past 7 days has seen 0 signups. This is unbelievable - I keep checking to see if our web site is up because I don't know what else could be up.

The previous month we got on average 1 signup per day .. is everyone experiencing slowdown right now because of the holidays or is something up?

I don't know where you are located. But here in Australia now through till February is when things are full steam ahead. Uni/School/Work holidays are upon us, and folks get right into working on their sites.

Looking forward to next April, when we get a holiday. :)

Gary

Last weekend [USA Thanksgiving] was slow. Only got 2 accounts in the whole 3 or 4 day period. :eek:

Things are picking up now though. 2003 is going to be a great year indeed, if 2002 is anything to go by. :D

We have never been busier for signups and dont have any adverts running at the moment - purely refferals and this place :)

Hm I think I may have the answer to our problem .. we use Google PPC and geotarget to one country only. Most of the keywords related to hosting we rank 1 or 2. But it seems instead of our ad showing up on every search for those terms now it shows up only 1 in 20 searches. I just did the test for those specific terms.

I don't get it .. since we started with google we were ALWAYS in the list of ads as we're ranked high, but now all of a sudden even though the ranking is the same we come up only once in 20+ searched. What the ??

Could it be that google's ad program is a bit of a scam ? First month we were with them we had no problems. Now this crap. Could it be that they intentionally push your ads agressively when you're new with them and then once you start paying your bills regularly you simply become insignificant and some other new google customer gets that treatment ... I have no other way of explaining this BS.

Google has not been performing as well as it once did for me either. Alas, at least I've already built a nice sized client base.

google = big rip off...

Just optimise the site nicely to get on page one for niche keywords. Working well for us and we've only been working on it for a month. Google rank just jumped to 6/10 on the last crawl. :)

Originally posted by NexDog
Just optimise the site nicely to get on page one for niche keywords. Working well for us and we've only been working on it for a month. Google rank just jumped to 6/10 on the last crawl. :)
That must be a pretty crappy keyword if you got 6/10 and you got it after 1 month. :stickout: :D ;)

eh?

Originally posted by NexDog
eh?
Well you can't just grab a high position for a top quality hosting keyword in google after just 1 month. What was the keyword you optimised for?

The point is that we never bothered with SEO and only just started working on it a month back. We started to optimise the index page only, added mega tags etc and our Google rank jumped 6/10 which is a good think. There is no "one" keyword, you obviously have a lot to learn. ;)

Originally posted by NexDog
There is no "one" keyword, you obviously have a lot to learn. ;)
*cough* There are certian keywords that you chase etc. Otherwise there's no focus in your SEO. There's a real science in coming up high in Google for certian keywords. Those keywords reflect your business model, market/niche etc.

Folks pay thousands of dollars a month to get certian keywords high in certain SEs. How much do you think "Web hosting" is worth in google?? What do you think SEO [Search Engine Optimisation] work is all about?? heh. :eek:

I can put you in contact with a SEO professional who will map out a strategy for certian keywords that match your business model exactly. There's no point in thinking that there's "no one keyword" with SEO, as this is the very basis of all SEO work. You optimise your site for certian keywords that best describe your services etc. It's a HUGE and complex industry.

I worked on a project about 18mths ago and the SEO chap targeted 3 main popular keywords that best reflected the site's purpose. He then helped me optimise the site for those 3 keywords. He put a LOT of research into what keywords to optimise for. As I said, it's complex and folks make a LOT of $$$$$ doing this. It's not about getting heaps of traffic - it's about getting the most qualified traffic coming through the best and most descriptive keywords.

But what would I know. I have a "lot to learn". :D

hehe,

I wonder who optimised this phrase on google.......

"cpanel 5 "

Haven't checked for a while :D

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
I worked on a project about 18mths ago and the SEO chap targeted 3 main popular keywords that best reflected the site's purpose. He then helped me optimise the site for those 3 keywords.


Exactly my point. :rolleyes:

We did a lot of research using various tools to find niche keywords and to home in on them. We have been concentrating on 3 keywords at the moment and got on page 1 at Google for one, page 3 for another and page 4 for the last. It was just a test really coinciding with Google's freshbot and its main crawl. We aren't paying big bucks to do this. Instead we've enrolled the help of one our clients whom we sponsor. Her site is no1 at Google for the main search term relating to her field.

So I don't understand your first critical post with the "crappy keyword" remark. We've done well for our first attempt and the increase in Google rank is a feather in our cap. If you are such an expert, why don't you try harder. From what I've seen though, your rank etc is pretty poor. ;) I just know you're going to say your service is so excellent that you don't need it blah blah blah but referrals will slow down sometimes, less hits will come in, advertising budget fluctuates etc. I now understand that the search engines should always be there to bring in targetted traffic just in case.

Originally posted by NexDog
So I don't understand your first critical post with the "crappy keyword" remark.
Well, what are the 3 keywords that you've optimised for? It takes a long time to get high google listings for high demand keywords. It won't happen quickly.
We've done well for our first attempt and the increase in Google rank is a feather in our cap. If you are such an expert, why don't you try harder. From what I've seen though, your rank etc is pretty poor. ;) I just know you're going to say your service is so excellent that you don't need it blah blah blah but referrals will slow down sometimes, less hits will come in, advertising budget fluctuates etc. I now understand that the search engines should always be there to bring in targetted traffic just in case.
You're a mile off mate. We keep all search engine spiders AWAY to protect resellers as much as possible. We've tried our hardest to stay out of the engines like google etc for obvious reasons which I'm sure you're aware of etc... :)

Signups havnt been as much November, but there is a steady stream of orders coming in.

Slower than normal here as well. This time of year, end users tend to focus on Christmas as opposed to web development.

Historically speaking, this business, like any, fluctuates and will rise and fall again as time goes on.

Just be patient. Users will come to you if you offer a good service with great support.

Originally posted by intraweb
google = big rip off...

YEP, once on their stupid Adwords pgm we sent something like $2500 with them only to recieve 10 signups 4 of which were fraud and 6 which amounted to actual signups. Dont ever waste you $$ on ah-ha.com. The people who visit their site from their site are all **** clients. They never buy in fact i think ah-ha sends a whole bunch of FAKE visits to your site so they can charge you. Why else did we see hundreds of supposed users visiting for ah-ha.com and found that all those people did was click on the main index.html page. What kind of user visits your first page and no other?

As I've advertised my company online, here is what I've found:

Google adwords is pretty much useless. To answer the previously stated comment of:

originally posted by titoboo
I don't get it .. since we started with google we were ALWAYS in the list of ads as we're ranked high, but now all of a sudden even though the ranking is the same we come up only once in 20+ searched. What the ?? ...

Hopefully this isn't redundant information you all already know, but YES, Google DOES limit the number of searches after awhile IF you fail to meet their click-through rate minimums. Did it limit your exposure -EVEN when meeting the minimums?? It is 0.5% if you are only shown on Google and it is 1% if shown on all sites in network (such as AOL netfind, and others). The key to click-throughs on this program is to severely limit the keywords and highly, highly target your ad. For a keyword like "web hosting" ---good luck. I found that most people don't look at those ads, and those that do don't seem any more likely to buy than click-throughs from the various web directories. And on top of that, a typical ad on a web directory site is only a few cents per click, whereas Google would charge you about $5/click for a keyword like "Web Hosting." And, after your 1,000 impressions were done, I seriously doubt you'd show up much anymore because there's almost no way you'd get enough click-throughs to meet the minimum.

I've managed to use other means (than Google) to boost my traffic from 98 visitors in August to 9,763 in November. Although, it looks like December is shaping up to only about 2,800 (using this week as a basis), so I think the holidays this year ARE presenting a bit of a slowdown. I will get about 2,000 clicks this month from my various online advertising and I estimate that my average cost-per-click will be around $0.05 cents. That's much better than the visitors from Google that used to cost me $3.25 EACH!

I hope that rant was actually helpful to some. ;)

Also, I'm new to this group... so... Hello! I hope I did the quotes correctly.

Cheers,

Brandon Elliott
www.imagion.com

Welcome criter1on, and the quotes came out too. :)

Dont ever waste you $$ on ah-ha.com. The people who visit their site from their site are all **** clients. They never buy in fact i think ah-ha sends a whole bunch of FAKE visits to your site so they can charge you. Why else did we see hundreds of supposed users visiting for ah-ha.com and found that all those people did was click on the main index.html page.

Ah-ha actually called my on the phone last week, and tried to get me on their system. I am a little concerned with the quality of their visitors as well. Something smells rotten...

Keyword "Host Unlimited Domains "

http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=host+unlimited+domains

On yahoo and google #7 position first page. Its was #4 last week, dropped to 7 :( but Oneday it will be #1 :D

-Rupi :D

Originally posted by eHostPros
Keyword "Host Unlimited Domains "

http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=host+unlimited+domains

On yahoo and google #7 position first page. Its was #4 last week, dropped to 7 :( but Oneday it will be #1 :D

-Rupi :D
That's not bad at all. :)

I'm not sure of the demand for that keyword. I used to use a tool from Overture.com to detemine keyword populartity etc. There are heaps of other tools out there, but I always felt that the Overture tool was more accurate.

How many keywords are you targeting??

I finally, after many months of trying, got my site listed on google, with associated page rank etc. The site is now listed as number one using 3 different "key phrases"

Originally posted by reseller
I finally, after many months of trying, got my site listed on google, with associated page rank etc. The site is now listed as number one using 3 different "key phrases"
That's the secret. Target the keywords that best describe your services that you offer. Choosing the best keywords for your site can be a challenge though. It comes right back to your business model/niche etc. The more targeted your business model is, then the less competition there will be with the keywords. You can build a very successful venture with targeting just 1 keyword. No use selling meat in a newsagency. :D

I've got a couple of #1s and #2s on google that I think ( or thought ) were great keywords, but they just don't seem to be working for me. Back to the drawing board I go.. Its not easy getting up that high either!!! :mad:

We've had most of the first 1-2 pages covered with "aussie hosts" for sometime now, without any effort. We get hits from searches for various combinations of aussie/host/hosts/hosting/web/host/web hosts/au/aus etc etc.

Gary

I agree with you Aussie Bob :) I deliberately moved away from "private label" etc, and moved more into what I believe I offer. I also tried to use words people more commonly use. Sure in "the industry" things like private label are bantied about, but not everytone necessarily thinks that way when looking for an unbranded hosting service ;)

Other than adword and overture, what are other PPC ad. you guys have used before ?

Just some interesting searches on Yahoo:


http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=unlimited+webspace

May explain why Host onces gets so much business.


http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=aussie+host

Look at 7. - Dead link


http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=reseller+hosting

FutureQwest , Titled , Voxteme - all on the first page. Well done.

Only 13th? Damn!

Just joking, thanks for the comments. :)

Originally posted by tazzy
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=aussie+host
Look at 7. - Dead link

I much prefer http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=aussie+hosts :)

Gary

Originally posted by Editor
I much prefer http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=aussie+hosts :)
You should be top of google too for the keyword - Aussie+hosts. That's the .com domain afterall. Hence the value of keyword rich domains for SEO. :)

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=inexpensive+reseller+hosting

:D

Beat This :D

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=cheap+reseller+plans

( Just kidding :) )

:D :D

Well, if we really want to compare...

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=professional+reseller+plans

:)

For all the Talk Aussie Bob has about his Google expertise, I just did a search for "Aussie Bob", he isn't even listed. He knows nothing!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Aussie+Bob&btnG=Google+Search



Better add this - :) - some people will not know it is a joke.

Another thing, this doesn't even look like the picture you have in your forums:

http://members.tripod.com/~DRoe/index-36.html

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
For all the Talk Aussie Bob has about his Google expertise, I just did a search for "Aussie Bob", he isn't even listed. He knows nothing!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Aussie+Bob&btnG=Google+Search



Better add this - :) - some people will not know it is a joke.
lol Billy.

[edit] Billy was just kidding. :D

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
Another thing, this doesn't even look like the picture you have in your forums:

http://members.tripod.com/~DRoe/index-36.html
:D

In reply to the start of this thread, business has never been faster for us. Ever since opening our community forums just over a month ago, business has been soaring and even more so since we launched our bulk reseller plans. Will be needing to put a plug on the signup form soon :cool:

Here comes 2003 :D

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
Another thing, this doesn't even look like the picture you have in your forums
There might be more than one Aussie Bob in Australia, you know ;) :D

Originally posted by rochen
There might be more than one Aussie Bob in Australia, you know ;) :D
*GASP* ya reckon?? :D

LOL, I guess Bob will be planning his strategy on how to "fight" this one while surfing :emlaugh: :D

What's the weather like, Bob? It's cold and raining here in the UK :bawling:

Originally posted by rochen
LOL, I guess Bob will be planning his strategy on how to "fight" this one while surfing :emlaugh: :D
Hardly a "fight" mate. :) Just some spirited interaction and discussion. Today I am feeling especially aggressive. It must be this sea air. :D
What's the whether like, Bob? It's cold and raining here in the UK :bawling:
It is ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS outside at the moment. Went down to the beach at 5am and it was magnificent. Heading down for some more action any minute. Ahhhhh, life is tough. :D

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Hardly a "fight" mate. :) Just some spirited interaction and discussion. Today I am feeling especially aggressive. It must be this sea air. :D
It sure looks that way with the amount of "interactions and discussions" you and billy have ;) :D So far we have had "How Many Domains can you fit on a server?", amongst others. Ah, well, will be interesting to see this one :cool:

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
It is ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS outside at the moment. Went down to the beach at 5am and it was magnificent. Heading down for some more action any minute. Ahhhhh, life is tough. :D
Where is that danm thumbs smiley? They need to add the green thumbs around here :D :thumb: :D

:D:agree:

Originally posted by Aussie Bob

lol Billy. You're almost too much. Why should I have "Aussie Bob" indexed in google for?

I don't appreciate your crap post billy. To claim that I know nothing about google because "Aussie Bob" is not indexed is a real joke. :rolleyes:

Bob, sometimes you kill me. You get so blinded that sometimes you don't even read. I even posted this comment:

Better add this - :) - some people will not know it is a joke.

Did you not see this? Of course the post made no sense. Of course the person in that picture is not AB. No sh** there are more then one Aussie Bob's in AU!:rolleyes:

Yes, I received your PM Bob, however figured I would respond here since your panties got into a bundle......

Figured you had a better sense of humor. Maybe the ocean will clear your mind. ;)

Panties are ok billy *checks again* Yep. :D

I thought you were saying that I'd better add the :) to my post as my post was a joke. Damnit Billy, I was hoping you were serious.

The PM I sent was hardly me with my panties in a bundle. :D

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Panties are ok billy *checks again* Yep. :D

I thought you were saying that I'd better add the :) to my post as my post was a joke. Damnit Billy, I was hoping you were serious.

The PM I sent was hardly me with my panties in a bundle. :D


Ahhhh... now I see where thi scould go wrong. Sorry. I didn't write it that way. :D

I think you know me to be a little more inteigent then to think you should index Aussie Bob and that there is only one AB in AU. :stickout:

No worries. :D

How dare there be more than 1 Aussie Bob in AU?? :eek:

Time for a trademark. Any tips, Kiwi??...:D ;)

I smell a lawsuit coming against all those poor AB's with Tripod sites. AB Vs. AB(tm). :stickout: :D

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
Any tips, Kiwi??...:D ;)
From what I remember, he said to (TM) in at least 25 countries and get a lawyer, not one of those "online services" ;) :D

I wonder if Kiwi is a trademark? :D

Originally posted by rochen
I wonder if Kiwi is a trademark? :D

might be:

http://store4.yimg.com/I/shoeshinekit_1715_120626

Greg Moore