2011 New SEO Strategies To Please Google

Hello again to my faithful followers. Making money online just got more difficult!

I've obviously been slaving away too long with my nose to the grindstone and didn't realize that times were a-changin'. No sooner did I post about my dilemma over what SEO strategy to use than I look up and find that all the rules are changing.

Griz (the acknowledged guru of IM) has decided that building a brand and focusing on becoming an authority is the proper way of gaining trust (and therefore, traffic) from Google and the other SEs. And he's not the only one. It seems all of the 'big guys' are changing their tune from massive link building to building a real company and marketing online just as any brick-and-mortar company would do. Then let the links come as they may and the cream will rise to the top.

Easy for them to say. These 'gurus', whether they like the term or not, sit atop their perch and change the rules. In all honesty, maybe its G that is changing the rules and they are just changing strategies to maintain their perch (and the lifestyles on which they have become accustomed).

If you happen to not be the cream, what then? If you are not an expert or an authority, should you just give up?

This is my new dilemma. It sounds to me like they are telling me to pack it up and call it a day. Because I am not an authority on anything that someone else can't already beat me at. Sure I have my perspective on things, but can I write daily, weekly, or more on a given topic an build a site that has more clout than real experts.

Sigh.

Maybe the SEs are getting smarter and will learn how to discern the difference between artificially created backlinks and naturally created backlinks, but until I earn an expert status in something, I think the old-fashioned way will still work best for most folks.

Once I am able to earn a living online and quit my day job, I'll consider myself an expert on making money online.

Cheers

MJ

Ideas To Make Money Online

Happy Winter to Everyone!

As I sit here, I'm staying home from work due to yet another snow storm. At lest that gives me time to write about how to make money from home. This is a topic that I am endlessly interested in since I am hoping not just to make extra money, but to completely earn a living from it.

If you've read any of my other posts, you may know that I'm a Griz follower. In my opinion, he's the master of MMO. Very basically, his strategy is to write long rambling posts that would naturally accumulate all manner of long tail keywords by the search engines (SEs), most notably Google. He advocates posts that reach into the thousands of words. Loooong.

The second part of his method is to get the best backlinks using proper anchor text that you can get. If you can't get good backlinks (meaning high Page Rank and from your niche), then focus on getting as many other backlinks as possible. Always with good anchor text.

This is also the method taught at The Keyword Academy. I'm a member and I encourage anyone that wants to make money blogging or any other online venture to join as well. They're good people.

In fact, there is a competing theory over there that indicates you should strictly focus on writing content for your own site. But the trick is to write about extremely long tail keywords with almost no competition. You will thus rank very quickly for these obscure keywords.

I'm thinking of experimenting with this second theory as I'm not a prolific writer and writing such long posts does not appeal to me AT ALL.

Cheers!

MJ

Online Earnings - January 2011

Greetings to new readers who have managed to find my tiny site. As I learn new ways to earn online money, I'll pass them on to you. In the meantime, I'm posting my earnings so you can track my progress and see how I'm doing.

I encourage you to compare yourself to my progress. Some of you will blow me out of the water, others will be able to relate to my struggles.

Here's the recent history...

09/10: $7.48
10/10: $18.99
11/10: $26.58
12/10: $54.33

And January came in at a disappointing $50.50. Going the wrong direction, but February looks promising so far...

As of Janurary 31, I had around 78,000 incoming links from various sources. I continue to struggle over the best strategy to make money online. More on that later.

As I have time, I'll update some more about current SEO strategies and best practices for making money online.

Cheers!

MJ

Online Earnings - December 2010

Hello all!

I haven't written in a while due to holidays and the flu (with a twist of bronchitis thrown in!). But earnings are still up.

Here's the recent history...

09/10: $7.48
10/10: $18.99
11/10: $26.58

And December came in at $54.33!

Things are certainly going in the right direction. I'm hoping to be at $100 per month by April. I continue to trade links with people in addition to the webpage promotion I hired out. I've got around 60,000 incoming lings according to Google.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll keep you posted on my strategies and earnings.

Cheers!

MJ

The Keyword Academy Makes You Money

As my journey to earn a passive income online continues, I can't help but acknowledge where much of that help came from. Though I learned much from Griz (just google Griz and Money if you don't know about this guy...he's awesome but has basically retired by using his own methods), recently I've been learning from Mark and Court over at The Keyword Academy (TKA).

These guys have started up the best site - by far - of any of the other "make money online" sites. The thing is, they have a sound plan for how to achieve the goal of making money from home. Its not just some hazy guide that never pans out. They map it out for you. They lay it out as plain as day how to earn money online. In fact, that's some of what I post here. When I run across a good tidbit of information on TKA, I'll pass it along here.

There are more benefits than I can think of for why you should join TKA. Let's start with the structure. It isn't easy. There may be ways to make easy online money (for short term money), but this isn't one of them. They require you to work...or, at least outsource your work. But that's all part of building an online business that will run with or without you someday. Just imagine, checking your AdSense income from a resort in Jamaica. Sound nice?

Ok, so they give you a detailed plan for how to earn money from home. Part of this plan involves article marketing - writing articles and submitting them to sites all over the Internet. Well, they've started up their own network of sites to facilitate that as well. You can submit your site for folks to write FREE content (yes, I said free content!) for you or you can write content for other sites with links to your own site. A beautiful exchange of content for links; links for content.

Want more? Ok, how about the best keyword software I've ever used! They call it Niche Refinery. They'll show you how to use Google's free Keyword Tool to pull hundreds and hundreds of keywords from the Internet. Then upload your file and they'll process it and show you the keywords that will make the most money with the least amount of effort.

On a side note, TKA will explain to you their formula for finding keywords very freely...it will just take you hundreds of hours to do all the research yourself, and their Niche Refinery software does it all for you. Seems silly to waste your time doing this research when you could be writing content for your site.

Still not satisfied? You're a tough sale, huh?! Ok. How 'bout their brand new offering called Streamline. This is a program for you to track everything you post on your site; every keyword you target; every backlink to your site; and its only just started. They're still adding to it. There is a pretty good formula that says if you get X amount of  backlinks to your site, you'll get to the top of the search engines (SEs). Streamline will get you there if you utilize it.

My goodness. If you are still reading and still not convinced... you may need serious psychological help. My fingers are worn out, but I'll give you one more reason to join TKA. They have got the most awesome community of Internet marketers I've run across. While there are plenty of rookies (like me) asking questions, their are also a lot of people of all experience levels trying out new theories, testing different backlinking websites, reviewing content creation websites, discussing content distribution websites, sharing insights on new programs, etc. 

These aren't the superior assholes you find on some of the other sites who like to talk down the us rookies. These guys are actually as helpful as Mark and Court, the two guys that started TKA. Some of the forum members are even more helpful, giving advice before even being asked. Everyone is sharing strategies and results. Its awesome!

If all this isn't enough... I don't know what is. To be totally honest, if you join through my link, I'll get a small commission. But you can join for free for one month to see how good it is. After that, if you like, you can stay. If you don't like it, go away and I'll earn nothing. What can it hurt to try?

Go to The Keyword Academy right now to begin the process that could lead to your early retirement.

 I'll be a member either way. I just can't help but pass on to you what a wonderful site it is.

Cheers

MJ

SEO Techniques

Here for your perusal, Dear Reader, are some SEO techniques for performing well in the search engines. There any number of ways to improve your performance.

SEO, or if you prefer the tongue-tying Search Engine Optimization, is all about getting search engines (SEs) to find you. If folks type in a keyword or phrase and don't find you, you may as well not have a website at all. Really.

Ideally you should employ SEO techniques before you even set up your site. If you already have a site, you probably should go back and fix some things. Make it a priority.

Some methods cost money. Some methods cost time. Only you can decide what is your priority. My belief is that you can always earn cash, you can't earn or make more time. So I'm willing to spend a little to help further my goal to make money online.

There are a lot of keyword experts out there, but you don't need an SEO expert for everything. There are some things you should do on your own. But remember, its not like flipping a switch. Performing a few of these SEO techniques won't make your site jump to the top of the list overnight. Everything about the search engines (SEs) takes time.

For one thing, brand new sites haven't been indexed yet, so the SEs don't even know you're there. But even after that its not so quick. For one thing the SEs prefer older sites over new sites. Age is an indicator of a known, responsible site. Think of it like kids. As they grow older they become more trustworthy. The SEs are all about trustworthiness.

• Niche Keywords - Or long tail keywords if you prefer. But ranking for the keyword 'cars' is next to impossible. But 'used cars', or 'used cars in Atlanta', or 'really awesome cars that are also cheap' would be easier. But you're keywords also need to have value so don't pick something that no one ever searches for. I'll write more about keyword selection later.
• Localize Your Keywords - If you are selling a product or service that sells to the general public on the local level, your keywords should reflect that. Savvy SE users search that way. If I'm not familiar with flowers, I might type "flower shops in Detroit" to get a list that I can actually use rather than just "flower shops" which would return results that are less useful to me.
• Don't ignore metadata - Metadata is the part of the html of your site that tells the SEs what your site is about. The keywords you're targeting, your description of each page, and the title of your page.
• Put Your Main Keyword(s) In Your Domain Name - Even if it is a long, clunky name, its better than a domain name that doesn't tell the SEs or your potential customers/readers what your site is about.
• Sign Up For Google Analytics - Its free and its the best. Learn where your web page visitors are coming from and how long they stay. There is, quite literally, more information here than anyone needs, but you do need some of it.
• Placement Of Keywords - Use your targeted keyword for each page in the first and last sentence of the page. The SEs give special importance to the beginning and end of a page.
• Be Aware Of Keyword Density - Too few and the SEs don't know what your page is about. Too many and its barely readable. Don't keyword stuff. Just write naturally and sprinkle keywords throughout.
• Register With The SEs - This one is controversial. The major SEs have a very simple way to let them know that you've got a new site. After all, they can't be expected to find all of the millions of pages that are created every day. But many SEO experts insist that registering with the SEs somehow increase the length of time it will take to be found... Go figure.

That'll do for now. I'll have another list of SEO techniques that you're sure to love soon...

Cheers

MJ

What I’ve Learned About How To Make Money Online

As you know, Dear Reader, my journey to make money online has had only limited success. I’m a year into the process, and have yet to make it big. To be honest though, for much of that time I was working on the wrong things. I didn’t know much about link building or article marketing and I’ve since learned that those are the main things that will make a site profitable.

The mantra "Content is King" was thrown around so much that I spent all my time writing articles that I thought were very useful. But if you don't land on page one of the search engines (SEs), then you may as well not be there. So, while "Content is King" may be true, you must still divide your time between creating new content and building back links.

What are back links?

Back links are when someone links back to your site. To the SEs, they are votes for your site. These votes say that you must have some good stuff, and that people are encouraging their readers to check out your site for more information about a given topic.

I've covered article marketing and blog commenting briefly in a previous post so I won't belabor the point. But how much time should you spend on these tasks? It seems around 80% - 90% of your time should be spent working on getting links. Writing articles and submitting to article directories, or surfing blogs on which to make intelligent, useful comments. Only 10% - 20% of your time is to be spent actually creating content for your own money making website.

Article Marketing Tips

So if you are submitting articles to directories, be sure to use your keyword as the link back to the page that you are targeting. See, the SEs like deep links. Deep links are links to pages of your site that are not your home page. If you only ever link to the homepage, the SEs will think that's a great home page and may rank it very highly, but the rest of your pages will never get ranked. And each page of your site should target a different keyword.

There is usually a place at the end of each article that talks about the author. This is called the bio box. This is where you will be allowed to put your links. So don't put " 'click here' to see my site." Then you'll be ranking for 'click here'. You'll want to write something like, "For more information about 'your keyword', please visit my site 'your site name'. I've made the text blue for where your links will actually be. 

Link Farms

These are sites that charge you a fee to purchase thousands and thousands of back links. I've only heard bad things about link farms. When a web page suddenly gets thousands of links all at once, it is very obvious to the SEs that it is artificial. I've heard the SEs will ban you if you use them. Don't use them.

Link Exchanges

A link exchange is when you and another website owner exchange links. While this is good, its not the most useful of links. The SEs like one-way links much better. One-way links are an indication that one site is voting for another site. Link exchanges look like what it is - two sites trying to promote each other.

Other Links

The best kind of links are also the kind that are woven into the content of an article. These are the most natural-looking to the SEs, and they also carry the most weight. That's why you see various links scattered throughout my posts. These links are pointing to other posts on this blog. It is a way to build links within my own site! Doing too much of this probably isn't a good thing, but sprinkling a few throughout an article is.

I'll continue to share the things I learn about how to make money online as I gain experience...

That's all for now.

Cheers

MJ