Newbie Question(s) so dumb, you're afraid to even ask!

[Jesse]

Does anyone have somewhere or something they can point me to on the topic of demographics/industries/verticals/etc. where higher prices [anti-intuitively] lead to higher conversion rates for the same item?

 

[Mammoth]

Okay so I think this question is dumb enough to fit into this thread so...

Have I missed the train internet marketing train?

From reading Reddit and Twitter it seems like building sites isn't a viable way to make money online anymore and it feels very much like "we're doomed" mentality making me think it's just got harder and more like real business but I wanted to check with the wider community.

 

[CCarter]

it's just got harder and more like real business

I recently launched a product line in the beauty niche. First week we had 6 sales, end of month we were over 80 sales. 100% offline. We are making money within weeks, not waiting 2 years for Google's approval to survive.

It's actually harder than a "real business" if you're a newbie with little experience.

If you're seasoned, have contacts, right connections, have funds, then you can get it down to 6 months to a year.

Websites weren't meant to only have one traffic source. It's just the SEOs came alone and gaslighted everyone into "easy traffic - easy money", and it WAS easy, until it wasn't.

Now you have to put in marketing efforts and/or guerrilla marketing tactics. Is it worth it? Depends on how badly you want to exit for 7+ figures if done right.

If you don't treat it like a real business you're going to be in for shock.

Most people whining want to create blog post with A.I. in seconds and rank yesterday for xxx,xxx monthly volume keywords. Without funds and contacts, like everything else, that'll be an uphill battle.

So how much time and money do you have to put towards this venture?

 

[Mammoth]

@CCarter this is very much what I thought from reading around the topic.

I'm in a position where I could realistically invest 30 hours a week and upto £5k which is why I've initially been leaning towards e-commerce.

As you say, the overall goal is to either exit for a good amount or have a successful business I can pass down to my daughter.

 

[CCarter]

As you say, the overall goal is to either exit for a good amount or have a successful business I can pass down to my daughter.

What's the alternative if you don't start an online business than?

What are you going to do? What will you pass down to your daughter?

 

[impactp]

In 2024, is it better to Start a new site or buy a small DA-expired domain and start building over it?
Is time the only advantage?

 

[CedricV]

In 2024, is it better to Start a new site or buy a small DA-expired domain and start building over it?
Is time the only advantage?

I'd say DA expired domains. You'll see quicker results if the content is the same niche.

 

[excelmefast]

In the age of AI what would be the best way to make money online or make money in the online marketing field?

 

[chubes]

In the age of AI what would be the best way to make money online or make money in the online marketing field?

Use the AI to build something unique and cool that people will like and want to spend their money on. Or, use the AI to mass produce cheap crap for a quick buck while it lasts.

 

[Smith]

From a technical perspective, how does Google differentiate the following types of websites: affiliate, info, news, and e-commerce?

Follow-up: What if an info site sells services to consumers but doesn't have their conversions and e-commerce metrics set up for tracking through Google Analytics? Would google view this as an e-commerce site or an info site? Could this hurt the overall rankings via Google?

 

[Ryuzaki]

@Smith, I think the easiest thing to do would be for them to analyze the types of queries the websites are ranking for. They don't need to understand the sites if they understand the queries and the intent associated with them, which they absolutely do.

But I imagine they can verify things if needed by looking at the content in the index to get a frame of reference. I'd imagine they can also get an understanding from the rendered versions, the absence or addition of a cart of some sort, etc. But with the web being so big, I'd thing they'd fall back to the cheapest thing they're already doing, which would be query analysis using NLP.

 

[devise]

What do you do when you are burned out from digital marketing?

 

[Cykel house]

Hi all, a dumb question here.

I searched the forum but couldn’t find an answer.

If I gain a sudden spike in website hits, say from social media (due to a post or other activity) can this help with Google organic traffic.

Does it give signals to Google to show to more people?

 

[Droga5 Agency]

I have great following on facebook. and until now i have been simply promoting monetising the content with google ads and it worked good too. but i am thinking of trying new things and get into affiliate marketing.
could anyone recommend any follow along or guide on how i could do affilaite marketing on my facebook page. i know i could simply share amazon links on facebook to make some money.
but i would really like to get into is working on special niche and producing content for that niche and then promote that on my facebook page to monetise it.

 

[Vananyathiriel]

Hi all,

Here's my dumb question. After the seo update in March, is it still worth it to build affiliate websites anymore? I've no idea whats going on, some people say Google created that update to make more money. Is that true? :')

 

[bernard]

Hi all,

Here's my dumb question. After the seo update in March, is it still worth it to build affiliate websites anymore? I've no idea whats going on, some people say Google created that update to make more money. Is that true? :')

Hey,

Affiliate websites are many things. I think most people agree that the old methods of long tail searches and ads is not the way to go anymore. That doesn't mean you can't make an affiliate site work, but you need to be smarter, be different. Start out thinking about users, not ads.

 

[ecardinal2]

If you're seasoned, have contacts, right connections, have funds, then you can get it down to 6 months to a year.

Websites weren't meant to only have one traffic source. It's just the SEOs came alone and gaslighted everyone into "easy traffic - easy money", and it WAS easy, until it wasn't.

This is why so many people are upset with these former SEO course sellers who have pivoted on a dime to selling "get rich with an AI blog geared towards Pinterest" courses. Not only does it still put all your eggs in 1 basket, but they aren't even being honest about the sheer amount of money they had to spend to make their blogs profitable in such a short time.

 

[Smith]

This "SO DUMB" question is about indexing images...

I'm not asking about those "image pages" that certain sites auto-generate when a file is uploaded. I'm asking about the actual image file that can be found via a link like this:

https://yoursite/com/wp-content/upload/2024/01/This-Is-A-Image-Name.webp ?

Q1. Would there ever be a reason to index this?
Q2. Would there ever be a reason to not index this?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Q1. Would there ever be a reason to index this?
Q2. Would there ever be a reason to not index this?

No, there's no reason to index it. Yes, the reason to not index it is that it's "thin content". There's nothing on the page but your image embedded in your navigation, footer, and sidebar.

A fun story is that Yoast has a setting to redirect these to the page the image is embedded on. And during one update they screwed up and set the setting to be "off" for everyone, and tons of site's suddenly were having zillions of new pages indexed, losing traffic, and running into Panda problems. Yoast did turn around and fix it ASAP and even set up sitemaps to help speed up the process.

But that was a real world example of why you don't want to index these.

 

[Smith]

No, there's no reason to index it. Yes, the reason to not index it is that it's "thin content". There's nothing on the page but your image embedded in your navigation, footer, and sidebar.

A fun story is that Yoast has a setting to redirect these to the page the image is embedded on. And during one update they screwed up and set the setting to be "off" for everyone, and tons of site's suddenly were having zillions of new pages indexed, losing traffic, and running into Panda problems. Yoast did turn around and fix it ASAP and even set up sitemaps to help speed up the process.

But that was a real world example of why you don't want to index these.

Thank you. This was my current setting. And they are all showing up as "crawled - currently not indexed" in GSC so I just wanted to get a head check.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Thank you. This was my current setting. And they are all showing up as "crawled - currently not indexed" in GSC so I just wanted to get a head check.

Actually, I misspoke (I just crawled out of bed, head isn't working yet). I was referring to "attachment pages" or "media pages" for media of various types on Wordpress, including images. You're referring to the actual URL the image lives on (not the "attachment page", which Wordpress shouldn't even generate, it's nonsense).

These are like yoursite.com/category/post-slug/attachment/3/.

What you shared is a direct link to a URL where it's hosted on the server within the file structure. I don't think Wordpress sends any HTML Headers with the response to say no-index or anything. I think Google simply understands "this is an image file with no other HTML around it, we don't index this as a web page, but we do as an image." So it should be "crawled - not indexed" in your list of Page Indexing in Search Console. The reasoning for this is similar. There's nothing there, it's thin content. Not all images will show up, but some will. I'm looking at some in mine right now. It's as it should be.

 

[Smith]

Actually, I misspoke (I just crawled out of bed, head isn't working yet). I was referring to "attachment pages" or "media pages" for media of various types on Wordpress, including images. You're referring to the actual URL the image lives on (not the "attachment page", which Wordpress shouldn't even generate, it's nonsense).

These are like yoursite.com/category/post-slug/attachment/3/.

What you shared is a direct link to a URL where it's hosted on the server within the file structure. I don't think Wordpress sends any HTML Headers with the response to say no-index or anything. I think Google simply understands "this is an image file with no other HTML around it, we don't index this as a web page, but we do as an image." So it should be "crawled - not indexed" in your list of Page Indexing in Search Console. The reasoning for this is similar. There's nothing there, it's thin content. Not all images will show up, but some will. I'm looking at some in mine right now. It's as it should be.

Thank you for following up on this and clarifying.

 

[Nonbeardedman]

What's the difference between managed and unmanaged VPS hosting? I'm thinking of hosting my new site on Knownhost (which I've seen positive things about on this forum) and they offer both packages.

I checked online and most blogs say that unmanaged hosting requires "technical proficiency" whereas managed hosting is very "user-friendly".

What do these terms mean tho? What does technical proficiency mean? Like know how to run cPanel? Even if that, my main plan is to run a WordPress site on it with a Home, About, Services, and Blog page -- So how much technical info would I need for that?

I've mainly configured cPanel settings through YouTube tutorials if I ever did run through any issues with my previous provider and it often worked out fine.

Follow-up question: What's the difference between WordPress hosting and regular hosting? Is it just that with WP hosting you have that "one-click" install for WP and on a regular host you have to install it and transfer it yourself using a FTP client?

 

[Ryuzaki]

@Nonbeardedman, it depends on who's offering it and their definition. Sometimes unmanaged means (and I can never remember the official jargon) is that they "instantiated" the server and that's it. You need to login through your terminal and use the command line to install whatever DirectAdmin/cPanel/WHM you want. And you need to install the updates. And you have to set up all the php packages, email server, blah blah. Of course cPanel would do some of that for you. But unmanaged can mean literally that.

Managed is less subjective in terms of the definition. They install everything. Their cron jobs check for updates and install them when you say it's okay. Their support will do whatever you ask (Knownhost's support is so good they'll do just about anything. Sometimes I've "outsourced" work to them because I know they'd do it even though I could have). They'll even go outside of scope a lot of times. Managed is worth the extra price if you don't want to learn to be a server admin.

Wordpress hosting is just a marketing phrase for "We've tuned this server with the settings that we think works best for Wordpress." It's usually far more expensive and doesn't offer you anything special and has parameters around it that you wouldn't see otherwise to suck more money out of the naive. Like metered bandwidth and maximum number of i/o's and whatever else crap they can invent.

 

[Nonbeardedman]

@Nonbeardedman, it depends on who's offering it and their definition. Sometimes unmanaged means (and I can never remember the official jargon) is that they "instantiated" the server and that's it. You need to login through your terminal and use the command line to install whatever DirectAdmin/cPanel/WHM you want. And you need to install the updates. And you have to set up all the php packages, email server, blah blah. Of course cPanel would do some of that for you. But unmanaged can mean literally that.

Managed is less subjective in terms of the definition. They install everything. Their cron jobs check for updates and install them when you say it's okay. Their support will do whatever you ask (Knownhost's support is so good they'll do just about anything. Sometimes I've "outsourced" work to them because I know they'd do it even though I could have). They'll even go outside of scope a lot of times. Managed is worth the extra price if you don't want to learn to be a server admin.

Wordpress hosting is just a marketing phrase for "We've tuned this server with the settings that we think works best for Wordpress." It's usually far more expensive and doesn't offer you anything special and has parameters around it that you wouldn't see otherwise to suck more money out of the naive. Like metered bandwidth and maximum number of i/o's and whatever else crap they can invent.

Thanks for the response.

Based on that I think managed would work better for me as I don't want to fiddle too much with the server stuff.

I thought so that WP Hosting was a marketing gimmick as my friend recently bought normal hosting for way cheaper while I was stuck with WP Hosting paying more and we both seemed to be getting the same results. Learned my lesson