Google have been quietly making their sponsored ads less obvious over the last few months. Have you noticed how the ads now look much more like the organic listings?
If we do this on our content sites, it violates the Adsense terms I believe.
I honestly think if they carry on like this, the downward curve will be inevitable. You simply cannot keep making higher rates of profit every year without sacrificing user experience ... especially with market share falling.
/rant over 🤐
Yes I noticed, it is really horrible,and it's like there are more and more adds to, in rows of pictures in my niche even.
Lizzy
I'd like to hear @partha 's take on this, but is this really horrible?
I don't like this any more than others, BUT, if this is how Google is going to roll, then shouldn't we roll with it? If PPC is the way to go, then shouldn't we at least see if it is a viable option for our business?
I loved when you could rank your own site on Google and do it all for free. But what do we all do now? We either ditch it completely, OR do a hybrid (i.e. try to rank on Reddit/Pinterest/Medium/LinkedIn/Etc), to try to get similar results to what we were originally getting.
Again, I'm not saying that this is good news, but on the flip side, I've been running a Facebook ad campaign for over the last year, and it significantly increased my business's profitability. It was something super simple (literally just sharing a free checklist to people to get them on my email list, and then through an automated funnel). I've contemplated doing something similar on Google with one of my other sites, just haven't had the time quite yet.
Point being, is that I've see the positive side of how PPC can be beneficial for your business. Yes, you do need to learn a new skill, and yes, it does require an 'initial' investment at the beginning to break into the market. But, the returns (in terms of scaling) can be astronomical.
Here's an example - I was churning out about 400 articles per month around this time last month. It cost me about $3K per month to finance - my hope and intent was to rank well on Google and get organic traffic/leads that way. This was something that I had to hope, pray, and wait until 3-6 months to see the return of (which I was seeing and then Google's algo updates sort of killed it).
At the same time, I also was dropping around $3K in paid FB ads every month too, and that was usually giving me around a net of 3K+ new subscribers per month to my email list, AND had close to a 2X ROAS (i.e. for every dollar I spent and got someone to go through my email funnel, I made about 2 dollars). So, I was making money immediately (because my funnel was profitable), AND increasing my email list (and buyer pool).
The PPC FB ads clearly were a better investment than my trying to break into the 'rank on Google organically' market (having said that, I'm still using all the content that I churned out, and some of it is ranking very well on Pinterest, so not everything was a complete loss).
I don't know - I'm just sort of randomly writing (as I usually do, haha). But I guess what I'm saying is that as the industry changes, we have to change our perspective - I mean think about it: Due to what Partha has been preaching, most of us are here looking for "Google" alternative ways to rank our content - I'm/we're literally doing a small LinkedIn 'case study' right now to see if we can use that platform to rank on Google (and in return make money). I'm doing it specifically to see if it's viable enough to do with some of my other sites. I'll be doing the same with Medium in the next several months, Lord-willing.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're already switching up how we target Google, so why can't we see PPC as something good and positive, and something potentially we can switch to as well?
One more thing that I'll say (and this may be slightly or largely off topic) is that I feel (and I could totally be wrong) that many of us need to change how we view building an online business. I think we're moving away from the days where you can set up a site and survive by just affiliate marketing and having ads on your site. I believe that most sites/site owners need to think deeply about 3 things: diversifying their traffic streams (i.e. continuing to move to other platforms/ideas other than 'organic' Google to get traffic), diversifying their revenue streams (i.e. looking at selling their own products, setting up memberships/partnerships instead of straight affiliate commissions, as well as what you normally do - ads, affiliate revenue, etc), AND DIVERSIFYING THEIR BUYER POOL STREAMS (sorry for the caps, but I feel as this is largely important) - i.e. building an email list of people you want on your list, having large, hungry social media followers, even creating 'open/free communities', all of which you can target later on - doing all this is going to help build you a sustainable business, one that can weather a lot of ups and downs that will be coming in the next few months, years, decades.
But I digress - I guess this is just a few of my current thoughts on all the ads we're seeing on Google - what do y'all think?
Agreed! I'm trying to do everything organic and I realise that it's not the way to go any more. I'm setting up ads on Facebook with a landing page, and ebook to capture e-mails. I love the way we can hyper-target our ads on Facebook (e.g. women 30-50 in NSW, who have a university degree, who love travel and yoga, etc!) It's not expensive either.
I'm not an expert but from my little bit of experience on FB, I noticed that people are more likely to give you their e-mail than straight out pay for something.
Cheers, Alisa
Hey @andy some really great points there 😊
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If PPC is the way to go, then shouldn't we at least see if it is a viable option for our business?
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PPC is all well and good but a lot of people just can't afford that initial investment. Plus as soon as you turn off the ad spend, the traffic stops. But using PPC to build an email list is definitely a good idea and your example above shows how it can quickly pay for itself ... and then some!
In fact, with all the changes we're seeing, I think the email list is more important than ever and PPC certainly has it's place.
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what do we all do now? We either ditch it completely, OR do a hybrid
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A lot of webmasters are just ditching it now. Their hope is gone. Hybrid is fine while it's working and we should all be diversifying, as many people advise. My main issue with hybrid is we don't own that property. But I guess if you can build an email list from parasite traffic then great ... go for it 😎
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The PPC FB ads clearly were a better investment than my trying to break into the 'rank on Google organically' market
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I think my main problem with all the Google changes is they've clearly sold out completely and are just hell-bent on squeezing as much out of the business as they can now - hence the sponsored ad changes and all the junk above the fold, even a second PAA half way down the page sometimes.
Stepping back slightly from the current craziness, Google built their business by fostering a symbiotic relationship with site owners. Google is nothing without the content it scrapes from publishers and if they continue on this path, alienating us, then there will be less and less quality content for them to draw upon.
We will end up with AI feeding AI and everything will decay into a homogenous grey gloup where eventually, even their ad revenue will decline because users will have a poor experience and start looking elsewhere. It's happening already.
Actually, on the AI thing, the search engines seem to be moving to a place where organic results figure even less because their AI will produce article legth content on the fly ... and where does that content come from? Yep, small publishers who might get a tiny little link back to their content in the form of a little "1" or "2" at the end of the 'article' indicating the source.
But as you say Andy, this is all a process of change. Nothing stays the same and we have to adapt. I just think Google are biting the hand that has fed them for so long.
Sorry if my comments are a little negative (I do have a mild hangover this morning ... lol)
@ali Hey Ali ... yep the targeting on FB is super granular. You can really narrow down your audience :-)
Focusing on capturing that email address is definitely the way to go!
@ohnoo_not_her Hey Lizzy ... yep they've totally sold out now. Even those who thought this was not the case are now coming round to this opinion (Income School).
Here's a great analysis of how Google has lost sight of it's core principles ... https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
The organic search and ad departments were always kept separated for a very good reason. Then the money men took over.
@rohanm I even heard something about that on the Dutch radio today,if Google gets to the mainstream news,well then yeah, things are definitely different now,not just a regular update.
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PPC is all well and good but a lot of people just can't afford that initial investment. Plus as soon as you turn off the ad spend, the traffic stops.
[/quote]@rohanm I understand what you mean, but I would jovially challenge that assumption that people can't afford the 'initial investment'. If done properly, you shouldn't really lose any more than $200-$500 (maybe $1000 if you're really trying to break you're trying to break into something).
If done correctly (and I'm not expert on PPC, so this is just my experience), you shouldn't be spending any more than $30-$40 on a failed PPC campaign - you should start out small with a $5/day ad and only increase it when you see it's profitable.
I didn't start off with a $3K ad budget off the bat - we were running $5/day ad campaigns and only scaled once we found what was profitable.
Sure an initial investment of $500 might be a lot for some people - but most of us pay that much with some sort of subscription service (for example, a year Premium+ subscription of WA is a little over $500). I'm obviously not saying go willy-nilly and blow all your money on trying anything that comes to mind - there is planning, research, etc, that needs to take place first.
I also should have clarified that I don't think I would encourage any internet marketer to start off with PPC - once you have traffic, a working funnel in place, etc (i.e. you're business is starting to grow), then use that little extra pocket-change your site is making to start seeing if you can scale with ads.
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My main issue with hybrid is we don't own that property.
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I agree 100% with this - that's why in the past, I've been against even looking into other sites like LinkedIn or Medium, since it didn't seem like it was worth it.
However, this is what I've been thinking (and this is more tailored to my specific situation): I primarily get my traffic from Pinterest, and treat any Google traffic as a little extra. I figure (if I can) why not just syndicate all my content that I have and add it to sites like Medium or LinkedIn? I still own it (since canonically, it's still mine on my website), and I'm tapping into extra traffic that I wouldn't get otherwise (On top of this, if I were to join the Medium partnership program and see that it's profitable for me, then there is another way to make some pocket-change to grow my site. AND, if I'm able to develop my LinkedIn profile so that I can make connections (and potential brand partnerships) that I wouldn't have otherwise made, why not try/do it?
I do agree with what you're saying, I think we just need to be aware of that, and try to build accordingly.
[quote data-userid="5" data-postid="253"]
Stepping back slightly from the current craziness, Google built their business by fostering a symbiotic relationship with site owners. Google is nothing without the content it scrapes from publishers and if they continue on this path, alienating us, then there will be less and less quality content for them to draw upon.
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I'm genuinely asking (not necessarily discussing/arguing), but isn't this sort of similar to how Amazon came about in terms of affiliate marketers promoting them? How they had great affiliate commissions back in the day, until they pretty much just abandoned their affiliates? I know that Google and Amazon are completely different platforms, but is there any parallels we can draw from that?
And quick note on AI generated content - the #1 reason I will use ChatGPT over Google is because of the interactive content it gives. I can have it clarify/more taliored to my specific needs. For example, I was looking up whether or not you could use brown, mushy pears for anything, and couldn't find anything conclusive with Google, and so asked ChatGPT, which it correctly answered not only my initial question, but also my follow up question (and we still use that recipe to this day to make Pear Crumble). I think interactive content could be the way of the future, and if that's so, how do you compete with that (and in Google's case, not completely do-away with the people you've relied upon so much)? I don't know the answer, but just a few more things to think about.
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I would jovially challenge that assumption that people can't afford the 'initial investment'.
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Hey Andy ... I love a jovial challenge :-) ... and your point is certainly valid. I mean, I'm currently in a place where there is way more month than money, if you know what I mean, yet I still managed to find $100 to test some ads on Rumble (although I did move that to a zero % balance transfer!). But yeah, I take your point :-)
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- there is planning, research, etc, that needs to take place first.
I also should have clarified that I don't think I would encourage any internet marketer to start off with PPC - once you have traffic, a working funnel in place, etc
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This is great advice. Planning is key because PPC is one of the easiest ways I know to lose money. If you're able to test your funnel with free traffic then great. Otherwise $5 a day over 5-6 days should be enough to test, as you say.
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why not just syndicate all my content that I have and add it to sites like Medium or LinkedIn?
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Certainly nothing to lose and it's a great way to try to gain a little more traction with that content. Also it means you're more likely to leave those original articles on your website to maintain the canonical piece as opposed to removing them to try and break free of some weird HCU classifier ...
We've built these content websites which are hopefully long term assets and even though Google has currently lost the plot, there are other search engines out there.
Most of my articles are on page 1 of Bing with many #1 spots. Some of my targets occupy the entirety of the space above the fold on Bing. Traffic is minimal but in the future, who knows? Especially as Copilot gains in popularity.
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I'm genuinely asking (not necessarily discussing/arguing), ...
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Healthy and respectful argument is beneficial for all of us here I think. I always felt a little held back on the WA message boards. Not sure why. But here I feel like I can be myself and I love a bit of back and forth with people who may not think the same way I do 😊
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... but isn't this sort of similar to how Amazon came about in terms of affiliate marketers promoting them? How they had great affiliate commissions back in the day, until they pretty much just abandoned their affiliates?
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I didn't realise Amazon paid half decent commissions back in the day. Nearly 10% at its peak apparently! But yeah, I think a parallel we can draw there is that both Google and Amazon seem to have screwed over the people who really grew their business models. Even though the business models are entirely different.
I mean, Google actively encouraged content creators to follow fundamental SEO practices and now seem to have accepted massive collateral damage in some vain attempt to combat AI ... or something.
Some are arguing the less traffic they send to independent sites with Adsense on there and the more they can keep eyeballs on Google properties (hence the nonsense above the fold) then the more revenue they will squeeze out of it ... especially as users see less distinction between organic results and sponsored results so might click an ad, mistaking it for an organic result. Then there's the PAA.
It's all designed to increase the time on page whereas historically, Google's whole thing was for the user to find and click through to the website they wanted as quickly as possible - the best user experience. But not any more.
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I think interactive content could be the way of the future,
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Totally agree. I'm finding myself using Copilot on my phone more and more for everyday searches. It really is a bit of a game-changer. I guess once the AI has absorbed the sum total of all human knowledge (not far off) and is able to accurately answer any question we may have, then content marketing will probably become obsolete!
Although, people do still like to read stuff ... I don't know! Great discussion on this thread Andy ...
I have a few days off work (yay!) so it's full on into the IM world for me over the next few days ... love it :-)
@andy well, no, in my niche I can't compete with the adds from the DIY dollhouse kits on Google at all,so I am not going to do Google ads, I just can't outrank those.
What I àm doing a bit more though, is more and more ads on Pinterest, those companies that I promote aren't there (yet), and I can try them out with very small amounts.
1 dollar per day, for a month, gets me 1000 more followers and outbound clicks rising, to my youtube channel to, so that makes it grow at the same time.
Maybe you guys should do that, but in my case, it wouldn't be useful at all, I couldn't compete in Google, every brand/retailer of those diy kits are placing ads on Google. They're Chinese brands,and just like Temu, they're everywhere.
You know, seeing all this happening, I wonder if Bing will be getting more and more traffic,because even people who are not in the SEO world at all, switch to Bing/DuckDuckGo, etc, because they get crappy results in Google.
It would be amazing to see if that would happen lol
Personally, I'm tired as well from all the adds when I look up something personal, it's getting ridiculous.
Lizzy
@ohnoo_not_her Okay, but let me just play devil's advocate here quickly:
You don't need to run ads on Google only to your 'review/affiliate/direct sale' pages. You can run ads to your best email converting blog posts/lead magnets.
For example, you could find a keyword that gets a lot of traffic (I haven't done any research, so this is all just me randomly typing) - let's say something like "how to build a DIY miniature for beginners". You then create a very thorough article about the process, and every once in a while you drop you email sign up form (explaining about why they should join), as well as a CTA at the end. You attached a follow up email funnel sequence on the back-end of when they sign up where you target them with your affiliate products. If they don't purchase anything immediately, that's fine, because (as long as they're not leaving your list) you're growing your email list, and can target them in the future months as you continue to nurture them.
You can do the same thing with a blog post that you know converts well email-wise.
(NOTE: the main issue with this idea is that you do have to have a strong email funnel sequence on the back end that keeps you either breaking even or making a little $$ on the side - but the main focus would be just to break even, so that you can target your large and growing list during every newsletter).
You can also do something similar with your free miniature patterns and PDFs - just find a keyword that is going to be getting a decent amount of traffic and then create a lead magnet page - on the page explain what they're getting and have them sign up to get it. (again, have a strong email sequence on the backend to make this work).
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If Pinterest is working for you, then by all means, go ahead and use that - I'm in no case going to be the one knocking on Pinterest, haha. But I guess the point of what I'm making is to never rule something out just because the 'normal' way of doing something isn't going to work for you. If you can't send them directly to a sales page, then do it for the next best thing (and in some cases, this is the best thing) - send them directly to a lead magnet page, so that you're building out your email list.
@rohanm I just wrote a 1400 word essay about adapting the winds of change Wednesday for a class assignment. It didn’t need to be this long but we were asked what we found interesting about a video we had to watch. I chose Osprey Ai super computer and some how mixed it in with marketing some kind of way lol. But the gist of it was adapt or die.
@keydah_keys I hear ya Kida ... and I know you're right!
Adapt or die until quantum computing merges with AI then we're all in the matrix for real. 😎