How Algorithms Upend Opportunity Every Day

by Case Lane

The allure of online business opportunity is mesmerizing…put something online and watch the money flow in. 

Dozens of ‘gurus’ will sell you their ‘best way’ to riches, laced with unbelievable bonuses, you’ll never see again.  And the cash will continue to flow covering blogs, podcasts, videos, information, entertainment, and even physical products with a long road to freedom driven by instant wealth.

Yet underneath it all, almost daily, there is a looming threat built on the same foundation as the optimism – the ever changing algorithms that both float and sink a million business dreams every day.

The Online Business Foundation

Online businesses are built on the online platforms, and are therefore dependent on the decisions made by another set of insurmountable gurus.

In traditional business, brick and mortar, you may run into trouble for a day or two, for example, if the city does not run snow removal down the street in front of your store following a blizzard.

But online, you can lose your entire business, without appeal, to algorithm changes that you cannot prepare for, nor understand how to recover from before they happen.

You can only begin another cycle of ‘testing,’ trying to discover the new secrets to making your pages work again, before you run out of revenue.

The Ups

Organic search by Keyword

Anyone can create a blog, or podcast or video and post it online for free. What happens next is a question for the algorithm seers.

If people organically find your post, meaning they just happen to come across it by virtue of the search terms they are using, and you start seeing traffic on your site without doing any work, then people assume you have conquered – SEO – search engine optimization, the ability to get the search engine to find you simply by using the right keywords in your headlines and copy.

If no one shows up on your page, you have nothing.

The same goes for your podcast or videos.  But you can post, and do nothing but tweak your keywords until you see enough traffic to turn your content into advertising revenue. That’s a skill businesses would pay millions to acquire, and some do it well.

Organic Search from Social Media

The next level is also free – using social media to drive traffic to your sites. In this case, you are on one or more social media platforms delivering value through interesting or fun content that sends curious readers looking for more on your website. This increase in eyeballs can also lead to advertising dollars, for just the cost of your monthly website hosting fee.

Paid Ads

But the next level, the one that goes into a tailspin every time the algorithm changes is paid advertising – creating your ads, and then paying to specifically target an audience that you select.

There is the challenge. You have to figure out how to select the audience – the combination of variables that will result in the highest CTR or click-through-rate, leading to the highest number of conversions – people buying something from you.

If you want to sell fishing gear, you should target people who are interested in fishing…not fish – eating, or Fish – the 70s sitcom, or fish – the card game – actual fishing with a rod and reel. You are looking for people who actually buy the gear, not people who live in the desert and never travel, those who are interested in water and fish.

Since no one knows exactly which combination of variables will get your ad in front of the right people, paid advertising becomes a guessing game that improves with time, experimentation, and money.

You have to spend enough money to obtain meaningful data – for example at least 100 clicks on your ad, and then use that data to keep refining your ads. You have to ask: why did they click but not buy? That answer is worth millions.

When you do this analysis well…you create what Russell Brunson calls the best ATM in the world. Put in $1 get out $2 – what could be better?

The Downs

Organic search by Keyword

When people started putting questions into the search bar, changing search from random keywords to conversation, it changed the results…and the search engine.

If the search is now ‘how many’ or ‘what if’ or ‘who is’ you have to make sure your posts are answering those specific inquiries.

For people who were used to writing careful prose loaded with specifically researched words, the switch to voice-based search presented the next level of a challenge.

And it did not end there. Trying to guess the words people are entering into a search bar is a struggle in itself. Of course you can see this information, on Google for free, but then when you test it, you wonder is the data correct, or a hybrid of what’s really there?

As much as people want to believe that organic is gracious, people ask questions in multiple different ways. A subject you may believe is trending in your world could have few takers in the search result data.  This does not mean you need to abandon it, you just have to refine your approach.

And start again.

Organic search from Social Media

Each social media platform has its pros and cons. If you want to use links in your posts, avoid Instagram; if you want to write detailed posts avoid Twitter; if you want to repurpose your images across multiple platforms avoid Pinterest:, if you don’t want your work colleagues to see what you’re doing, avoid LinkedIn.

Then once you have decided which platform is right for you, you can post all day, and still get less than a handful of views, no likes and no comments.  Facebook could decide not to push your material to your friends, or you could be lost in the sea of cat videos that are moving up the feed.

You can post relentlessly every day, and barely see your numbers move. Or you could post one amazing image that goes viral, and sends everyone flocking to you.

You have no idea. You just have to keep posting valuable content, and hope that your information can somehow slip through the noise to reach the people you are intending to target.  It’s amazing on Facebook to see someone’s posts every day, and then they just disappear. You have no idea if the person disappeared, or if it was your lack of ‘liking’ their posts prompted Facebook to decide you just didn’t care. Either way, you just have to keep trying.

Paid Ads

On the down-side, the disruptions to paid advertising are the most difficult to tolerate, after all you are paying for the privilege of having your business lose money every day.

Since the platforms created the data, you simply have to believe in the mechanisms they present to you, even if reality does not align with functionality.

For example, there are dozens of guest podcasting groups on Facebook, but the terms ‘guest podcasting’ or ‘podcast guest’ do not come up in Facebook for Business as options for targeting your ads. How the platform comes to decide which words, and names, are in and which ones are out, remains a mystery tied up behind their digital doors.

Despite the fact that everyone on Facebook is supposed to be signaling quite clearly exactly where their interests lie, you still have to guess at how to target people for your ads, and then accept the cost as it is presented to you.

The system is inefficient, and unhelpful. And yet some have managed to make millions. And each time they do, the platforms live another day of hagiographic sentiment from the business community.

Even though the social media platforms bill themselves as communities, they are advertiser supported, and users accept the appearance of ads as the price to be paid for using the app.

In fact, some may even embrace it. Just hoping that someone feeds them an ad about something they can use, instead of randomly scrolling through more cat videos.

You Make the Decision

Growing your audience online is a guessing game, some more viable than others. Yes, there is skill involved too, but that skill is put to the test on a daily basis as changes are made and intentions rewritten.

For the aspiring entrepreneur who must build a life online through the social media platforms, and search engines (and how could you not?), the best option is to keep going forward.

Actions to Take

Always be checking your numbers, instead of leaving the bill to hit every day – check, refine, tweak and repeat until you are receiving more in sales than you pay in ads.

For organic traffic, keep pushing against the overload until your engagement starts to move. Respond to those who are acknowledging you, and repeat or refine your message every day.

Always remember you are looking at data, but dealing with humans. You came into this space because you have value to deliver, a solution that people need to find. If you remember that you are looking for those people who could use your help, and not just numbers on a spreadsheet, your message, your responses and your conversions will rise to meet your demand.

Online business will continue to ebb and flow, the success skill will always be in understanding how the marketplace is reacting, and finding your edge. And the more you are able to persevere until the clicks start falling your way, the longer you can stay in the game and get where you want to be as an online entrepreneur.