July 24th, 2008

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Improving Your Income Stream by 2000% – Without Quitting Your Job

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Many people stumble across SEM and think that it’s too hard, or too saturated to make any real money.  After a few months of pushing through something you’re probably not really interested in, you give up.  Small checks come, but it’s not the big payday you thought you’d get.

Well I’m here to tell you that hard work and persistence pays off.

In October 2004 when I stumbled across an Internet Marketing ebook, I started promoting timeshares, lemon laws, and teleconferencing.  None of them ever paid, but I kept at it.

In Feb 2005 I met Derek Chew, then a self employed (and single) SEO.  We hit it off, and I mentioned to him that I was averaging $5/day between Adsense and the few little things I was trying to promote.

Cutting to the chase, I’m now averaging over $3000 a month in side money.  That’s right, I’m still working part time on an Army web design contract, which provides me a nice steady income, and making that money on the side.  I recently bought my wife a nice GMC Denali and have my eye on a Cadillac STS.

If some country boy from Arnold MO can do it, so can you.

Posted in beginner sem, money, SEO, SERM | 3 Responses »

The Invisible Website with a Big Following

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

There’s a local tattoo shop in my town Arnold, MO.  There’s nothing special about the shop, it’s just like most other tattoo shops you’d visit across the country.  The artists are good, the ink flows plentiful, and the business appears to be doing well.

But they don’t have a website.

Interestingly, they do have quite a decent online following.  On Yahoo Local, they’ve got over 50 reviews. They aren’t listed on Yelp. CitySearch lists them, but with no reviews. And the Google Ten Box shows them with some weird Arizona thing going on, and only 1 review.

So how does a business which appears to have no online presence get over 50 reviews on Yahoo?  I’m not sure, but I’d be willing to bet they are simply asking their customers to post them.

People that get tattoos are a ‘unique bunch’.  They love the art, they love to share/show their tattoos, and they are mostly loyal to one artist/store for their artwork. So the fact that they have 50 reviews on Yahoo doesn’t necessarily surprise me.  But it bothers me how they got there.

Theory One: People just decided to write a review of their tattoo (very possible), so they searched out the company on Google or Yahoo.  They all ended up at Yahoo Local.  Since the business has no website (or if they do I couldn’t find it), the Yahoo Local result is the first one that shows up in a Google search.  So that’s where they posted their review.  Perhaps its that simple.

Theory Two: The store owners noticed that people coming into their store had read some reviews on Yahoo, and the owners keyed in to the fact that these reviews were driving foot traffic. So they started asking people to add their review, thus driving more (hopefully) walk-in traffic.  They saw the social potential and revenue increase from the reviews, but haven’t quite grasped the concept of the overall web as a revenue stream.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and comments.  How do you think they got all those reviews? What did I miss?

Posted in local marketing, small business, trending | No Responses »