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What is the Aim of Online Marketing Hell?

I publish examples of foolishness, laziness, stupidity, and sin in the vast world of online marketing.  First, there is the entertainment value.  Second, there is the instructive value.  Each post must address both values to make it online.

Is the Object of this Blog to Tease People?

No.  As much as possible, I like to divorce the examples from people.

Why Concentrate on the Negatives?

First, no one would read the blog otherwise.  Second, I believe that by viewing abject examples of online marketing, it is possible for the intelligent online marketer to achieve greater success.  You will note that each post comes with a positive takeway for success.  There is no point in viewing negative examples if you cannot get something positive out of it.

Who Made You the Authority?

No one, and I do not claim to be an authority.  I am learning every day.

I Have Seen Your Own Work - You’re Not so Great

Point well taken.  And if want to level the playing field, below I mention a hideously bad campaign of my own. 

You Posted About Me and I Want the Post Removed

Think about this carefully first.  First, if you cannot take the criticism, you should be out of the profession.  Now consider this:

  • You are getting a free link.
  • You are getting free advice from Online Marketing Hell.
  • You are getting free advice from readers in the Comments section.

What is Your Own Brush with Online Marketing Hell?

This blog may piss off some people. They will say, “How are you the authority?” Or, “You’re not so great yourself.”

Instead of answering each person individually, I will point them to this story. It is a story of abject, ignoble failure. It is a story of overwhelming hubris and dumbness. After reading an interview with Rand Fishkin, where he mentions that humility is most important in online marketing, I present to you my story. 

In terms of failures, it cuts through all categories. Niches, keywords, domains, PPC, and more—it was just plain stupid.

Numbskull Niche

Apple was having problems with batteries for its Powerbooks catching fire. Being new to internet marketing, I figured: This is new and topical, surely it will bring in tons of traffic to a site devoted exclusively to that one narrow niche.  The problem is that it wasn’t even a niche; it was a news item.  Sure, if Powerbooks have been catching fire for ten years and there is a local and dedicated audience of readers who care about this…and who will click on related ads…then you’ve got something resembling a niche.  Mine was more than a bad nightmare than a niche idea.

Domain Dumbness

So I went to the worst domain registrar and webhost on earth, Dotster, and registered a domain.  www.apple-battery-recall.com, created a quick 5 page site with Microsoft FrontPage, threw in some original content, and added those almighty Google AdSense ads.

I published the site and sat back, rubbing my hands together, envisioning the hundreds of thousands of visitors. I figured that even if only 1% off the visitors clicked on an ad, I was set to make a fortune.

Within 30 minutes of publishing my site, I was Googling for “apple battery recall” in hopes of finding my site up there at #1 position.

Yeah, right. This plan was so flawed, it’s even hard to talk about today without a lump in my throat (excuse me while I dab my eyes here…)

 Oh wait - I did get one click.

I walked down to our local library, logged onto the Internet there, and click on one of my own Google AdSense ads.  I believe I made $0.05 from that.  Guilty as charged.  Here is the list of charges.  Readers will most likely add more charges…with glee.

  1. Indexing - Webpages take a long time to get indexed by the search engines.  Weeks, months…or never.
  2. Ranking - Once indexed, it doesn’t mean you will ever be found.
  3. Linking - My site had zero links.  You need to build up links pointing to your site.  I never had any intention of building links.
  4. Niche - It wasn’t really a niche - more of a news item.
  5. PPC - When I realized that no one would ever find my site, I ran it on Google AdWords.  Paying $0.25 per click to garner $0.07 per click ad revenue doesn’t make a lot of business sense.  And that was if everyone clicked on an ad.
  6. Appearance - It was obviously a lousy site, designed for the sole purpose of getting people to click on my AdSense ads—a practice that Google was already squashing by that time.

Not to mention lesser sins and stupidity like using a substandard dying application like Microsoft Frontpage, using a know-nothing company like Dotster, and, and…

The list goes on.

My Success Takeaway

My campaign was to online marketing what a marshmallow is to gourmet food.  You can’t ever hope to rehabilitate the marshmallow to make it gourmet:  you just throw it away.