I balance the two. SEO is more of a long term strategy for me, PPC a short term… among other marketing strategies.
Sometimes PPC is actually a good way to get traffic until the Search Engine traffic does finally barrel in…
AND you don’t always have to wait 3 months. With the proper niche research and some luck, you can draw traffic in days… Once your site is crawled regularly, you can put a page up and be indexed within a day.
I don’t think SEO is a waste of time unless you don’t plan on being in this game for a long time. I plan on being here in 5-10 years. So I’ll be patient.
SEO is a tough game no matter how you look at it. You can be at the top of the SERPs one month and drop out the next… I’ve seen people who have held number one positions for years and suddenly disappear all together.
It’s a dangerous thing having 100% of your efforts in one area and depending on one form of advertising… diversification is a good thing.
SEO and PPC aren’t even the only way to market online… some people do neither and make a ton of money.
Really… There is no predicting Search Engine’s… they will always mess with your head. Sandbox or no sandbox. The algos always changing… Their index is updated frequently. Google’s PR is always in flux…
After the last major update there was a lot of talk there is even a randomization factor involved now… maybe even certain industries being treated different… Outbound links becoming a factor.
What I experienced could have easily been something I did… It’s the closest thing to a Sandbox I’ve had. One day I have 50 keywords ranked high the next day they disappear. 2 months later I see visitors from those keywords back in my logs and sure enough they came back…
SEO has changed a lot this last year. It is not as predictable. A webmaster would be a fool to rely on Google for 100% of their revenue. I’ve seen it happen… huge revenue generating websites dropping out of the SERPs completely… what a rush that has to be!
LET ME be honest. Like I said. The sandbox could have been something I did or some random shift in the index… who knows… I can’t explain it so I call it a sandbox… but I’m always tweaking my sites…
A lot of it I think has to do with new webmasters who think if they follow the book they should fine themselves at the top of the SERPs… when they don’t, they automatically call it a sandbox if they can’t figure it out…
Reality… it might be that there are 10,000 websites that were there first with more inbounds and experience. You have to earn your spot…
Bottom line. Sandbox seems to occur, but it will only occur for crowded markets… which leads me to believe you need to work harder than a niche market with no competition… If there is no competition and your site is relevant, it will rank…
If a new eBook comes out, and I place it on my website… do a search for the title and there I am…
I’ve been on page one or two for the phrase “Adword Mentor” ever since I placed an article on my site about it (4 months ago…)… I’m on page 2 now I think… It was instant because I’m crawled daily and there was no competition for that phrase…
Sound familier… PPC?
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