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Feb 19 2009
SEO 101 - Backlinks
Before you can make money online with Adsense you have to get traffic. Search traffic to be precise.
You get that traffic from ranking high in the search engines. Google to be precise.
You get high ranking in the search engines by obtaining backlinks. Keyword anchored backlinks to be precise.
Here is my current ranking for the term “make money with Adsense” - 6 days from start up.
Click all images to enlarge
You will notice that a 6 day old site is ranking 2 spots behind my 2 year old site. That two year old site has some clout - one of it’s post pages is ranked number 6 for the term on page 1.
There are 6 million competing pages. It is a fairly competitive term but not excessively. So how does a 6 day old blog get ranked that high that fast?
Backlinks.
Anchored Backlinks.
Like these;
I have a few dozen anchored backlinks already and because they contain the right keywords in the text I am getting votes for that term. The more anchored backlinks you get the more votes you get for the term used in the link.
This is SEO 101 and quite frankly all you really need to understand about Search Engine Optimization.
90% of your serp ranking comes from backlinks.
The other 10% comes from your on-page optimization.
Look at this site and see what I have done.
I used my keyword “make money with adsense” in my URL.
I avoided using any filler terms. (One of the reasons I like using free hosts - I can usually get the keyword in the URL)
I used my keyword in my Blog Title.
I used my keyword in the post title of my first post.
I used my keyword in the blog description blurb.
The last thing I did was to give the Google Bot a little feast of phrases to dine on.
I wrote a couple of long articles liberally filled with “Adsense” and “Make Money” related content - without - and this is important - making it look like I was stuffing keywords. I wasn’t - I just write long posts. You can’t but help to use a lot of related terms and phrases if you blab on and on about something. It helps if you know a little about the subject - I can’t muster more than a few hundred words on the “Oil Filter” blog. 
This is all the on page SEO you need. It is all designed to get you ranked in the serp’s for top spot. The last tip - the long post - can bring you immediate search engine traffic and it can provide you with more phrases or keywords to target in future posts.
Here are some keywords used to find this blog - from the search engines.
Because of the long posts I have received traffic (Targeted traffic too) for terms I wasn’t targeting.
“how to stop smart pricing by adsense”
or
“what traffic do I need to see money from adsense”
This is long tail traffic and because it is targeted you will make decent CPC off of it using Adsense.
I usually send a few links back anchored for these kinds of new long tails that pop up and add a few others in as well. A few links would make you number 1 for most of the long tails you come across and they may not get many searches but you should dominate the term anyway. The more long tails you rank on top for the more authority your site will get from Google. And the more trickle traffic you will get while waiting to crack page 1 for the main keywords.
For those that ask how I build traffic for a new niche - this is how.
Those long tails show me the way. I would now target “Adsense Smart Pricing“, “Google Smart Pricing“, “how to avoid smart pricing“, “how to fix smart pricing” and dozens more that I can think of related to the Adsense smart pricing post and send all the links using those terms to the same post page. (Like I just did) Why - because those long tails that showed up kinda tell me there may be some traffic for the “Smart Pricing” keyword. Remember I started out chasing “Adsense” and “Making Money” and now I have just found a nice little related keyword that can be dominated as well. More traffic.
Ok. I hear you all thinking. “Um Griz - we can’t just get anchored backlinks - that’s what we want to know.”
And you are right. What I am explaining to you is how I do this and demonstrating that it works so you know you are not wasting your time. Yes - you can’t just create anchored backlinks but you can understand that they are the main factor in serp ranking and ultimately the main factor in driving targeted traffic.
Obviously a lot of my well learned friends have jumped on board and provided me with my current links - nicely varied too guys! I would link back to show my appreciation but two way links aren’t as good and they know I’ll take care of them elsewhere.
You don’t have this advantage but that doesn’t mean you can’t start a hubpage, a lenses, write some articles for ezinearticles, GoArticles, start a Today.com blog, a blogger blog, a wp hosted and self hosted blog etc. Yes - starting out sucks but you have to build your own resources and the sooner you get started the better. A link from all those sites for my long tail would get it to top spot. And get me ranking well for “smart pricing”. It takes work but the result is you have started a new blog and got it ranking for a few terms that have a little traffic. Little by little you keep repeating the process for more and more terms and voila - one day you have a thousand people daily showing up from the serp’s, all targeted and you don’t ever have to post again unless you want to target more keywords.
I will be talking about backlinks a lot in future posts - you are all going to want to know where to get them. We will deal with specific sources as we progress. For now I just listed several and if you need some ideas for platforms you can use Link Resources . If you are new to our little community you should visit our Niche Support page and make a few friends. (You can aquire backlinks - free)
Lastly you can make use of the social networks - explain the concept of anchored links to your friends and help each other out. Send proper links and others “in the know” will send them back. Again - if you are new to my sites you may notice I am part of a growing community of people “in the know” and we do help each other out. You are always welcome to join us.
One last thing - don’t just read what I say. Watch what I do on this site. I can’t stop and explain everything but notice the Keywords, the links, the tags etc.
Oh - read the comments - there is usually every question asked and answered in relation to the topic so don’t short change yourself. If you are unclear - ask.
Cheers,
Griz
Update: After posting I checked the keyword stats again and found two more long tails that brought in traffic. “how do i block dex adsense” and “adsense for beginners“
I was asked in the comments on the last post if keyword heavy comments or just comments in general help with traffic? The “Dex” reference in the long tail above comes from the comments on the last post. Yes - lots of content in your comments can bring you traffic. More for the Bot to feed on.
and something just for Lissie…
Related Article How to Rank your Hubpages in the Search Engines
Hi Griz,
I came to leave a comment on the last post, but I’ll kick off the commenting on this one instead.
With respect to niches you are testing or researching, do you write all the content from scratch yourself? I know there are tools like Frank’s BCW, but I understand it is best used for sites really bottom tier sites.
If you have a hunch that a niche could be a winner, I wouldn’t think you would want to risk putting anything on it but A1 well written content. I understand it can be boring (the content that is). On the other hand you wouldn’t want to invest a bunch of time on long rambling posts on a dud would you?
You have never mentioned paying for articles (I don’t think). Do you spin article site content? Given what we know about your “empire” that’s one heckuva lot of original long rambling posts.
I don’t won’t to blow your SEO 101 efforts, by getting to far off the topic of the importance of getting quality, relevant backlinks (see what I did there). If you are getting a lot of search traffic from Google because your site has keyword anchored links to it, from sites you have re-purposed, do you stress over making sure that the content on those other sites is top notch too in case of snooping eyes?
Thanks,
Greg
Greg,
I don’t want to get into the whole “farm building” thing at this point. Suffice to say that I write original content for any niche I have a hunch about. The low tier sites you mention are never even considered for Adsense and are built for other purposes. If I didn’t have other sources I would use the farm to build up a secondary site like this one (and other legit sites on free hosts) and then use those legit free host sites to help out the money site. This is an area I want to avoid at the moment. Let’s just stick to white hat and learn things the legit way for now.
Yes I do use various spun articles for some sites but never for Adsense sites. Always use original content for Adsense.
Hi Grizz,
Just found your adsense teaching sites 3 days ago, my website was getting smartpriced to hell, or so I thought, it just seems to be a niche that gets a lot of low priced clicks, but given the fact that it makes $5 a day, I will continue to build more of the music based wordpress sites, and put up with the 3-4 cent clicks.
I have other car based sites that get the occasional $1-2 click and now that I know the correct way to climb the charts to the top of the google search pages, I will put in the work and wait for the results.
Right now I make $10 a day with adsense and won’t stop until I get to the $100 mark.
Thank You for showing us the way in this maze of confusion. Once I wrapped my head around what you are showing me, It was like a lightbulb went off and give me a burst of energy to right down a game plan for myself.
Now comes the hard part, doing the work, this is where I get lazy and somehow hope that the work that I have done already will be enough and I can retire tommorrow. Now that I have an already proven “LONGTERM” solution, It will get me thru the bad days when I wonder if it is worth it.
Thanks again,
By the way, I see you like to golf in Orlando, so do I, The New England winters can be cold and it is nice to be able to find fairways waiting for a hacker like me.
Punkaboy,
The funny thing about adsense is that it is addictive - once you start making $10 a day the light bulb usually goes on - hey - this works. Now I just have to keep duplicating this… Yup it takes work but why shouldn’t it?
Love golfing in Florida - hell anywhere this time of year. 32 below zero C this morning - thanks for mentioning Golf… grrr
Korr,
You mean this phrase…
“how to make money online with google adsense farms results”
Hi Griz,
I started my first blog a few weeks ago, so I’m still working SEO optimization and backlinks to climb out the Google search results cellar, but when you first started out, how long did it take you to attract enough visitors to ad Adsense?
For someone who claims to be lazy you sure do a lot of work. Adsense is addicting when you get one site making $5 to $10 a day or more in your case. Problem is, they are kinda hard to get.
Jeff,
It all depended on the niche and long tails I targeted. I’ve had traffic on day one quite often but usually in small doses. I received my first check from G my first month if that is what you are asking. It was pretty easy making money with adsense back then.
Oh very well done Grizz for making the featured post! Thats going to make all the difference I am sure! Actually I joke only partly - I release 4 hubs on the same day, same topic - that old make money online crap- and initially they all had about the same traffic - the last one though has been hanging on the 2nd page of “hot hubs” for a day or 2 - and now has 4x the traffic of the other three! All internal hubpage traffic - but it grows my “list” and I also notice that one of the reasons that my hubs do well on obscure search terms is that that the have 100’s of anchored backlinks from the tag and hot list pages on hubpages - not bad for free!
Bruce,
This ain’t work - this is sittin’ on my arse pecking at a keyboard. Salvaging my John Deere Back Hoe from the bottom of the lake after it fell through the ice was work…
I’m showing you exactly how to get a $10 a day keyword/niche - “make money with Adsense”
Every niche can be had doing what I do - some just take longer.
Lis,
Good point - I shouldn’t joke about it too much - links are links.
As for my search rankings - they will probably do the new blog dance for a while but the links I have already should keep it fairly well positioned when the dust clears.
As for your “trip”idea - sounds good and you can create a legit authority site in the process.
Jack,
Lol.
We haven’t discussed Data Centers yet but rankings will vary depending on what data center you use.
Btw - some mighty fine Golf Courses down your way - I named my daughter after Torrey Pines!
Long-winded posts are the bomb. I was skeptical at first, but I just wrote a 2,000 word magnum opus for one of my sites and jammed it full of all kinds of good keywords. I thought for sure it was stuffed and was going to go back through and take a bunch of them out, but I did a density analysis with SEOquake and none of my phrases came out over 3%–way below the 7% I’ve heard that it takes to offend the googlebot. You just can’t seem to overstuff a post that long.
It was painful to write, but even more painful to read. Blather blather blather. Perfect AdSense copy, in other words.
I have to stop this addiction to your sites man…but im loving it. When I get done with a one hour link building session, I come over to read comments….
What did you use to find and see all the anchored links you used in the image? Looks really nifty.
I also rejoined BS when you said the were working again. Looks like most of the posts there are perfect in creating in content anchors since we are creating them, but they are on sites with mixed content, and when you make the post, the page is a pr n/a.
Is this linking solution still one you favor with relation to the monthly cost for value in site boosting and getting links?
Matt
Hi Griz. I’ve been silently reading and soaking up all of this good information….on all three of your blogs. Great stuff.
I have a couple of questions. If we set up a squidoo lens, hubpage or blogspot blog for the purpose of creating links to our adsense sites does each of these only get counted once in terms of backlinks? In other words, if I create one of those and link to my main site several times with different anchor text, am I going to get the benefit of all of those links, or only one of them?
Also, is there any benefit to adding our sites to the general free directories that are out there. A lot of people think that they aren’t worth much any more, but you can certainly control your anchor text using them, so I figure its worth something.
Hi Griz, very nice article. I’ve always been confused about the proper use of long-tail keywords.
Hey Griz,
One thing I noticed with my back link sources such as articles is that they are getting ranked for my terms and the actual post isn’t. Well it is but its 500 miles back on Googly. Which brings me to my question which is should we change up the source of backilinks (article title, body, keywords phrases) so that its less likely to take the rank from our actual site posts?
Hefner
Grizz,
I think I have adsense fairly well figured out thanks to you and Court, and I average what i should for the niche I’m in, however there’s still one question I have.
Your longtail “what traffic do I need to see money from adsense” doesn’t have any ads for it. Yet you said it should be good for cpc. So I take it as long as the phrase is fairly on topic for your main keywords it wont hurt your cpc and you should still go ahead and get backlinks for it? I do understand what you are saying about helping the overall authority of the site by getting several long tails to #1.
Reason I ask is I see long tails occasionally like this on my stats and I was under the impression that people searching from these longtails would lower your cpc due to not having any ads for them.
Thanks.
Costa,
The more you help others the more they help you - I guess that could be called Karma!
Jeff,
I’d say send me the URL, but if you do it may be a while till I get to it - the list is huge. Hopefully everything will be laid out as we continue but if you are really stuck I’ll add you to the cue - or use the comments for questions if possible.
Lorecee,
I don’t worry about keyword density - as you noted - you can’t overdo a real post that goes on and on…
Matt,
The stats are provided by Statcounter.com (It’s free to use and you can use it on hundreds of sites)
Backlink solutions does get you anchored links - not much for PR but as I’ve said - PR0 or N/A links with an anchor will still get you ranked. The key for ranking is getting those anchors - PR is just a bonus.
Diane,
I have used the link networks in order to show others a viable alternative until they can build up their own networks. It is costly and shouldn’t be considered unless you have a niche that can re-coup the expenses. Eventually I would hope that everyone can develop enough resources to approach sites with authority and work out deals privately. (These are the best links in terms of clout and safety)
I would recommend RT’s connectcontent.com if anyone is considering paying for links. At $12 a month it is minimal and actually better than the $150 per month networks. Better because all the users are “tuned in” and RT knows how to run it.
Hi Monika,
Sooooo nice to hear from you. I did get your email - started replying about a dozen times and then of course got distracted and never finished. I have not got a clue where I put the darn thing but you have reminded me to go find it - and somehow I will!
As for Today.com - so far so good. Definitely good for spreading some juice.
I hope all is well and I’ll be in touch.
Simonne,
I’m assuming I’ll jump about a bit - the usual new blog Google shuffle - but maybe not. If the domain is strong and my backlinks have some juice I may not move much. In fact I’m waiting to find out - partly why I used this domain - just to see how effective it would be for ranking sites fast as well as avoiding the “shuffle”.
“Is there a way to avoid the shuffle?”
We shall find out.
Mark,
Every link will count - just don’t overdo it or the linking sites may be seen as link farm sites. I don’t want to jump ahead but always use common sense when linking. If you set up any site for the purpose of linking to your money site don’t just use it to link to one or two sites. It should have links pointing to various sites (yours and others) just like a real site does. Always keep things natural.
Free directory links will never hurt although they won’t have a lot of clout. Do not bother if they require a link back though. 1 way links only with them.
Andy,
I target all the long tails simply to get them to the top serp spot - #1
(whether they have traffic or not) The idea is to build authority for every related Keyword you can. This will give all your post pages authority for both the long tails and your main keywords. Authority that is then passed on to the home page via the links from your post pages.
Picking up related phrases is a second issue and that is done by writing the long posts.
Hey Al,
Thanks and you are right - most of what I do can be best understood by watching what I do and then analyzing the results.
Seandonland,
Hope this helps - long tails are a beginners best friend.
Adam,
I get a ton of questions regarding this issue.
The articles are outranking you because the article directory has more authority than your site. This is not a problem if you just want links. If you want traffic as well then you have to use original content or heavily re-written content for your articles - this way the directories won’t be competing with you for a duplicate - they will win with duplicates until your site has more juice than them.
Yes - you can use duplicate articles for directories (to get links) but for the best results (links and traffic) use originals.
As for the links - they aren’t the problem - all your links need to do is point back to the original. By using more original articles instead of duplicates you can increase the variety of backlinks. Each original article can use a different anchored keyword and target a different URL. Duplicate articles will all send the exact same links to the same page.
Original content is more work but it is more effective in the overall scheme of things. Duplicate is quicker in the short term but it will take longer to achieve your goals in the long run.
Medic,
Whether the long tail has ads or not is irrelevant as long as the long tail is related to the ads that will be shown on your pages.
If someone searching for “what traffic do I need to see money from adsense” finds my site with that term he/she will find “make money with Adsense” ads triggered by my sites overall authority for the term and the targeted post titles I would be using.
If the visitor clicks on the ads - they would be targeted - they do want to know how much traffic they need to “make money with adsense”
If the long tail had been “how to get traffic” then I wouldn’t pursue that at all - totally irrelevant to my ads and I don’t want visitors showing up looking for irrelevant terms.
Hi Griz -
I have recently started using Statcounter - but what about Google Webmaster Tools? Any benefit/downside to using it as well? I know you’ve mentioned in previous posts that you don’t use Google Analytics? The less evil Google knows about our sites, the better?
Tobiesmom,
I use webmaster tools - for my top sites only. (meaning the money sites) I want to know how G sees them. I don’t add all the other sites as I’m not anxious to give them a roadmap.
I am using analytics now - I gave in to their “insistence” on using it with my adsense account. Basically I have to know if there is any benefit to using it. I am only using it on the MMOFB blog - again if I add other sites to it I won’t be adding many - no roadmaps.
Hi Rhonda,
Glad to see you pop in. You’ll be sick of backlinks by the time I’m done.
Thanks and I hope all is well.
Griz,
TGIG!
Now I am a little confused. What’s new!
I will be going back and rereading your posts this weekend to make sure I am following correctly. I thought you stated that when going for the keyword (which I assumed was Adsense) that your posts titles would all contain a variation of those long tail keywords for your main keyword.
Here your longtail is making money with adsense. Your prior posts all carried atleast the term Adsense in the title.
Now today you have SEO and Backlinks in the title and those two terms pointing to your main URL (SEO 101 - Backlinks). This seems to be opposite from what you were stating in your previous posts.
Also you have three different longtails pointing to your main URL in this one post. Doesn’t this confuse Google for sending the right ads?
Also you have two more totally unrelated anchors pointing to Make Money Online Grizzly. Do these Backlinks to the other pages on your make money online blog effect your juice on this post? Niche support and Link resources have nothing to do with your keywords.
Grizz these is definitely some good stuff here. You are connecting a lot of dots.
Sorry if I get confused so easily! The 60s were a tough era to live through!
Hi Griz,
Here’s one of my questions, and you may get to it later on and you sort of covered it in you MMOB blog.
I said in my previous post I may have been too ambitious. My niche has about 3 million competitors but it has an R/S ratio of around 9.5-10. Most of the related long-tail keywords have less than 50,000 competitors and an average R/S ratio of 12 or so. Easy stuff for you, but is 3 million competitors, even with an R/S ratio of 10, too much for a beginner like me? I’ve already put in a lot of work, so now I’m committed to it . . . provided I’m not tilting at windmills.
MyMode,
Both the home page and the post page have authority for the term. This is done by having keyword anchored links pointing to both pages using “make money with Adsense” in the text of the links.
This is why I tell you to “deep link” your backlinks - meaning don’t just get links for the home page - get them for your individual post pages.
There are 10 spots on the front page of the serp’s. You can dominate all 10 spots with 5 different sites each listing a home page and a post page.
This new blog will help push both pages on the MMOFB site to the top of page 1 while taking a spot on the page as well - that’s 3 spots - 7 to go…
If you want to make money then dominate a niche - don’t just settle for ranking a single listing on the serp’s.
roflol
“how to make money online with google adsense farms results”
is a longer tail with zero searches, but i suppose it’s a number 1!!!!
who’s the winner? me thas who!
–korr
Denise,
It is good that you are picking up on the links and post titles. What you haven’t picked up yet is that this isn’t just about “Adsense”. It’s also about “Making Money Online” - hence “Make Money with Adsense”
Make Money, Adsense, SEO, Backlinks, Niches etc are all related to the Internet Marketing/MMO niche.
I don’t keyword Snipe as Court does - I build sites to target lots of keywords while still focusing it towards the main keywords. I also build sites with a mind to what I need elsewhere. I want to take on the SEO niche and I am preparing SEO related posts on several sites that can later be used to bolster my SEO campaign.
Btw - in post links (those 3 different long tails) have no effect on the ads that Google supplies. Post titles and content do that - not links. Links will help the post or home page rank for the terms in the anchors.
Btw - btw… “Niche support and Link resources have nothing to do with your keywords.” Yes they do - they are related to the IM/MMO niche - just like Adsense is - just like “make money” is. And the links point to a related site as well.
Jeff,
3 million competitors really is a small niche. Do an exact match of your keyword and you will likely find the real competition is in the thousands. Of those I bet less than 30 are actively building backlinks for their keywords. If you have a program then check the anchored links for the top 10 sites in the niche. If they all have a lot of keyword anchored links then they may know what they are doing - I’m betting most have anchors with their urls or names. Most 3 million result niches are pretty easy to dominate. This keyword has 6 million results but only the top 20 sites are real competition.
I suspect you can climb that niche with less than 30 anchored links - just guessing but I won’t be far off.
Korr,
You da’ Man!
Congrats… lol
Griz,
The 3 million competitors is after an exact match of my main keyword. Without the exact match it’s 10 million. You’re right about the backlinks, I think, in that they are mostly just hyperlinks with the company name or url. By way of analogy, I’m essentially trying to outrank Dell for “desktop computers” as well as every online store that sells Dell computers.
Your reply is encouraging in that my mountain isn’t invincible. Thank you. I’ve already got backlinks going from hubpages, goarticles, ezinearticles, plus some related forums.
By the by, what do you think of Blog Carnival? I’m giving it a try.
Jeff,
Blog Carnivals are for attracting readers - not good for an adsense site but fine if you are promoting a flagship.
Good luck with “Dell”
Griz,
I use stat counter based on your recommendation from MMOFB but there was an image I had never seen.
Was that technorati? If so, what do you use that for?
Grizz,
Excellent site and great post. Can you comment on why I get a big swing in CTR on one of my sites on certain days? The site is being found by the same keywords (and related keywords) and roughly about 200+ impressions daily, but the CTR can vary from a range of 5%-15% some days. The traffic is pretty much all from search engines (90%+). Is this pretty normal and you just take the average over time? Or is it that some people who search by that same keywords will never click on the ads (and some days there more of them then the folks that do click)? Or since I have not built up the high daily traffic (i.e. 1000+ impressions) that this is normal? Any input on this matter?
Hey Griz,
First I want to thank you for the great information you have given us with your sites. I am reading a lot on your sites, but can’t remember I have commented on them. Shame on me
I have a couple of questions, but I won’t ask them all right away, but here are two of them.
A question I have is, how do you go with “product-related” keywords? For example, cheap cars, shoes etc. Do you still use adsense on your sites if you target product-related kw’s or do you use just affiliate banners/in-text affiliate links? Or don’t you target these product-kw’s at all?
And if you go for these product kw’s on your adsense sites, do you work your sites exactly the same way as your other adsense sites?
Another question I have is.
Assume we have an keyword optimized site for adsense, fo example your mmfb blog. Because it’s optimized for the “make money online” keyword, you get targeted ads from advertisers who wants their ads to be showed on “make money online” blogs.
Google can see what searches people used who got on your site and clicked an ad.
But what happens if an advertiser hasn’t a well optimized landingpage and his conversion rates are very low and doesn’t get any sales. Will google punish you with lower cpc because the clicks from your site are not converting for the advertiser? Or will google say, it’s the advertiser’s own fault that his ads are not converting, because all the visitor’s who clicked an ad on your mmfb blog arrived from the google search engine with searches like “make money online” and “make money for beginners” etc. so the publisher did everything right to get targeted traffic on his blog so we keeppaying him a high cpc
Pffff….I hope I made myself clear…was a bit hard to explain…lol
I wish I would speak better English, so I could write long posts just like you do, and get more kw’s in them. I guess I was born in the wrong place….lol
Dennis
lol…thanks. I don’t know why I’m acting all secretive. It’s no big mystery.
I have a question.I fact a lot of them.But I will clear my doubts one by one.
There is so much I did not know and I am learning.
So my question is when you are referring to back links is it the kind we get with blog comments and the one from the signature in the resource box in article submission in article directories?
There is another kind of link that puts on the link section on the side bar.I remember you telling in one of your posts that it is the best kind of link.So the anchored text links from blog comments in related niches are useful as back links or not?
Thanks for answering my question with it’s own post, that was super. And I get that to target the longer tail keywords people are finding me with (that are similar to what I optimized for), I send some backlinks anchored with that phrase to it. Like sprinkling some pixie dust…lol.;) Which increases my authority and raises me in google.
So, let’s say I’ve chosen my main keyword and and have a list of longtails keywords which include my main keyword which I got from keyword elite. I’ve got tons of options for keywords now.
Next, I looked at all the searches and organized my list by the R/S ratio you talked about in your blogging lessons. From lowest to highest.
Since I’ve got time to be methodic, I’m considering starting with the lowest R/S number and writing a post optimized for that which includes the longer tails of that keyword and just working my way up the list one post at a time using the long post strategy of a 2000 words with 5 or six graphic images included. If I am using blogspot, my keyword is linked to my home page with the post title link passing that authority onto the home page. This would give me approximately 200 posts when I finish those. Is that a good strategy to get me to the top?
I’m guessing (from the results of one blog I have) that my own internal pages would eventually carry alot of authority on their own just from doing that.
Along the way then, I need to figure out a backlink strategy that incorporates additional sites that I can use to control the anchor text specific to the post. That strategy might be:
1. My own blog/free site network using the platforms you mention on your makemoneygrizzly site.
2. Social bookmarking
3. Article marketing
4. Commenting on do follow blogs
5. Networking with sites similar to mine
6. Links in my own site
Here are my questions:
1. If you have nothing, where is the best place to start?
2. Do I create those blogs/free sites with the same type of effort of the blogspot blog? Do you just rewrite the content?
3. I’ve read about article blitzing, over a 30 day period which seems like a good strategy and combines ezine articles with mass submission. Is that a good idea?
4. Do you use an automated social bookmarking tool…?
I guess I’m wondering how extensive your own personal blog network is so I have some idea of what I’m shooting for outside of the first 10 search results on the first page of google.
Steph
Till now I was doing some research. I know to use maybe two to three of my keywords (which I would put in my tags) and getting pretty good results. I do know that if you use way more than that, you can actually spam a google index robot and it will not index you. I too was wondering about full phrases…Thanks for clearing it up for me!
Hi Griz -
Stephanie mentioned ‘R/S’ ratio in her previous post and how she ranks the keywords from lowest to highest ratio? Steph - I’m assuming you’re using KE? Griz or Steph, maybe you can elaborate on this a bit more? What ‘R/S’ ratio means, exactly?
Diane - one of the neat things about UAW is that you can sign up for their affilate program. When you submit your article, you can choose to include your affilate link in your resource box. If anyone signs up for UAW through you link, you earn 40% on Tier-1 and 10% on Tier-2.
You’re able to pay for your UAW membership this way!
Tobiesmom,
I am using Keyword elite. R/S is something that Grizz touched on in lesson 5 I think it is from make money blogging. It’s the results divided by the searches. A lower R/S may be easier to attack from what I understand. It seems to play out that way because I am ranking on the first page for some of my results on one of my blogs. These had a lower R/S when I started.
Steph
Matt,
Yup - that is technorati. I use it to see how much clout my links have - ie. if they show up on technorati quickly then they have clout. If they take a month to get listed then not much clout. I also use Google Alerts for the same purpose.
Technorati also gives me an idea of how fast my links are growing - after 6 months they drop off the count. If your count is always increasing good - if it starts to decrease - time for more links.
KF,
A site with low traffic (under a thousand visits per day) will swing widely as far as stats go. Your CTR is normal for 200 impressions.
Dennis,
I target brands all the time but you have to be careful that you don’t infringe on copyright/trademarks. Never use a brand in your URL or Blog Title.
Use a general keyword like popularshoes.com and a Blog title like “Popular Shoes” and then target all the brands in your post titles “nike air force ones are hard to find” and use the keywords in your posts. You can editorialize anything - an opinion piece but you can’t directly monetize a brand name.
If the advertiser has a poorly optimized landing page then I will make more money not less. Remember Google penalizes advertisers for not having a quality landing page by charging them a minimum fee per click. An optimized advertiser may only pay $1 a click - an Un-optimized advertiser would likely have to pay $2 - $3 a click and my share would be approx. half.
You are not smart priced because the advertiser has a poor landing page and doesn’t convert. The advertiser doesn’t get the benefit of Google’s smart pricing system if they aren’t optimized themselves.
Your English is fine and you made perfect sense!
Justin,
Thanks for the offer and I will take you up on it when the time comes!
You can never have too many friends!
Thanks again Justin
Diane,
I haven’t tried UAW - I believe Court recommends it and I would love to hear your impressions when you have some results.
Thanks
Neil,
In general any link that is do-follow is useful provided it has a useful (relevant) keyword used in the anchor. The link can be in comments or blogroll or other sidebar area.
The very best links are those contained in a post on a related site - known as a contextual link. The link looks just like any other but it just happens to be in a post article.
Stephanie,
Your questions…
1. If you have nothing, where is the best place to start?
2. Do I create those blogs/free sites with the same type of effort of the blogspot blog? Do you just rewrite the content?
3. I’ve read about article blitzing, over a 30 day period which seems like a good strategy and combines ezine articles with mass submission. Is that a good idea?
4. Do you use an automated social bookmarking tool…?
1) Start with a Blogger or WordPress site to be used as the money site - this will have all original legit content - treat it like your baby!
2) You can create the free host linking sites with a bit more leeway - make them legit but you can spin articles and do re-writes. Original content is always best though.
3) Yes you can blitz - again - the best results come from all original articles but you can cheat and use re-writes. Try and not duplicate the articles on the directories. I said try but most people just use duplicates. This will get you the links - just no traffic. (The links are all you really want at this point but if you put in the work using original content then you can also see some traffic from your efforts.
4) I don’t use a bookmarking tool but most of my readers use Book Marking Demon - if you want some info about it - just leave a comment. The crew will give you an unbiased review(s).
My own resources are quite extensive - been at this awhile now.
Jack,
Torrey Pines IS a Public Course! One of the few US Open quality courses that the public can actually play. I wish I was on the TEE right now!
The more content you have the better - more food for the bots to rank you with. Comments are content too and I get a lot of traffic to my other sites (the MMO ones) from phrases used in the comments.
Do I purposefully do this - no - you either have them or you don’t. People who fake their comments look pretty silly as it is easy to spot.
Jackie,
I try and link blogs that are relevant. There are exceptions like when I want to get a new site indexed quick - I might use an irrelevant authority site to send the bot to the new site just to get it indexed and then I’ll lose the link later.
You are only seeing my MMO blogs and related sites. I’m not showing my other niches or networks. I have enough competition already.
You link from these free platforms by creating a site here that is relevant to your money site. Then send links in your posts - keeping the posts relevant to your money site’s keywords.
Brad,
Your comment is known as keyword stuffing and you don’t need to worry about that if you can write long detailed posts. I do and can add dozens of keywords and phrases without problems. Keyword stuffing is from days gone by - no one who knows what they are doing does that these days. Never ad Adsense to a keyword stuffed site - a splog - you will get banned.
Jackie again - sorry I missed your first comment.
I teach SEO - it works for any type of monetized site. You need search traffic to do well with Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, Lead Generation - basically you need search traffic to make money by any means, in any niche.
I am tweaking this for Adsense but the search engine optimization tips I give apply to any site - not just adsense sites.
Do not combine Adsense with anything else - to maximize revenue you only give Adsense visitors 2 ways off the page - a click or the back button. Every link you add gives the visitor another option that doesn’t include an Adsense click.
The same applies for Affiliate marketing or lead generation. To make money online you have to funnel your traffic to the money click. If your site is unfocused you will end up doing poorly with all the types of monetization instead of having decent earnings with just one type.
Tobiesmom,
R/S means the Results to Searches ratio.
The best ratio would be 1,000,000 searches and only one site in the search results - ME!
Ideally you would love to find keywords that have a lot of searches and few competing sites. Good luck though - this is what we are all looking for and few remain.
Normally any keyword that gets a lot of searches has a lot of results as far as competition. Because of this I don’t really use R/S anymore. I really just look for niches with high search results (I know there will be competition but I figure I can beat em’ and that’s where the money is.)
Thanks Stephanie for the help re: R/S
T Edwards,
In a word…. Yes!
Frank Lol.
I have no doubt you could manufacture comments without a problem. I should have clarified - I meant people like our old buddy Alan Johnson - all 10 on every post were “anonymous”, consisted of 8 words each and used “great post” in all of them. Lol. Social Bloggers are only fooling themselves when they try and fake it.
Good point about turning off comments - not a smart move and makes me shake my head at the lack of understanding out there. The more content the better and if others want to write it for you - so much the better!
(Ooops that wasn’t out loud was it?)
Hey Griz:
Are you familiar with NextGenLinks being touted as a WSO? Sounds interesting, but not any track record yet…
Glad to see your new site, I guess you decided to go this route instead of the ebook…
Thanks
Florida Phil
Florida Phil,
No, not familiar - fill us in if you would like too. Anyone?
The ebook… groan…
Cheers for this! With my blog, I don’t really have a niche topic, or at least it’s a topic that not many people search for. Hmm, I think I just contradicted myself there but you know what I mean
Interesting read anyway!
dang…somehow I think rising in the Today.com hot list just got harder
welcome anyway, though
Lol.
Thanks Flit - and sorry about that!
Griz,
After you discover the new long tails and you anchor links to the site. Do you change the posts on the money site and add the new keyword to the existing posts or add entirely new posts that the anchor links point to?
Ok Griz I have one more question.I can go for high volume searched
keywords and if I follow the steps you have told us for SEO it is possible to rank on the first page ?I was usually shying away from such keywords thinking it is tough competition and was looking for long tail key words which are easier to rank high in SERP.But I think it would be real fun if I can do proper SEO for high volume searched key words and find a place at least on the first page.That would be the day Griz.
Hey Griz,
You said that when you first start a blog you target the long tail keywords and dominate them before you move onto your main keyword.
At what point when you start dominating your long tails do you start building links for your main keyword?
Hi,
Do you start multiple sites constantly, get them indexed start to gether links, and then let them start to show trickle traffic, then come around and add more links, and then keywords?
Is the key to get many diffrent sites going at the same time instead of one at a time?
Since you say you are patient and can wait 2 years for pay day, in general, how long before you start to see traction?
I am assuming this one got traction pretty fast…but was that due to all the links from everyone?
Hey Griz,
Sorry this is sorta irrelevant but I couldn’t find any answers elsewhere and thought you or someone else may know why
My website WAS indexed by Google and has been for the last few days. But suddenly this morning, I find it has been taken off
I’ve only got one main article on there and that was posted 3 days ago.
Could that be why? I don’t see any infrigments on there.
Or is this common for everyone until more content is added?
I’ve written up a whole load of articles but not too sure when I should upload them
Thanks for your help on backlinks + showing us “Statcounter” - really helpful tool in the future
Thanks again,
Crashin
Thai,
The long tails are already in the posts if G has sent me traffic looking for them. I just add links to boost the serp ranking for them. If I want to add new long tails (based on the long tails G found for me) then I may re-edit a post or add them in a new post. You will notice how I added all those “smart pricing” long tails to this post - again based on the traffic G was sending for the long tails it found in the previous posts.
Neil,
Target keywords that you can dominate given your resources. People ask what I do and I tell them but if you don’t have the link resources to go after the top terms then build up the less competitive terms first.
I will be demonstrating my technique for targeting long tails and the main keyword at the same time. You will get quick results for the long tails in the rankings while slowly working your main keyword up the serp’s.
Shon,
I target both long tails and the main keywords at the same time - as I just mentioned to Neil - I will explain this in detail in the next post.
Matt,
Yes these got an instant boost because of my friends links - not a normal situation.
In general I start many sites at a time - usually centered around a new niche. I throw them out and wait for G to show me the way. Some sit and age while the promising ones get more work done to them.
Because I tend to target the known money niches these days I am patient as they won’t be dominated in a short time frame. I am not suggesting everyone do this - target niches that you can dominate in a few months or less. You won’t make the same money as a competitive niche does but you will start earning something sooner and get your network started.
I don’t need to make money quick from a new niche because I already have money coming in - I can wait.
Crashin,
Relax. You are just experiencing the “new blog dance” that Google puts all new sites through. Just keep adding posts and backlinks - the site will settle down in the serp’s - usually within a month or much less depending on the quality of backlinks. (You may have found the sandbox too - in which case - yup - add more posts, more backlinks and don’t monetize the site)
Lissie (Earn Passive Income),
Sometimes you send links to give people some traffic and to hell with PR.
What if we get ranked #1 for our keyword of choice within a few weeks? Is it then okay to put Adsense on the page? Or should I wait 6 months anyway to avoid being sandboxed?
I find it awful funny that you post “How to make money with Adsense” and you are using a Today Blog where you don’t get money from Adsense.—-LOL
Your making so much money but go to a paid blogging service. How ironic is that.
#22 & #24 will bring you VERY VERY few hits from Google son.
Hey Joe (son),
Aside from calling me son and obviously reading little more than this post - ya’ got me!
Gee I didn’t know I couldn’t put adsense on here. Silly me.
Smartphones,
If there is a good amount of traffic coming then add it - if not then wait until you are getting steady traffic - I don’t usually ad it at all unless I’m getting 100-200 uniques a day.
Lissie,
That is a common problem and you have two solutions - edit the hubs to funnel the traffic to the money site or start working on your backlinks for the money site - it will eventually knock the hub to second spot and you will have the best of both worlds. What you really need to do is get a flagship with more authority than your hubs - a tall order but given your work ethic I would start concentrating your energy on your own domain or at least a sub domain that you can monetize properly. It is ironic - you have built a great network of secondary support sites but still need to build the money site. Or sites.
LOL you are so right there Griz!
Griz,
First of all, I want to thank you for putting this info out here for those who of us are willing to put in the effort and create opportunities that this info provides anyone willing to run with it.
Now I’m a shift worker here in Augusta, Georgia. I’m just blown away by this stuff you have put out. I intend to put what you say into action. So please forgive me if I’m kinda slow on putting all this together. All this stuff is new to me and I got so many ideas squirming in my head that I just don’t know where to begin.
As I understand you, I need to find a keyword with decent traffic, say 1000+ visitors per day, where advertisers are paying say $1 or more per click. I must create valuable info or content as you call it for the people looking for my keyword and get enough people to link to my blog so I can get a high rank in the search engine and hopefully get more people to click on the Google ads which will be displayed on my blog so I can earn an income.
If I am correct, then what blogging platform should I use. I ask because you were using blogger and now you’re using today.com. Or does it really matter? And could you explain more about how I get the links to my blog once I’m set up. I am a complete beginner to all this, but what I’ve read excites me and make me want to get things going.
Is what I understand enough to begin the process? And can you summarize this process for those who may be a little slow like me.
Thanks in advance,
James
Griz,
How are you tracking your traffic and keywords for the today.com blog?
Were you able to insert a tracking code somewhere?