I'm tired burnt out of online business

Alright, I took the bait just to prove a point. I googled "Cow" - pretty common farm animal (and my favorite, being a collector of bovine stuff). So what were the "big shot corps" that occupied the top results? Apart from the dictionaries, explaining the meaning, I got 2 online shops, a UK and CA one, a kids website giving facts about cows, a UK/SA blog about interesting stuff...shall I continue...the amount of known corporations in the top results was practically zero (1 if we count WikiPedia as a corp ).

For a person with 12 years of experience I think you got some essential things wrong and the people above have already pointed some of them. You were heavily hit by Penguin? Did you stop to think why? Penguin hit sites that were involved in link schemes one way or the other - link farms, hidden links, big link wheels etc. So your website was heavily relying on black hat methodology to begin with. You took the easy route and then Google is to blame when they decide to remove the weed from their garden?

Google are in no mean saints. But one thing is for sure - people that took the most damage were most deservant of it. Do you think Google managed to penalize all websites that are using black hat practices? Not at all. Just because people got clever along with the search engines and they didn't just milk money while sitting around - they learned, combined tactics, made sure to cover their bases. I don't want to sound harsh in any means. But I think your story should be used as a bitter example of what-not-to-do, you should dust yourself up and learn from your mistakes. Otherwise 12 or 120 years in the business would be irrelevant...

 

If you use quality content, then search engine changes won't effect your site in a negative way. Most website owners don't understand this.

 

Rado_ch:
Maybe I should have not used the word "big" as loose and just stuck with corporation, franchise, and hollywood.
There are going to be a few keywords are not tainted but most are not. I'm on google.ca.
Cows:
1st is a friggin franchise with 10 loctations across Ca and Us
2nd is wikipedia. Googles friends "we'll rank you in the top 5 everywhere link sale company.
3rd is Huffington Post
4th is the google images bit
5th is a factory that sells cheese and crap (same as the paid advertisment on the top right)
6th & 7th is youtube (who owns that again?)
8th is a thing called cows&fish. Some type of environment protection agency
9th is www.gan.ca/animals/cows.en.html thank God. Finally a site actually about cows!!!
The second page is just a pile of stores, factories, and who knows.
This is not genuine results. This is strategic results. The whole google engine is like this. Of course you'll find a few that the results end up ok but Cows is not one of them.

Damnit. This is what I was trying to explain from the beginning. That's what they said but google was not cleaning out bad sites. It was a broom for corps, companies, and hollywood. Come on. IMDB was ranking like 3rd for massive keywords like "SHARKS" based on a page they had about a 1992 low budget film that went straight to VHS. You would have to be a fool to not notice this. It's not about good content. Google is ranking up pathetically old pages from extremely known networks.

I didn't make serious mistakes, douchebag. I wasted time on quality content and builting a great site while most of the other people just tried to sucker idiots into buying ebooks, pulling fake prs and selling turnkey hotel combined affiliate scam sites. Good sites are not the one's that pay off.

take a look at the DP auctions, bro. It's full of poor quality rippoffs.

 

Maybe you mistook my attempt for constructive criticism as douchebaggerry... I'll try again...
First of all I am very, very sorry for the bad experiences you have had for the last 12 years. Hopefully you can find something that is both interesting for you and it pays off.

Then, lets discuss the Cow search again. It is absolutely normal to receive more localised and tailored results on Google.ca, but on my side I actually see completely different ones (Google tailoring results according to geolocation, thus providing more specific results for each user). Now, I am pretty sure we have different measurements of "big" which might be a source of some of the misunderstandings. In any way, from the top 10 results I don't see any company that I can call really big, nor one that I've seen in paid ads. Just 3 different online stores (which btw are beautifully optimized and if i wasn't on the other end of the globe, I'd probably buy some of their stuff), as well as factology sites. You want to top Youtube and Wikipedia on the first page? Good luck with that. Even when it was not owned by Google, Youtube almost always gave me videos on the 1st page of search results. So yes, the search brings strategic results but they very much satisfy my search intention.

Cogrants on the quality content! I wouldn't call it wasted, if it is really quality, it will take its time but eventually bring you more visitors. I am speaking from personal experience, both as a content writer and as a site visitor/reader. Content really makes me like a site, that much I can say. Now, as I understand Google ruined your website, so they can pave the way for their affiliates and paying clients. So, do we assume that you had a well balanced link network, coming from respectable websites, relevant to your business and obtained the natural way? Because if that is the case you are maybe the first person I hear about, hit by a penalty without any reason at all. For which again I am sorry, very unfortunate indeed. Still, forgive me if I am a bit sceptical about that one

As for the DP auctions, and DP as a whole, I am well aware it is full of spammers, affiliates and scammers. But what does that prove? As I also admitted the algorithm is in no way perfect, surely there are thousands and thousands of websites still not penalized (when they should be), I just cannot see the relation of all those to Google. All that DP auctions prove is that until there are people that are easily scammed, there will always be someone to take their money. And that is just how the world goes round, my friend.

Again, good luck in your future ventures.

 

Are you being facetious just for the sake of being facetious? Every bloody website was hit by the updates - good and bad. Some just somehow went under the radar and are still doing ok. Multiple high quality websites were hit and lost their rankings for no apparent reason. So I wouldn't be so quick to question the OP's SEO practices. Did your websites get hit at all?

 

I agree that online business can be harsh. I have gotten to the point where I felt like breaking down because I did not think that anyone was ever going to pay attention to my service – regardless of how much I believed in it and those that hired me believed in it. I will not suggest that I have an answer, just sorry that you have to deal with this.

 

Ok, I'll elaborate on the minor details of my seo. The niche I am talking about is educational. When you have a site like that with detailed high quality scientific articles in it then you are able to build natural links from school divisions. Most schools have websites that allow each teacher of each grade to have pages up. Most teachers will have a resource page.
The public are more willing to link networks like this as opposed to having some E-store. So yes. My website acquired a ton of natural links. Over the years of effort people do often assume that my site is owned by some filthy rich hotshot national geographic owner guy. I did all of the old style seo tactics. Images optimization, keyword research, flawless sitemap & metatags. hundreds of rich and unique content pages. Top 5 resource network in the world(one of the largest).

I bounced from 6th to 3rd position for the first level keyword (global 750,000 searches per month). Probably about 40 to 100 other keywords that were like "Keyword Information" or "Keyword Facts" (my domain is actually keywordfacts.com)
When that stupid update happened my site went to 128th place. I lost all of my longer tailed keywords as well.
This is could accept but what I could not accept is what the positions were replaced with.

Example:
Imagine having a compilation of all human knowledge of freshwater fish. A giant resource site that is super popular because it's way ahead of its league. A google update happens and your site is ranked to crap for every keyword you had. From 50K UV's per month to like 700 people. The worst part about is when you look at the search results you see stuff like THIS
End of example.

That happened to me. This is why I am pissed to know that google has traded relevancy for corporation and business social status.

I hate it when I go on twitter. When I show up and reply to someone they usually say "Oh my God, they replied me" and take a screenshot. People think I'm one of the owners of discovery or something. Nah, I'm the idiot who followed the crowd of webmasters trying to seo myself into high ranking positions.

I've tried other methods and jumped into so many different online business but every one seems to get promising but then something happens and bam gone!

Working online has destroyed my life. I wasted more than a decade trying. Working online created the building blocks to end my marriage. No woman is going to stay with a guy who earns less than him. I feel like I lost in life. Seriously. What if another decade doesn't even make a difference.

 

Sometimes we have to recognize that we are headed in the wrong direction and make a change. It seems clear that the original business plan became outdated and was not adjusted. The customers have drifted away from that content....

Sometimes we have to accept that our content is not good enough for the niche.

 

You just found your niche. You need a fan site where you sell your autographed photos. Judging by how you described your following you should be a millionaire in no time. You paid your dues and now it's time to kick back and let your visitors pay you. Congrats.................=)

Although I feel like Dr Phil should be contacted I'll take another try at this.

#1 success truly is made up of a series of failures.

#2 If you don't fail you will never succeed. We learn from our mistakes. If we don't, we will keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

#3 Is it really failing if you gained something so valuable from the journey? Knowledge and Experience.

#4 Contrary to what you may believe...you simply and clearly have not found your niche. There's a difference between accepting defeat & giving up AND moving along in your journey. The last thing you want to do is stay on the same road too long. And the last thing you want to do is get off that road too soon because you will never find out what lies a head. You need to figure out where on the road you currently are.

#5 If all it takes is a good pay check to keep a woman by your side it's better she leaves now than later when you have finally made it and found your happiness. No woman worth keeping is going to leave a man who makes smart decisions but financially makes less than her. Which brings me to...

YOU MUST MAKE SMART DECISIONS. Don't rely on a HOBBY to pay your bills until the hobby becomes your reliable source of income. If after all of these years you lived a life of poverty because your web site projects never panned out than she never left you because of your lack of finances... she left you because of your lack of wisdom.

Get a job. Make money. Then work on your dream to the side. Your life will be better.

 

Always has been tough to convert twitter popularity into $$$ or visitors. Celebs run that place.

I wish someone could've told me years ago that it doesn't matter what your site is about and how good it is. The only thing that really matters is who you are and who your site is connected with.

 

That was total sarcasm from me. The second half of my post is where I give you the only advice you need to take right now. And by the way 33 years old is old? Wait until you are 50...you will look back and say "Oh my god..I was so young I could have...I should have". Then when you are 70 you will look back and say "Oh my god.. 50? I was so young I could have...I should have". Then when you are 90 you will say "Oh my god... shoot me.. I am a stupid person for not learning from my mistakes". By 100 your nurse probably put a pillow over your head so she can walk off with your life savings of $600 dollars.....because that's all you had from social security.

 

if you find a job you love, you will never have to work again...

Some companies have entire IT teams simply to maintain their own websites. One company in particular had something like 10 people to help manage an online stationary store, and they paid stupid amounts for the people that made sure that everything worked, and the guy I met that worked there, didnt even know HTML!? yet he was earning stupid. I guarantee there are real world companies, that might be a 9am-5pm, that would pay for your skills.
How about this for a joke, a company owner that I know of personally, signed up for adsense, then didnt do anything. Adsense called them up the next day, and the company owner actually said that they made a mistake and didnt want to advertise for the word(adsense), but wanted to own the word permanently (their idea of what SEO is). the company is completely clueless, I wasted an hour trying to explain how they could use adsense as part of their marketing strategy and it is something to work with together with on page SEO. This company owner is so clueless, they still do not understand the difference between paying for adsense and paying for SEO. They really believe that somewhere you can pay $500 to own a keyword for life -this is how lost they are. You wanna know what this company really needs? they need someone to come in, look at the site they have, and offer to help setup their campaigns in adsense, help look over stats, and help drive genuine leads. It might honestly be fair to charge something like $5000 per month to manage an adsense campaign with on page SEO. If you charged just 10% with a cap of $500 per month, with minimum 3 month commitment per client, now suddenly you only need to find 8 clients and you are earning $48k per year. Spend 1 hours per day monday-friday on each site, and leave the weekends for new clients / working on your existing sites.

From where I sit, I see that you would be a highly valuable team member for any large company that maintains a large website, it doesnt matter if your own sites are not making money, you would still have a great deal of advice that you can give to people that are clueless and that you can help.

Make yourself a website for yourself. Put your name, and photo on the site. Start promoting yourself. Find a shitty website in your area, and send them a friendly advice on what they can change to improve their sites, email them from that website (so if they look at the url they see your site, and looks more professional then gmail / hotmail) and if they reply with "thanks" offer to them that you are happy to meet in person and that you can help them with any IT related stuff. Hell I am sure you have the contacts to redo websites and everything they need.

I am sure you can do anything, but one way or another, it starts by promoting yourself and what you can do.





These images are not me, it was just an interesting marketing campaign. The guy was fighting off jobs at one stage, and was able to pick and choose the best job he wanted.

 

There's nothing wrong with working for other people. I have worked for myself and I have worked for others. Right now I'm back to working for a company and I have my side projects. I do this because I enjoy making a lot of money so I will never be in a poor financial situation ever again.

 

I'm not going to give you a single stitch of advice on online marketing, but I want to give you some daily fuel...

You SHOULD, or maybe I should say, you MUST, start listening to Sam Crowley's "Everyday is Saturday" podcast. He will help you find that "niche" for your life, along with get you fired up.

Just trust me on this one....

 

Bro, its sad to hear you that you are tired and burn out from online business. But bro you need to strong yourself and never let you down if you think that you are weak then you can not live your life with joy,So leave your sadness and visit outside and then start your journey from new point.

 

Agreed, SEO is still a huge factor in my business and I think offers huge benefits to all online businesses.

 

Same here, while it's my own projects that get me up in the morning there are many benefits to having a steady pay check, especially in the early stages of a new venture. Glad to hear you are in a stage where you can be confident in your finanical future. I look forward to getting to the same place too

 

I think you need to spend your 50% energy and time for some online services (eg: web development) or a part time job and use the remaining for your websites.

BTW, it is easy to be a Keyboard Expert and give such suggestions.