YouTube and Amazon SLAP downs.

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by GordonJ

If you have built a business on the sands of Google searches, including YouTube content or your income comes from Amazon affiliates, or you are 100% Internet reliant on your income...be aware of the shifting tides and the storms about to hit your business.

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PS. My team's recommendation was (and is) IF you want to remain a YouTube/Video Marketer, get in synch with the software and get a good grasp of what it likes and doesn't like. Got some kitty videos? Use them smartly (sign in background?).

Hi Gordon,

A very, very wise post! It is advice well worth noting (and tattooing across your forehead - well, nobody should take that literally )...

Being on the wrong end of a "Google slap" could really hurt your business, if you're dependent on your Google rankings for all your customers...

(A "Google slap" is when Google changes their search engine ranking algorithm, so your site which was in the top 10 for your keywords, suddenly can't be found in the top 100, for example.)

I have some friends who are totally dependent on their Google rankings for their business. This is their only livelihood, so they're very dependent on that. Hopefully, they've survived the latest "Google slap" (called "Panda" - people name them, the same way they name hurricanes because of how destructive they can be)...

However, one thing about their business is they do not cultivate repeat business in any way. They require a constant stream of new customers, who often may just buy once. They have no email list, or anything like that - so they can't even contact a customer once they have bought (they mostly sell other people's products).

One way to be less dependent is instead to focus your business on repeat customers. People who will buy from you over and over again. And make sure you can contact those customers (e.g. via email). That is some of the best business advice I know.

By the way, keeping your website high on the Google rankings requires constant work. You're always tweaking, rewriting, creating new web pages, etc., because Google loves "fresh" content. Any "stale" content (i.e. which hasn't changed for a while) goes lower and lower in the rankings.

I used to focus on Google search engine positioning a few years ago - but once I realized that it would be constant work, which would never end - I gave up. There are other ways to get traffic!

However, there is another side to the coin. I also know some people who make good money by creating a good search engine position for other people. For them, these "Google slaps" are probably a gold mine!

Imagine if you're one of their customers, and you've paid them to get you good search engine positioning - and they've done their part. Your website(s) now rank highly for the keywords you're interested in. You're happy with their work. Then suddenly...

A "Google slap" arrives! Your website is nowhere to be seen on Google!

You go running back to the search engine positioning experts... and pay them to again improve your website positioning, based on the NEW Google algorithms!

For them, it's a gold mine. I'm sure each "Google slap" brings in a lot more work, and a lot more money!

So... maybe it's all a matter of perspective, and which side of the fence you're sitting on?

Best wishes,

Dien