Different SEO Strategies for Different Situations
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Ever wonder how thousands and thousands of people worldwide can all be in the businesses of SEO, online promotion and marketing? It’s because everyone(who is successful) brings a different approach and a different strategy to their promotion. I wanted to take a look at the different strategies people use, and the areas where each does the best. Keep in mind that sometimes picking a tactic that is not what is normally the best can be the most profitable. It brings a new dimension to the marketplace.
- Churn and Burn Sites - Churn and burn is the blackhat mantra. The concept is that the site is created for a short life span, and will be as profitable as possible during that time period.
Where is This the Most Profitable?- Niches Where It Has Become the Norm - Think “Buy Viagra”. In some areas, churn and burn sites have become the norm. While a very skilled person can make long term profits by going against the norm, these niches became as they are for a reason.
- Niches with Year-Round Traffic - Take a look at the things that so many blackhats end up diving into with churn and burn sites. Ringtones, Porn, Pills. Ever wonder why this was the case? Because there’s year round demand for these products, and high demand. So topping out the results, even for a few hours, can return a large profit. And you don’t have to be terribly sensitive about WHEN you rank.
- Reasonable Doubt Sites - Sometimes all you need is reasonable doubt. Because hey, your backlinks MIGHT all be legit. If your checkbook dictates your link count, or your widgets are perhaps a little TOO viral, this is probably you.
Where is this Profitable?- High Competition Niches Dominated by SEOs - They can spot yor blackhat links a mile away, and have their current Google position engrained on the back of their eye lids. So a straight blackhat approach is borderline suicidal here. So reasonable doubt is the way to go.
- Niches with Cyclical Traffic - Niches that surge at certain predictable time periods are golden for this. They’re generally too competitive for(most) 100% whitehats. At the same time, you want a stable rank so that you can be there for the annual 2-4 week period where the traffic is high.
- Parasite Cycles - Decided to say “screw it” to buying your own domains? Tired of fearing the ban hammer? Then this is the real deal. Parasite cycles are just dozens and dozens of generated pages on anywhere you’re allowed to plant text, all leading back to your site.
Where is this Profitable?- Traditionally Blackhat Niches - No one’s better at spotting a blackhat than a blackhat. So running 300+ pages through the link spam ringer is a pretty common way to make sure it just doesn’t matter.
- When You’re Whitelabeled - Running a parasite cycle WILL bring in complaints. It just will. So a whitelabel is awesome here. Or if you’ve been given the blackhat go-ahead by the affiliate networks.
- Pure Whitehat - On occasion, even I embrace the hell known as whitehat linkbuilding. Why? Because some situations call for it.
Where is this Profitable?- Information Based Sites - If you’re going to drop some cash on real content, and that is going to be the basis of the site (adsense) whitehat is pretty much needed. No sense in letting that all go to waste
- When You’re Really Going to Piss People Off - Planning on outranking a company for their own name? They will probably pick up an SEO if you do, and you don’t want your site to be on their hit list.
Alright folks! Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Insanely busy. I may have a nice story about a search engine cloaking coming up either later today, or tomorrow 
-XMCP
May 12th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I get an odd vision of White Hats reading this one. Its almost like you think of the WH as the junk yard dog. Not to bright, not to interesting, drools a bit, but dont get in their space because they will rip you to shreads.
Related thought:
Your mantra should be “uncommon solution to common problems”
May 12th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Did you ever wonder
How many 1000s of gitls there are on those porn sites?
If there’s money in it someone WILL do it.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
@cw360: Not how it was intended at all. Though at this point, I will admit I see whitehat in it’s purest form(no bought links, no widgetbait, strictly on-topic linkbait) as decreasing in overall usability in truly competitive niches. This is not to say it’s impossible, but the standards of whitehat appear to be changing, so I’m less than confident in using it for a long term strategy.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:04 am
@admin: There are some professions where a strict code of conduct is necessary: law enforcement, accounting, ect… However, in most aspects of business strict adherence to norms is sentencing your business to stagnation and eventual death from competition.
I agree with you… now about that SEO standards conversation…
May 13th, 2008 at 4:07 am
I am strictly WH (@ work) and i tell you it’s damn hard for some niches and there are some that you just wouldn’t tackle. WH is about the long term and with creativity you can trash your competition. It takes work and time, but once you get it there you’re less likely to lose it and only have to fight off the competition by staying just ahead.
we rank for some vv. competitive single word terms and it has taken a while, but then again we have been there for a few years, stagnating @ no1 or 2
May 14th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
[…] Read more Different SEO Strategies for Different Situations : Slightly Shady SEO […]
May 14th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
I agree, wh in it’s purest form is going to become extremely difficult in the near future. But you really only need to do 1 thing to get a parade of links to a whitehat site. Create a fucking awesome free tool that can’t be easily copied (or if it can, you win because you are the first to have it). Links to your site will pour like rain, and if it’s truly innovative, then you’ll get a lot more than links out of it.
By the way, why did google turn your ads to public service ones?
May 15th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Nice post. Could you explain if Google holds links against you? I’m new to SEO and have read conflicting views on this. To me it seems that since we can’t control what links our sites get that Google shouldn’t be penalizing us for getting many links to quick or getting links from bad neighborhoods. If this is the case, it would seem that all a competitor has to do is just get millions of links to your site ever day and Google will drop the site down. That seems too easy.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Awesomeness!..^^ This is a great resource on the different SEO strategies you can use in different situations.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Found your blog from WF. Read through it.
Could you please, please write a few more entries on PPC (I’ve read all the ones you have written so far).
Man, I can’t get a profitable PPC campaign going yet.
I am going to keep on setting up campaigns. Would love to hear some more thoughts from you on PPC.
Thank you.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:55 am
@Maxwell: I’m on public service ads Because my blog has a terrible CTR, and the income was never high enough for me to bother fixing that.
I agree with your idea, although Google has been taking a recent stance against widget bait and the like. There was an awesome seomoz article on it a little bit ago.
@Kevin: They in theory don’t, but in really high numbers they possibly can. Use the search form on here and look for negative SEO, and you’ll see what I mean.
@Ms. XYZ: Sure, I can definitely do a few. I don’t do it too much yet, since I’m definitely still learning a lot about it. But I’ll put out there what I can.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Thanks XMCP.
Here is the way I look at it - if you have gotten to $2000 net days, then you know more than I do. And I respect that and would like to learn from that.
So, thank you for taking the time to put out what you can. I look forward to them.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
I can’t remember where it was exactly, but I just read this article about how hard it’s going to be to achieve high rankings in Google for most SEO publishers in the near future. I definitely agree if you’re working in the WH camp. I think building authority and mindshare should be a white hat SEO’s main goal. Make it so Google can’t remove you from their index without looking like they’re algorithm sucks.
May 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Are there really true white hats who never game anything at all?
May 18th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
a great read. its better to have a site that retains traffic. and in the long run, it will still make traffic. This is why i pick out the best niches for longevity rather than join the hype bandwagon.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:42 pm
Interesting view. For a longterm solution and brand affinity whitehat is the way to go.