10 Reasons Why You Can’t Make Money with SEO

All the bullshit aside, why did you get into SEO in the first place? More importantly, why are you still grinding at it? I think it’s safe to assume that it was for financial reasons and that you’re not reading this post because you want to spread peace and love across the internet. It’s ok, you don’t have to admit it, that’s what you’ve got me for. I won’t lie, I’ll tell you exactly why I started and continue to do this shit.

To become filthy rich, that’s it. I do this for the money, sure I enjoy it but without the chips I wouldn’t want to play. With that said I’ve made some seriously moronic mistakes over the years and seen my fair share of dumb shit as well. So let’s go over some things that come to mind:

#1 Too much analysis and not enough executing

Have you ever seen an idea that made you kick yourself? That invention on Shark Tank that didn’t take rocket science to invent, yet it’s making millions. Now why is that? Were they just lucky? For some maybe, but I believe it’s all in the execution. Here’s an example; Let’s take Entrepreneur A and Entrepreneur B. Entrepreneur A has the most amazing idea ever thought of, but they spin their wheels like crazy and struggle to get things done. Entrepreneur B has a pretty good idea but they are smart and relentless with their execution. Which product do you think will be more successful? There is a high chance Entrepreneur B is going to crush it. The same thing goes on in SEO, you see some link network and kick yourself. You think “this is nothing special, I could totally build something like this”. Well why aren’t you then? Go execute!

#2 Spreading yourself too thin

As I’m here writing this blog post it dominates my morning, taking my focus away from my actual SEO work…Yeah don’t spread yourself too thin, it’s obvious right? Well I’m an absolute master at it, if you’ve ever emailed me then most time it’s a crap shoot if you’ll hear back. It works for me but I’m kind of a maniac. Where I’m at now though, no more new projects!!

#3 Too much emphasis on one single link type

You’ve heard it before, “diversity” is important blah blah. What I mean by this is just getting to obsessed with one single method, GSA for example, or even PBN for that matter. Easily half my day is spent building and using PBN, so obviously there is a huge return there. But for a long time I neglected other more “white hat” ways of getting links. For one just because something is labeled “white hat” doesn’t mean you can’t use beast mode and put the tactic on steroids. Then you combine that with your baller PBN, see what I’m getting at?

#4 Not billing enough or billing too much

For those of you in the client side, you’ll know exactly what I mean. I’m terrible at managing clients and I know it. That’s why I pretty much never take them, because I never estimate the job right. I’m tempted to ask for big money like $10k per month but then imagine the expectations you’d have. So I tend to take less money when working with clientele, then I’m sitting there burning the midnight oil setting up some baller shit and wishing I could work on my own projects. If this is your hustle then more power to you, I like applying as much of this stuff as possible for my own portfolio of sites.

#5 Hesitance to automate things

This is so huge, automate ALL the things! And push yourself, until you even start thinking about this you won’t have any breakthroughs. It’s like the automation mindset, once you start having breakthroughs and finding big time saves you’ll be hungry for more.

#6 Not outsourcing the right things and outsourcing the wrong things

This really ties in with #5, some things you should focus on trying to automate vs outsourcing. How do you differentiate between those two? Well, I don’t have a set formula I just try really fucking hard. Meaning I try my hardest to think of a way to automate first, I outsource when it’s literally my only option for completing the task. I made the mistake years ago of getting too outsource happy. Before you know it you’ve got an increase in expenses without the revenue to match. Meanwhile you’re busy critiquing minutia, building training materials, etc., all to eventually find out output quality has diminished and you need to rehire and start over.

#7 Zero financial planning

Tossing this in as a reminder for myself. I’m an absolute idiot when it comes to financial planning. Stack stack stack your money people. I’ve even been tempted to diversify a small portion to something completely unrelated to SEO. But then I remember rule #2 and stay focused on the grind.

#8 Not minimizing expenses

All those little subscriptions, services, VAs, etc can really start to add up if you’re not careful. The key to this is just putting a bit more thought into the new expenses you take on.

1. Is this absolutely necessary?
2. Can it be a temporary expenses (like you can cancel it after completing the task)?
3. Is there a way do get some sort of discount?

I used to be a l loose cannon with this, new service, why not let’s do it. Then forget about it and get billed for a year without touching it. Don’t be like me, keep a close eye on your expenses.

#9 Focusing on the wrong niche

Let’s say we’ve got two affiliates with near equal skill. Affiliate A is in the finance niche and Affiliate B is in the Smurfs niche. Who do you think makes more money? This is an extreme example but even I’m guilty of spending a little too much time on certain things when I should be focused on bigger. I’ve fallen into a couple niches just based on picking up a cool domain but I try my best to stay close to the markets that I know pay a shitload.

#10 FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

The relationship between Google and SEOs is very strange. On the surface it seems we’re friends and Google is there to help us become better webmasters. The truth is that what is really needed to achieve our goals causes a conflict. Google wants us to be a bunch of compliant content producers. SEOs want a competitive advantage which causes them to push the boundaries to find out what “really” works. Considering that we outnumber them (search is enormous) they’ve got to play their game at the highest possible level. Which means using every weapon they have, the intangible ones. For example, strategically scaring the shit out of SEOs so they never build a PBN. Think about how crazy that is, a two fold plan. Part 1 is to actually make it harder to rank with PBNs (by filters and algorithms). Part 2 is all FUD so you’ll just give it up all together.

Of all those things I truly think #1 is the most important concept to internalize. It’s one of those simple as fuck ideas that is absolutely game changing. Once you start seeing it in the wild you’ll start pushing harder. There are tons of good ideas out there, tons. Ideas aren’t the problem, it’s that very few people will actually execute on them and see them through to the end. Now go smash some SERPs out and thicken those revenue streams!