all the sites got mad at me for trying to push out an ad to their websites. It’s just bad etiquette as it relates to SEO. You won’t get links and you’ll just end up burning bridges in the long run.

So when you sit down and write an article for linking purposes, you shouldn’t talk about your business, and you shouldn’t try to advertise within it, it should sound like a blogger giving advice on a topic they know about. That’s why a lot of businesses have a hard time getting links together, they write bad articles no one wants to use because they are full of advertisements. Be smart and write your articles for the end users not for you’re the advertisement of your business.

The fact is that most people don’t care about how a website looks they care about the content if they are in the beginning of the buying cycle. If you can take them off the market with good content before they decide who to buy from then you’ve cut the buying cycle short and you’re gonna have to pay less to get them to sign up with you.

Also if you can take them off the market with good content (where you spent your time and not spending your time getting a pretty site) then you gain top of the mind awareness. You win them before your competitor has a chance to win them (and they are probably advertising at the end of the buying cycle anyway and that’s not appropriate for someone just looking for more information about what it is you sell or provide).

So if you’re just starting out then spending an inane amount of time building and designing a website, then you’re probably going to lose your shirt. What sells your product is not what shade of blue you have on the website, what sells it is your personality and what keeps them buying is strength of your content/product.

So if you’re the best dentist in Portland, then don’t spend your time making your site too pretty. Get your site together and start taking clients and proving that you are the best dentist. Then fix your site. The same goes for you SEO professionals in Portland (or wherever you are). Traffic always comes first, conversion always comes last.