Quick Thoughtpad: Starting an SEO / Keyword Research / PLR Side Hustle Business

TLDR: there are plenty of tools to help businesses shortcut otherwise laborious SEO tasks, but they are worthless for organisations who don't understand how they work. To add value, you need to work from the ground up, which means you can start a highly profitable business for no money down using a topic discovery service such as KeywordTool.io, Google Trends, and graduate to automated tools once you understand the value you're delivering to your customers.

Sounds like a business you could get off the ground? Then read on...

Retail Startup Advice: Keyword Research for Clicks and Bricks Businesses

The recent global health crisis has seen sea changes across the board, but arguably one of the hardest-hit sectors has been high street retail. Not only did stores have to close at short notice, and for a relatively extended period, but once it became clear that this wasn't just a short, sharp shock, many faced the prospect of pivoting or closing for good.

Each niche within retail had its own set of options, explored in the article "Innovations for retailers to launch in lockdown" on the Business Rescue Expert blog, including click and collect, home delivery services, and even subscription services.

However, this also had a knock-on effect on the existing services: it's easy to see that if a restaurant opens a take-away service next to an existing takeaway, then a certain amount of cannibalization is going to take place.

Similarly, if a retailer starts to offer online shopping and overlaps with existing - sometimes even established - online retailers, then the clicks and mortar store will potentially have to share a certain number of their customers.

Of course, they'll also bring some new ones. Those customers, for example, who don't shop online normally, but who are now being told that for certain items, they can only buy them online, will now have a choice between the bricks and mortar shop they are familiar with, and many others that they are not, and who, perhaps, offer the same, or a similar service.

Enter Google; those of us watching UK television will have seen various celebrities appearing to extol the virtues of Google Local. Besides imploring us to shop locally to help save local businesses, the advert is also aimed at local businesses themselves with the message that by engaging with Google, they can help boost their bottom line.

Google Local Alone Can't Save You

Having a Google Local presence (and keeping it up to date) is only part of the pivot solution.

This will undoubtedly bring you in physical and virtual traffic, but it's not enough for your Facebook Page, web site or LinkedIn Business Profile to score highly in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Since most people go to a search engine - Google still has the lion's share - as a first stop, it makes sense to have a proper traffic acquisition strategy in place once you've decided to take the plunge.

The Traffic Acquisition blog is an excellent place to start, specifically their How to Get More Traffic 101 post, which is a lengthy read (so grab a beverage and settle in) and literally packed with tips.

The blog deals with three types of traffic:

• organic - typical search engine traffic;
• paid - online adverts and Pay Per Click;
• social - everything via social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

There's also a separate section on email traffic, which is very useful if you have been gathering people's email addresses (along with their permission to be contacted, with a proper GDPR policy in place) and want to engage with them as part of your retail pivot strategy.

Failing that, your first port of call will be to learn all about SEO and Keyword Research.

Keyword Research and SEO for Online Retail

Competition is pretty fierce in online retail. However, clicks and bricks businesses concentrating on local customers bring something unique to the table: they can serve a local market with the local touch.

Finding out how to tap into that market is made easier by leveraging decent keyword research techniques, but is only valuable if it translates into proper Search Engine Optimisation and engagement. 

For some general guidance on SEO for novices, The Keyword Coach offers some great insights and a few cheap, but thorough introductory texts available as ebooks.

The general idea is easy to grasp: since Google sees a lot of the world's internet search traffic, and Alphabet's other money-spinner, AdWords sees much of the online advertising, it is worth their while to deliver tools that help connect people and businesses.

The medium of exchange is the keyword phrase.

Each keyword phrase used by a visitor to Google has a value to someone. That value can be represented as the amount of money that an advertiser is prepared to pay for their advert to be associated with the search term (Sponsored Results), which also reflects the amount of money available in the market.

Combinations of so-called root phrases with long-tail qualifiers are extremely useful in gauging where the market's attention is focused. The excellent KeywordTool.io is a great, free, online utility to expose some of these search terms which can then be analysed using the AdWords Keyword Planner to reveal approximate search volumes and advertising values.

The process is easy enough - type your root phrase into KeywordTool.io, copy the resulting list of long-tail keyword phrases to the clipboard, and then use them in the AdWords Keyword Planner's "Get search volumes and forecasts" tool (via Tools->Keyword Planner in AdWords).

Just make sure that you limit the scope of your research to your precise geographic location, or you'll be looking at data that refers to worldwide customers; desirable, but not usually part of a clicks and mortar pivot strategy!

For a fascinating discussion of the rise of long-tail keywords and online retail choice, I recommend Chris Anderson's "The Longer Long Tail" (disclosure: the link goes to Amazon, where I will earn a small commission should you choose to purchase the book.)

Staying on top of Trends

Another great free service that can be very useful for local keyword research is Google Trends. One of my favourite examples of its use to highlight opportunities for businesses is the "near me" search. For example, here are the trending "near me" searches for the UK, in September 2020:

On the left are the Topics - Plan nursery and Post box - and on the right the actual queries. There are 25 queries, and they can be downloaded by clicking the downwards arrow button, for use in a tool such as the AdWords Keyword Planner to either find related keywords or test the volumes and values for a more precise geographic area.

Notice that I have selected "Rising" in both cases. If you want a less tactical, more strategic view, select "Top" instead:

It's important to remember that these are just starting points and if you really want to take advantage of this technique, you need to dig a little deeper below the surface to get hold of the really useful keywords that will help uncover opportunities are drive traffic.

The Keyword Research Strategy blog offers some great advice on how to use a variety of free services such as Quora, Amazon Alerts and the AdWords Keyword Planner to help react to, and even predict trends.

I'll leave the final word to Sun Tzu. Two quotes come to mind:

• "In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."
• "Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

Adding some form of online aspect to an existing bricks and mortar business, and becoming part of the clicks and bricks brigade, is an opportunity to build long-term resilience into your business strategy. It's an opportunity that stems from the chaos brought by the health crisis, and those who seize it with both hands will find that their business will be open to more and more down the line.

Keyword research will be one of the keys to unlocking those opportunities. Whether it's finding out what your visitors are looking for by examining Search Console logs, tracking their journey through your site using a tool like StatCounter, or using KeywordTool and Google Trends together to spot new skews or content ideas, keywords are a vital marketing tool that you can't ignore.

To take advantage of Guy's 20 year plus business career, and get valuable advice from a Master of Strategic Management, drop him a line - guy.leckythompson (at) gmail (dot) com - with Keyword Strategy Advice in the subject.

Do Traffic Exchanges Work for Start-Up Businesses?

What Are Traffic Exchange Sites?

The term 'Traffic Exchange' loosely covers a wide variety of sites, all geared to getting the business owner traffic in return for:

• opening emails (email exchange);
• viewing other business' sites (traffic exchange);
• clicking adverts or displaying banners (banner exchange);
• etc.

Often, these activities are twofold: traffic and building an email list or downline. For a start-up, traffic exchanges can be useful for a number of reasons:

• they provide a way to get some free traffic flowing;
• it's an opportunity to test an offer;
• validation of an idea;
• and so on...

A more obscure reason to use them is in testing various tracking mechanisms, rotators, or other installed services and features that rely on visitors to drive them (whether they carry out an action or not).

For a more comprehensive answer, see the "Traffic Exchanges and Downline Builders" article; the remainder of this discussion assumes that you are willing to look at adverts for people's sites in return for displaying your own on the traffic exchange network.

An Experiment with TS25

In order to try and figure out what kinds of business actually advertise on a typical high-quality traffic exchange site, I clicked through about 100 pages and noted down what the primary driver for each advertiser was according to their business model.

The one I chose for the experiment is called TrafficSyndicate25 and if you sign up using one of the links on this page, I will get some credit for having brought you and TS25 together.

The pie chart shows that the lion's share of the adverts are quasi-cannibalising; they are invitations to sign up to one traffic exchange programme or another. 

The next tranche (33%) relates to so-called Business Opportunities, including SFI* and ClixSense. 

This could be you, but I suspect that most readers are in the 11% percent of genuine adverts for products or services.

What's a little worrying is that this category is outweighed by the "Wasted" slots: those that no longer exist, or redirect for some reason, as well as the 2% of the total that are represented by viruses or other threats.

So, are traffic exchanges a waste of time for a start-up entrepreneur?

If you are promoting a traffic exchange, or related service, then clearly you'll be in good company. Whether or not your offering will be more persuasive than the competition is an open question.

One solution is to pick an exchange that has an exclusion policy for rival traffic exchanges but be aware you may miss out on some of the adverts for genuinely useful TX sites.

For example, of the BizOp category, 11% were for SFI* and 6% for ClixSense, leaving around 16% spread between other business opportunity sites, including affiliate schemes. If you're in this sector, then it could be a good fit.

In the genuine adverts for products and services, the offerings were split between hosting deals, a religious site, and personal blogs, including a couple of adverts for apps.

A final note: I am fully aware that without a comparative study, this research needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. If enough people are interested -- please comment below if you are -- then I will conduct research across all the traffic exchanges I'm currently using.

In addition, for those who want the full TS25 report as a one-pager, reach out to me in the comments section and I'll make it available.

(*You can see my analysis of SFI in the article about the SFI affiliate scheme.)

Traffic Exchanges and Downline Builders: Getting Started with Free Traffic

"Free traffic" are the two most seductive words to newbie online marketers.
In the olden days (like in the early-to-mid-1990s) banner exchanges were all the rage: for every time someone saw a banner on your site, you got to show your own banner on someone else's web site. These morphed into services like StumbleUpon, which allowed better control of the targeting, as well as feedback on the quality of the sites being promoted.
Banner exchanges were, however, passive. Stumble Upon was the first example of a more active approach, and this turned quickly into a system of trading surfing for page views. Surfers could now earn credits by visiting sites, and use those credits to have their site suggested to fellow surfers.
However, this gave rise to some level of abuse as people turned to bots.

The Rise of the Traffic Exchange Bot

Clicking is tedious, and so some clever programmer created the traffic exchange bot to do all the work for them.
Of course, this devalued the whole concept: rather than earning credits by actually looking at the content, bots were just clicking 'Next' every time.
These were just an extension of the old 'banner bots' that would click banners to earn impressions, but applied to the new paradigm of traffic exchanges.
To get around this, two things happened:

• Clever developers created a timed-click based on matching shapes or pictures to fox the bots;
• Networks grew up around similar offerings, and the ecosystem became one of sharing sites amongst entrepreneurs.

Making it harder for bots to automate clicking, and making it self-defeating by establishing a network of users was a smart move, but had some obvious drawbacks.

Traffic Exchange Networks

The problem with many traffic exchange networks is that since traffic exchange scripts are easy to create and sell, so many have sprung up that they just cannibalise each other.
In other words, most of the networks tend to have roughly the same membership profiles. In fact, a lot of them have the same participants.
Like banks just exist to swap money, traffic exchange networks just exist to trade clicks. Like banks, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but one has to realise that this is what they are for.
The thing is, all participants are at the same level, and all are looking for the same thing: business opportunities.
It works, but it tends to build temporary relationships. Only the owner of the exchange has immediate access to all the participants -- and can charge a premium to advertisers -- and so beyond the "opportunity swapping" that goes on the value stays at the top.
What was needed was a mix of an affiliate network and traffic exchange platform: the downline builder.

The Advent of the Downline Builder System

This is something I came across whilst looking at the SFI business model.

In essence, it's something like a traffic exchange network in that the 'heads' of each downline participate in an exchange where they cross promote with the express intention to build each other's downlines.

New sign-ups go either under the person who referred them, or, when the places that they are allowed to allot are filled up, the next person in the network.

Those that participate fully get more slots allocated, and therefore can build a deeper network, faster. The more they refer, the more spaces they get.

At the same time, those that put in just a small amountof effort will get some return: a smaller downline, but a downline nonetheless.

Where this differs from a classic traffic exchange is that the downline is available to the referrer, who has unique access rights to promote to her own downline.

Each member of the downline also has the ability to build their own downline, resulting in something called a 'matrix'.

However, a person can only participate in a singe downline 'downstream', so the network cannot cannibalise itself.

To entice fresh participants, and grow the network, as well as offer new opportunities to the downline, some form of automated advertising support is needed - an "ad rotator".

Yet Another Splashscreen Rotator

Ad rotators have been around for a while, but the rise of traffic exchange programmes and downline builders means that a new tool is needed. Known as the splashscreen rotator, it is a simple piece of software that displays a random splash screen each time it is requested to.
The benefit of this is that you can spread your traffic exchange credits across multiple projects, with a single URL. Most rotators are pretty basic, but YASR is different:

• Full click-through stats;
• Organise adverts into groups;
• Automatic balancing & split-testing (coming soon);
• ...FREE!

Check it out, and sign up here: YetAnotherSplashscreenRotator.

SFI Affiliate Scheme: Business Opportunity, Network Marketing, or Just Cheap Goods?

The AFI Affiliate Scheme has been around for almost as long as I can remember being interested in online business.

I seem to link it in my mind to a programme called Six Figure Income, something that I dismissed in the early 2000s as being plainly impossible to achieve. SFI, I reasoned, would be gone in a few short years, probably a victim of its own over-promising rhetoric.

I'm pleased to say, that, 17 years later, I was wrong. SFI seems as strong as it promised it would be. If I'd have stuck with it, who knows where I'd be today?

However, I'm back with SFI, as I see there's still room for expansion. For a start, there's a whole load of people in Europe who've never even heard of SFI...

How SFI Works

The guiding principle behind SFI, as I remember it from the past, has always been about two things:

• Transfer purchasing of everyday goods (& online services);
• Building a team.

The two are, and always have been, linked.

The idea behind Transfer Buying is that you buy everyday items from SFI's store (called TripleClicks) which are available at a discount simply because of the number of people buying them. It works really well in the US, but has yet to catch on in Europe. One reason might be because there aren't that many sellers, and paying the shipping makes them as expensive as locally bought products!

Before you write it off as a bad deal, remember two things: as there are more sign-ups, there will be more opportunity to buy locally, through TC. And, not everything that is worth buying from TC needs to be physically shipped.

eBooks, for example. Valuable eBooks about business, the internet, and internet business abound on TC, and many are keenly priced (think $2.99 to 9.99) and reviewed by an honest bunch of like-minded individuals. I won't say it's better than a certain big online retailer, but I've found it to be higher value!

So, where's the business building income opportunity? In helping to spread the word, of course, and help to bring in new suppliers (called ECAs) of goods for your local market. Think Global, act Local!

What Does SFI Sell?

The TripleClicks store sells new and used goods. SFI members can sell the contents of their garage online, and they can buy everything from Toilet Bowl Cleaner to eBooks about SEO.

There are sellers from all over the world and a powerful search system that helps match buyers with local sellers. It also lets you filter by price, too, as well as bestselling and most popular. All that you'd expect from an online store.

The heart of many online stores is, of course, the affiliate scheme. SFI is essentially TripleClicks' own team-oriented affiliate scheme. Team members are encouraged to transfer purchasing of items for the home and office into TripleClicks, and if they promote TripleClicks items themselves, they also earn a commission.

Does SFI Work?

As a business platform, SFI undoubtedly works.

Of course, you should expect to put in some effort; any affiliate knows that the only way to make commissions is to find the best products, and then promote them.

The added bonus that SFI comes with, however, is a plan, a framework, and a lot of resources that will help you to build a healthy team dynamic that centres around helping others rather than hard selling.

Your SFI business can have many different facets: building a solid team of recruiters, helping friends and family save money, becoming an info-product seller on TripleClicks, or helping local suppliers leverage the marketplace, plus any mix of the above. You get the tools, support, and leverage you need to succeed!

(Plus, don't tell anyone, but the skills you'll learn are transferable, so you've really got nothing to lose!)

Just click the banner below to find out all about SFI, and join my team!