Click Icon to Subscribe in a Reader
Feb 22 2009
How to Make Money Online with Adsense for Beginners
Keywords and How to use them for Backlinks and for Post Content
Choosing a Niche
I look for niches that can provide me with enough keywords to target in order to drive as much traffic as possible to my site from the search engines.
How I do it.
I look for niches that allow “How to” to be used.
I look for niches that attract “Beginners”
Why?
Because people who are beginners have lots of questions “How to bake cookies”, “how to fly a plane” or “How to Make Money Online with Adsense for Beginners”
People who ask questions want an answer. If the answer appears in an Ad stuck right in front of their face they will click it - especially if you don’t provide the answer anywhere else and eliminate their options. Either click the ad or leave.
Oil Filters
How many keywords can you think of that people would use in the search query for info about “Oil Filters”?
Actually there are more than you think but very few that others would use in a query.
“How to change an oil filter”
“What type of oil filter do I need for a 1952 Corvette?”
“What Brands of Oil Filters are there?”
and a few others.
If none of those keywords can provide 1000 people a day or so (or a combination of them) then this probably isn’t a good niche.
Are there Ads that answer those questions? If so maybe it is a good niche.
What is the deciding factor?
The Traffic - if the keywords have the traffic then do it. No traffic - don’t waste your time.
How do I know if the traffic exists? I create blogger blogs targeted to my test keywords. Write long posts. Get targeted backlinks and wait. If a decent amount of long tail traffic shows up I pursue it more. If I am ranking well for a number of keywords and traffic doesn’t come - I move on.
How to make money with Adsense
How many keywords can you think of that people would use to find an answer for that phrase?
I can think of hundreds. Thousands even. Is there enough traffic for those keywords though? I don’t know - so…
I created a blog called “Make Money with Adsense ” to find out.
Like all my sites I will start out with what I think of as the “Super Keyword”
This is the keyword that contains all my keywords in the one phrase.
Like this one…
How to Make Money Online with Adsense for Beginners
This is a long tail that should be easy to rank for. It won’t get much traffic if anything at all. Doesn’t matter because the backlinks it will get to rank it number 1 for the phrase will also contain juice for other keywords I want to rank for.
Like these…
How to Make Money
How to make money online
How to make money online with Adsense
How to make money online with Adsense for beginners
Money
Make money
Make money online
Make money with Adsense
Make money with Adsense for beginners
Adsense
Adsense for beginners
How to use Adsense
Making money
Making money online
Making money online with Adsense
Making money online with Adsense for beginners
etc…
Do you see why?
The “super” keyword has all those terms in it or variations.
You get juice for any keywords a backlink has in it. Not just for the phrase as a whole.
Every time I get a backlink using that whole phrase I will also get votes for all those other phrases.
I don’t want a whole bunch of backlinks using that phrase though - only a few. And a few using all the other phrases listed.
A backlink like “making money with Adsense” will give me juice for “money”, “making money”, “Adsense” and “make money”. My post that the backlink is pointed at (or the home page) will gain serp ranking for all those terms from the same backlink.
A niche like this is ideal because it has so many keywords that can be used in your backlinks. This allows your links to have a huge variety (important for looking natural) while still sending juice for multiple terms at the same time.
How to Make Cookies for Beginners
Now you do it… (show me in the comments)
Cheers
Griz
How to make cookies for beginners
cookies
cookies for beginners
make cookies
make cookies for beginners
how to make cookies
how to make cookies for beginners
lol…
how to make cookies online
Should have added:
making cookies
making cookies for beginners
Stephanie…
Good
but what about
chocolate chip
oatmeal
and about 1 million other types of cookies.
Do you think you could get some traffic given the thousands of keywords that niche has?
I’m glad you see how this is done.
Do the same thing with your niche now.
OK, I’ll take a bite (bad pun intended):
[How to Make Cookies for Beginners]
Making Cookies for Beginners
Baking Cookies for Beginners
Making Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies for Beginners
How to Bake Pineapple Sour Cream Cookies
Baking Oatmeal Raisin Cookies for Beginners
How to Bake Cookies from Scratch for Beginners
Beginners Guide to Making Cookies Like Your Grandma Used to
Etc.
Here’s how I do keyword research–Griz, please correct anything I’m doing wrong. I start with what I call my “primary keyword.” That’s the keyword in my chosen niche with the highest search volume. Usually it’s also the search term I used in the Google Adwords Tool to find the related keywords, but sometimes the tool shows me a related term with a higher search volume. Like you, I look to the long term goal of dominating the niche. So instead of oil filters, I might go with automotive filters (so I could run ads for oil filters, air filters, fuel filters–most parts suppliers sell all of these items. If I’m really feeling ambitious, I might go straight for auto parts). If I’m unsure, I’ll feed my primary phrase through a google search and refresh a bunch of times to see what ads come up each time. If they’re all within my niche and there are no oddballs, I’m good to go.
Then I use the Adwords tool to get a huge list of long tails that either contain or are related to my primary keyword. I pick a domain name or blogger URL that contains my primary keyword phrase and tack on the next-highest search volume phrase in my niche: like autopartsautomotivefilters.com The next step is to pick a long tail phrase I want to target and write a post with that phrase in my title. I make my post 2,000 words in length and use the long tail from the post title liberally, along with other related long tails from my list. If I’m writing naturally, I don’t have to worry about my keyword density pointing too high.
When I’m done, I put a link in the post pointing back to my home page, with anchor text containing my primary keyword phrase. This is my first backlink. Then I go get others (currently I’m using Unique Article Wizard, Bookmarking Demon, and my meager little “entourage” network as Frank likes to call it). I vary the anchor text for the backlinks I get but I make sure most of them contain my primary keyword. For instance: Make Cookies at Home; How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies; Cookie Baking for Beginners, etc. About 70% of my backlinks point to my home page; the remaining 30% point to the post page related to my anchor text in the backlink.
When choosing long tails to write posts for, I tend to pass up the ones with advertiser demand less than .9 according to the AdWords tool. If a google search on the phrase gives me fewer than the usual 8 ads on the results page, then I have to figure that the demand for content ads like I’ll be running on my site is even less. But I don’t hesitate to use these low advertiser demand keywords in my posts–they all build authority in my niche, regardless of whether advertisers want to run ads on them. And sometimes, as you say, Google will show you one you hadn’t thought of, or the AdWords tool turns out to be wrong. I just don’t write a post for a long tail unless I’m sure I can get ads for it.
That’s my approach. I started reading you on December 24th, and right now I have six sites built. I’m aiming for 25; I figure some will make it and some won’t. Ultimately I want 30 posts on each site–I don’t need to write a separate post for each long tail. I just need to give the G enough information to know what my site is about and serve up appropriate ads, while I build authority in the overall niche. I won’t be adding AdSense to my first six sites until at least June, and that’s probably a little early. Fortunately my AdSense account is grandfathered in.
This is starting to look like one of your long-winded posts, Griz, so I’ll stop now.
Lorecee…
yes, yes, yes and YES!
You get “it”
now go get it!
(No need for me to say anything - you just wrote the ebook!)
How to make dog cookies
Basic code to make your own cookies
Make cookies work for your website
Hi Griz!
This niche thing…groan! I’ve been tryign to figure out how to build on my niche; I believe it’s self reliance, but there doesn’t appear to be a lot out there. I’m not Emerson oriented (problem!) and there is a difference between self reliance and survivalists. I’ve been digging around this morning on backlinks and how to get them, but it looks like I don’t have a lot of options for quality back links.
Do you have suggestions?
Thanks, Griz. I forgot to mention that I’m also a member of Connect Content and get backlinks there too. Shame on me for not giving RT his due–he’s doing a great job with the site, and at $12 a month the price is right.
Farmer,
I talked about sources for finding backlinks in the last post. Read that first - it will point you in the right direction.
You can definitely start with a free system like this: Free Backlink Service
or a Paid service like RT’s connectcontent.com (minimal - $12 a month)
Note: to Today.com moderator - there is no affiliate link and I have no vested interest in connectcontent.com (I am simply referring a problem to a solution with no monetary reward. Peace)
Lorecee… lol - we crossed comments. RT has got notice now!
Hi Griz,
can I for example start a blogger blog about specific model of mobile phone, main keyword will be the model, and posts will be aimed at long tails of this main model and in each post this main keyword will be anchored back to homepage and I will get links to the homepage with main keywords and also to deep pages using long tail in title.
What do you say?
Mike,
In principle yes - but a note about using Brands, Trademarks, Copyrights.
You can’t use the trademark in your URL or Blog Title - you will get a cease and desist from the companies involved and Blogger will delete your account. (Both assumptions based on getting caught but why risk it?)
The phone niche is especially prone to spam and G and Blogger will have flags on it.
Use a generic url - thebestmobilephones.com and the same for your Blog Title.
You can however use the brands in your post titles and content. The linking is as you described.
Another note from experience - the electronics/gadgets niche is probably best served with affiliate products, ecommerce type sites. They don’t do well with Adsense as a general rule but there are always exceptions.
As luck would have it the fellow who’s site I was going to refer you too just left a comment. Frank runs a multi niche site that you should examine for tips you can use on the mobile phone site. Frank is quite approachable if you need help - and a code monkey to boot! hehe hi Frank
His site is OpTempo
how to make cookies for beginners
how to make cookies
make cookies
make cookies for beginners
to make cookies
to make cookies for beginners
cookies for beginners
cookies
beginners cookies
make beginners cookies
how to make beginners cookies
Frank,
Lol… One of these days I should start a real oil filter blog… wouldn’t that be funny if there was money in it?
I had mentioned your little tip in the comments on the last post - nothing wrong with preparing a site for relevancy for keywords for use on linking elsewhere later. It’s kinda like building a web…
Hi Griz,
Believe it or not, I just this minute actually finished:
Making Chocolate Walnut Cookies
Seriously, though, this is great stuff!
You have such a gift for writing and being able to explain things so clearly and in detail.
My question is - if we generally want to post unique content on our blogs, how does a person go about writing about a topic (oil filters!) he or she knows nothing about? Hours of research is one option. Outsourcing I guess would be another but that would get expensive.
I have tons of PR content that I have collected - what about rewriting that so that it passes copyscape? Is that a good option for coming up with content for our blogs?
Matt,
What? No shortbread?
I hope you are seeing how to build a portfolio of keywords for your niche? You should be able to use a lot of keywords in a few posts and get juice for a lot of keywords with less backlinks. It all comes down to the efficient use of the right keywords.
Hey again Griz,
I was doing some work and a question came across and I wanted to see your opinion/advice.
When creating multiple blogs/hubpages etc… so that you can place a backlink on them pointing back to your site, how do these links have any value since the blogs/hubpages etc… were also just created.
Also, do you need to constantly keep these updated as well? So it doesn’t look like it was created for the sole purpose of getting back links for your site? Well I guess that’s two questions
Thanks.
Hefner
Tobiesmom,
I become an expert on any topic in two steps.
1) I read the top 10 sites ranked in the niche I want to target.
2) I download all the relevant articles I can find at EzineArticles and GoArticles.com
I read - then I regurgitate it all in my own words. I also learn what “type” of site Google deems appropriate to ranking #1. (A content based Adsense site? A Product orientated Affiliate site? A news site? A lead Generation site? etc)
No short cut will work as well.
Adam,
Over time you will have hubs etc that aren’t brand new. When you are starting out everything is harder as you have to build your network first. You can still send backlinks from all the new sites to another new site but use common sense. Don’t advertise that you own all the sites for starters.
Sites don’t have to be updated - they may need a few backlinks now and then to hold their rankings but posting is a “Blogging” thing. There are millions of static web sites online that rank just fine and have PR and Keyword Authority and haven’t updated a thing in years.
Wow, Griz, with all that reading you’ve probably done on oil filters, you must a real expert on the subject.
How often do you think I should change my car’s oil filter?
Oh, I think I’ll Make White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies next!
Tobiesmom… ok that did it - I gotta’ find me some cookies! mmmm I love Macadamia Nut cookies. (Drooling smilie dude)
(no wonder your Dog (Tobie) is so big - you spoil him don’t you? Yes you do…)
(you could be grizzly’smom too if you promise to keep baking!)
OH! I thought we could only use the keyword phrase you listed! I can think of a million other phrases!
Just add a flavor !
how to make “oatmeal,chocolate chip,lemon,cinnamon,sugar,etc” cookies for beginners!
When you said efficient use of backlinking, do you mean you use the long tails more often in your backlinking strategy so you capture all the sub phrases and build authority for them?
I was re reading your post over at one of the other discussion forums where you left a really sticky thread…One thing you talked about was how you spend a good amount of time developing the supporting sites.
Will you spend equal or possibly even more time getting links to the supporting sites that will push up or eventually connect to your money site? Or is the trick that you actually spend most of the time building the authority of the support sites?
So article marketing, etc. to your lenses and hubs…then lenses to money sites?
BTW-are you trying to rank for how to make cookies?
Here’s a good long tail…”how do I make cookies for beginners that allow you to stuff my affiliate link in someone elses site?”
Oh yeah, a few more thoughts…
You mentioned that it’s not the sites pr that matters. It is the site that links to you that matters.
So again, getting more links the the few sites that will eventually link to you is better than getting a ton of junk links to your site right?
Also- When developing the network, outside of waiting every 3 months or so to see if you got PR, when do you know your supporting site has been given authority?
Hey Griz,
I have read most of your page. I just can’t seem to get started I don’t even know if I’m doing it right. First, I’m on blog my website is all messed up and I don’t even know how to get the HTML. Call me stupid, I just learned through a friend about the Adsense stuff. And I don’t even think he knows what he is doing. ?’s
How do I get a web page?
How do I get the links?
How do I paste it into a HTML?
What is HTML?
DO I have it on my computer?
HELP ME PLEASE!!!!! GRIZ……….
Hey Griz,
I will sign up again select ‘GrizzlyTobieMom’ as my username, LOL!
Next time I bake a batch of White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies I will be sure to tell you how good they are!
I better quit using that term - soon you’ll be getting searchers landing on this blog looking for Macadamia cookie recipes!
p.s. Tobie doesn’t eat people cookies
Only doggie cookies!
Griz, I was reading your resonse to Mike’s comment about Brands, Trademarks, Copyrights. I had sent you an email listing some of the blogs I created and now I’m a little concerned since some of my blogs contain brands in the title. I’ll still wait for your feedback in terms of how my blogs look but this raises another question. If you find out that you’ve done something incorrect with one or more of your blogs is it best to just create another blog the “right way” or fix the existing one?
Hé Griz,
First I want to thank you for your answers on my questions in your last post.
But there is no time for you to get some sleep, because I have new questions already……sorry
We have found a good keyword and now we will go after the longtails as you descibed. But if you go look for some longtail keywords in the adwords tools you see some of them only have 0,05 cpc.
But we want the traffic from the longtails, but we don’t want those longtail keywords trigering lowpaying cpc ads.
What do we do with those longtail keywords that have low cpc, because the high cpc longtails we can just use however we want?
My guess is, and please correct me, you don’t target these low paying longtails in posttitles and we don’t mention them too many times in the post, because then we will trigger the 0,05 longtail ads and not our high cpc ads related to the main keyword.
We only use them in the body of the post one or two times, so we can rank for them and get the traffic. But we trigger ads with our high cpc main keyword by using the high paying cpc keyword in the title of the post, first paragraph of the post and mention them more times in our post than the low paying cpc longtail keyword.
Am I right here? Or am I overthinking….lol
Dennis
I’ll just add to the list:
how to make gluten free cookies
gluten free cookies
how to make non dairy cookies
baking gluten free cookies
gluten free cookie recipes
how to make sugarless cookies
sugarless cookie recipes
how to make dairy-free cookies
dairy free cookie recipes
how to make no bake cookies
no bake cookies recipes
how to make sugar free cookies
sugar free cookie recipes
how to make cookies for children with wheat allergies
how to make cookies for children with food allergies
cookies recipes for kids with allergies
and so on and so on
Heya Griz,
I’m see that you are recommending the use of long tails on most backlinks , but I’ve got a couple of questions.
How long is too long? is it appropriate to link back a whole sentence for example?
Second, when is it wise to shorten those linkbacks? For example, I noticed in your other blog that you’ve also got the shortened versions of ‘how to make money for beginners’ in your backlinks, for example, ‘make money’ & ‘how to make money’.
Lorecee,
In your comment you mentioned advertiser demand of .9. I don’t see this option on my adwords tool. Can you elaborate on where this is?
Thanks
Steph
On my new blog that I created on the 14th, I got indexed and was waiting for my first g search visitor which I got today (the 22nd) for a long tail I had not targeted at the 49th spot.
So, if I understand this right, I then went to another post I had written and added the long tail and made a link with that anchor text to the page they found in g as a backlink.
I know it’s only one backlink, and I should add backlinks on more sites.
Should I do that with every long tail that comes through that I didn’t specifically target? When does a long tail deserve it’s own post?
Steph
Steph: when you get your search results, click on the arrow next to “show/hide columns” under “show items to hide or display.” I like to show average CPC, advertiser competition (which I called advertiser demand) in my post above, and approximate average search volume. I hide the rest, including approximate search volume (it’s only a one-month sample so less reliable, although all search volume numbers should be taken with a grain of salt).
A 1 or .9 for advertiser competition means G probably has enough advertising customers to serve up ads to your site for that keyword. If it doesn’t, then it’ll give you closely related ads if you’ve targeted lots of long tails in the post, but I don’t like to waste a post title and a bunch of backlinks on a phrase with no ads. Use low-AC phrases liberally in your post text to build authority for the niche, but save your post title and backlink anchor phrases for your best keywords.
I always export my keyword results to a .csv file (that button is down at the end of the results–one for matches containing my primary phrase and one for related keywords that don’t contain my primary phrase). Griz has resources I don’t have, so he can decide whether he likes a niche just by looking at the traffic and skip all the tedious secretarial work. I build posts on phrases with BROAD (not narrow or exact) search volume between 2,000 and 22,000 search volume per month. I always build posts with an eye to dominating the whole niche for my primary keyword, but the higher SV phrases usually (not always) have more competition.
I don’t worry too much about CPC other than to make sure the majority of keywords pay $1.00 per click or more (that’ll be .20 to .25 cents after G takes its share). In answer to Dennis up above, you won’t get low-CPC ads unless you either target low-paying keywords in your post titles, or smart priced (see Griz’s second post here for an explanation of smart pricing). Higher CPC usually means more competition, although yesterday I found a niche paying $8.00 per click where nobody has discovered keyword anchoring yet.
I’ve made lots of mistakes over the past few months while learning this stuff and really, the best way to do it is try it and see what works. For instance, I bought a domain for a primary phrase whose advertiser competition for all but the top three keywords was less than .8. Huge search volume, low competition–but no ads. That domain went right into the “agricultural” pile–it was a five year old pre-owned domain, so it carries some backlink authority. I think of it as compost.
Hey Griz……… It worked.I just did some tweaking to my existing post.
It is on number one in G for one long tail keyword and on the first page for a couple of others.Of course the total search volume is less for the long tail keyword for which I rank first.But for those that I am on the first page have a lot of search results……..Like one has 800000.And another for which I have number 3 has 735000 searches.
And my article is not a very good one even by my standard.So what I mean is SEO is important as you have pointed out.I am going to rewrite this post for the number one slot in G.Thanks Griz.Now all I have to do is write more such targeted keyword optimized posts for the first 3 ranks in G. Griz you are great.I am lucky I found your site.
Griz……… I have another question now that I understand the basics and importance of SEO.What is the minimum CPC my long tail keywords should have.And what is the minimum unique visitors I must have to earn at least $10 per day.My niche is beauty .I know the question sounds cliche………But I value your opinion.
@ Griz
I’m a little confused by something I’ve been seeing with a few keywords and maybe you can help. Let’s say I find a rather broad keyword in the Google Keyword Tool that looks promising. Lots of search volume and decent CPC. The advertiser bar for competition is completely filled. However, when I do a search for that same exact keyword in Google no ads show up. Does that mean no relevant ads for that keyword are going to show up on your blog either? Is it a waste of time chasing after that keyword? When I do keyword research with the Goggle Tool I always use “exact” match too so I know I’m not inflating any search numbers . . .
You also said, “If none of those keywords can provide 1000 people a day or so (or a combination of them) then this probably isn’t a good niche.” Is there a minimum CPC that you look for when choosing your “main” keyword or are you more concerned with overall search volume even if the advertiser CPC is low? (less than $1)
@Lorecee
Great explanation but I’m also confused when you say 1 .9 .8 for competition. The only thing I see for competition is the little green bar. Are you saying that 1 means a full green bar and .9 slightly less than full, etc. etc.?
is the word order and parts of speech important to google e.g. does it know that make and making are the same word?
I know it now ignores common misspellings and us/uk spellings.
What about word order Would you separately target
making money
make money
money making
money make ?
Matt,
You said,
“I was re reading your post over at one of the other discussion forums where you left a really sticky thread…One thing you talked about was how you spend a good amount of time developing the supporting sites.”
This Today.com blog is a supporting site - watch how I build it up.
My MMOFB site ranks well for “make money with Adsense” but it could use a few more quality backlinks to get it to number 1 on G.
This is how I get a few more quality links.
Btw - the make money with Adsense keyword has the best CPC of all the search traffic I get on MMOFB which is why I want more of it - hence why I want top ranking - more traffic.
Never send junk links to the money site - use them to build up the support sites and then transfer the keyword authority to the money site from the support sites.
You asked,
“Also- When developing the network, outside of waiting every 3 months or so to see if you got PR, when do you know your supporting site has been given authority?”
If the support site is ranking well for it’s term (regardless of its PR) then you know it has some authority. You can test it by sending a link out to a new site and use Google Alerts to inform you of when they find the link. If the G Alert takes a few minutes - lots of authority - if it takes a day or two - not bad. If it doesn’t show up in less than a week your support site doesn’t have much authority at all.
Hi Jenny,
You aren’t stupid - if you were you wouldn’t be asking the right questions.
You are brand new to all this so let’s start with the basics. Go to my Blogger Basics blog and work your way through the 5 Lessons for setting up a blog on Blogger. Blogger is free to use so you won’t be spending any money while you are learning. Some of the techniques in the lessons are a bit outdated but not the general Blog setup directions.
Get your first blog up and running and we can then progress from there. Don’t be overwhelmed with all the info out there - the basics are pretty simple - the rest can be learned in time and no need to panic if not understood immediately.
The Blogger Basics blog is here - start with Lesson 1
Good luck and welcome!
Tobiesmom,
Doggie Cookies? Really?
I’ve had a few milkbones in a pinch - not bad actually!
BooBoo,
Do you think they could shovel off the lake for me?
RG,
Always try and fix it first - you may have trouble changing the URL though. Remove the trademarks from your title tags though (the blog title) If you can’t fix it best to start over - the trademark issue can come back to bite you so not worth taking a chance.
Dennis,
You answered your own question. Yes to all.
Jeff,
Exactly - find a niche like cookies that allow you to target an endless supply of related keywords. The more keywords you can rank for the more traffic you will get and all the related keywords will help push your main keywords (the ones with the real traffic numbers) up the serp’s. In general you want to be the authority on cookies - ranking for hundreds of terms will give you that authority.
Something I should have mentioned - the bulk of the competition online doesn’t do this - they only target the main keywords. Using my system will allow you to dominate the competition even if they have old well established sites.
BK,
If you are counting the long tails then you have missed the point. Just write as long a post as you can. Write naturally and talk about everything you can think of regarding the topic. The long tails will happen without forcing them. You don’t need to put anything in a post more than once if the post is long and on topic - the bot will know exactly what the post is about and find all the relevant long tails for you.
Just use the main keywords or phrase in each post title and then blab away. If you know your topic the related terms will flow naturally.
(Oil Filters and Cookies - between you and Frank I am going to rank for some pretty strange terms!)
Matt,
Don’t get carried away with sentences as links - G only recognizes keywords anyway. It will ignore all the filler words.
My post title on this post is about as long as I ever use.
As you mentioned I do use shorter versions of the “super” keyword for other post titles and in anchors for backlinks.
There is no time frame for using what keywords when - use every combo right from day one - in posts and in backlinks.
TomG,
Yup - “best” works but don’t overdue it. G tends to look at sites that use hyperbole like “best”, “number1″, “greatest”, etc as spam sites. Using those terms in your URL or Blog Titles can sometimes hurt more than help if the niche is a spam niche. Ie. “Best Online Dating Site” or “Best Forex”
Griz,I am in no 1 for a long tail keyword I had put in the title tag.
Incidentally it has 1640000 search results.What I want to know is how do I rank no1 for my other long tail key words?In fact I have four to five long tail key words in one single post and I want to be in the first 3 positions in G for all of them.This is what real SEO is about.It is becoming fun.So tell me how to go about it.
Jason,
Don’t get hung up on finding high PR sites for backlinks.
Most of the competition does not understand targeted anchor links and you will be surprised how many keywords you can dominate just by getting PR0 anchored links.
The last post talked about some sources you can use to get links.
I also included a couple of places in an earlier comment on this post; go back and check the comments above.
Stephanie,
Your strategy is sound.
A long tail gets its own post when you notice a fair amount of traffic for it in relation to its position in the serp’s.
If it is on page 2 in the serp’s and you only get 1 visitor you may want a few backlinks to get to page 1. If you find that on page 1 you still only get 1 visitor then its not worth a post. If however you find 10 people stop in from a 10th spot rank then I would give it a post of its own and try and get to top spot for the term.
It really is a judgement you make based on the traffic it generates from the ranking it currently has. If your long tail is on page 4 and generates 50 visitors you know you have a winner. If it sits in 2nd spot and gets 2 visitors then you know it is a dud - no one is searching for it.
Thanks Lorecee - nicely explained!
Neil,
There are no real minimums regarding CPC and amount of visitors - just broad standards we go by. In reality every niche is different.
I can make 10 bucks a day targeting a 20 cent CPC niche as long as I know I can get 3000 or more visitors a day. Or I can make $10 from a $2 per click CPC niche that only gets 50 visitors a day.
You really want to target niches that 1) you can outrank the competition in given your current resources and 2) has - on paper at least - a lot of searches according to the keyword tools (30,000 a month is average but you can do well with much less) and 3) has advertisers.
There is no formula that fits all niches - in general find terms that get a lot of searches with as little competition as possible.
Amanda,
I myself don’t really pay much attention to CPC but only because I target the most competitive niches and know that there is money in it before I start.
For the rest of you - pay some attention to it - see my comment above to Neil. Overall you are best to concentrate on search volume and make sure there are advertisers.
When starting out don’t think about creating a $100/day site - settle for niches that can provide as much traffic as possible and whatever you make is just gravy. The reason is that you want traffic first - money second. If you can muster 1000 visitors a day but only make $2/day in Adsense you have not failed - you still have 1000 visitors that can be funneled elsewhere or you can sell ads to others who want a crack at them.
Search traffic can always be monetized - if Adsense doesn’t pan out then try something else or send them to a site that does convert. The key to making money online is traffic - always get it first and worry about money later.
This may be a bit confusing but I am trying to teach two separate components here - Adsense and SEO. SEO is about getting traffic - Adsense is just one way to monetize the traffic. Spend more time learning SEO and less time worrying about monetization.
When researching keywords you want to concentrate on the terms that will produce the most traffic for your level of resources.
Trust me on this - if you can produce traffic people will crawl out of the woodwork offering you money for that traffic - one way or another and Adsense won’t be your only option.
A long winded answer - don’t worry too much about CPC. Concentrate on traffic.
Todd,
That’s exactly how you take older aged sites and re-tweak them. They already have authority and PR - just refocus them with new targeted post pages and you will rank much faster. Ad Adsense to the new pages and omit it from the rest. Let me know how it works out.
(btw - you can also edit the older posts and get them crawled for new terms as well)
Lissie,
Google is very good at understanding relevance and will rank you for “making money” even if your post only uses the term “make money” or “money making”.
Chances are that sites (with authority) will outrank you if they used the exact phrase while you will rank below all the exact phrase matches. You will still be ranked but rarely number 1. For this reason I do include every variation but only to gain top spot.
Neil,
Simple - just send backlinks using all the long tails you want to rank for to the same post. That post will then rank number 1 for all the different long tails. Your competition will determine how many links you will need for each long tail.
How do I know about my advertisers for my keyword?
From CPC or from sponsored links in G?
Hi Griz,
One quick question: when you are analysing a niche for search volume, with the Google Adwords tool, would you use the ‘broad’ match or the ‘exact’ match to determine search volume?
p.s.
I’ve never tried a dog cookie myself, but Tobie says they are delicious!
Tobiesmom,
I use both searches to get a feel for how much inadvertent traffic I could get (the broad search) and how much targeted traffic there is (the exact search).
The exact search is the important metric for Adsense though.
(Btw - I broke down and bought a bag of chocolate Macadamia nut cookies yesterday and ate the whole works last night - thank you so much! grrrr)
Mwhah! No, I’m not one of those sort of fans. But yes, you do cause my brain to flash on. And that’s always good.
I’m new to “making money online for beginners” and I’m trying different things. For some reason I keep coming back to your blogs. Currently I’m “doing affiliate” and planning on adsense once I get 200/day visitors. And no, its not going to be on my writing sites (duh). Writers are penny-pinchers and they don’t like adsense. “It’s not cool to advertise”
This is so not related, but thanks Griz. If this is a cruel joke to do something onine it’s working. If it’s a genuine attempt to help suckers like me, who need a bit of help, well…its admirable.
One day I will brag about my success. (I hope)
Cheers.
Hey griz, how close is the estimated CPC to what google really pays you? I’m not yet in the top 5 of this new niche I’m testing out, but the clicks pay me in the range of $1 to $2.5, while G says it has an estimated CPC of $13! Will it get higher as I get to top 5 on page 1? I was expecting it to be at least 30-40%.
Making money with adsense as a beginner is fun.
Making money with adcents becomes addicting when you get past $15/day.
Making money with google adsense when you get past $500/day may get you stuck somewhere in the wilderness, smiling, while shoveling snow.
Facts of the day!
Any long juicy posts coming up on how to make money with adsense for noobs? Coffee breaks are more fun when there’s a new epic to absorb.
Griz,
I found an opportunity to get any 2 of Brad Callen’s products for a really low price. Besides SEO Elite (which I know you use), which of his other products would you recommend for a newbie like myself?
Giriz,
Do you know offhand whether Google allows Kontera and Adsense together?
I am still confused. I have ads on all my blogs but I don’t have a clue as to what I did, if you can provide help that would be great. I am looking for an elementary outline of how to use Google Adsense.
Thanks
Hiya Griz,
Hefner here again.
I wanted to ask something about the indexing of each individual post. I checked my blog on Google and realized that the posts are all being indexed identically. I uploaded an image.
http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/6742/siteindexing.jpg
Is there something I need to change in Blogger so that each individual posts has its own indentity in the index? Like title and description? Some reason even my main URL isn’t showing the description I have in the Settings feature. Thanks and look forward to your feedback.
Thanks Griz for your answer. I am glad my comments were correct. It means I understand how to use adsense better and better
Thanks Lorecee and good luck with your 8$ cpc nich you found…….I try to act not being jealouss
Dennis
Neil,
The quick way to check for advertisers is to simply Google your main keyword and then check the “sponsored links”.
If you want a rough estimate of the CPC being paid for those ads then use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool
The CPC provided is for “sponsored links” - the ads appearing in the serp’s and is not the amount you will receive for the “content” ads appearing on your site. A rough guide is to estimate a quarter of the CPC shown as an approximate of what the content CPC should be. (or less - never more)
Carlos,
Lenses and hubs can be used effectively as support sites but the domains have lost a bit of lustre due to the spammers - particularly Squidoo. This doesn’t mean that you can’t create a strong sub-domain on them - you can and should use them as part of your overall network.
Remember common sense - don’t create 50 of each and have them all point to the same money site. No more than a handful of Identical C Class Ip’s in your backlinks - this means a few hubs, a few lenses, a few Today.com blogs, a few blogger blogs etc.
Booboo,
I just mentioned that your “content” ads will usually pay about a quarter of the “sponsored links” CPC bid.
I forgot to mention that it then gets split with G - so you would get about one half of the content CPC.
A $10.00 sponsored link CPC would be $2.50 a click for the content ad and you would get about half of that or $1.25 per click.
A $4.00 CPC would pay you about $0.50 a click.
These are only guidelines and can vary quite a bit depending on many factors.
John, I’d be concerned about having Adsense on your home page with no content. If I remember correctly, that may be against big G’s TOS…
Florida Phil
Jeff,
The trick to re-writes is to change up enough “keywords” with synonyms to make it unique - the filler words are unimportant but changing the main terms in each paragraph will make it unique enough.
Outranking Brands that are synonymous with their products is tough but possible. I have outranked several well-known Brands for their own products but it took a lot of anchored keywords to do it. One way is to create a Guitar Review site in order to get around the Trademark issues. By writing reviews or editorials you can talk about any Brand and then obtain backlinks like “Gibson Les Paul vs Fender Stratacaster” etc. Doing it this way adds legitimacy and avoids the spam flags and the legal notices. Don’t write anything libelous though.
John,
If you have the money great but there are free tools available these days that do much of what the elites do. I haven’t used it but SEOBOOK.com Toolbar has been recommended to me as a good free tool instead of SEO Elite.
If you are dead set on buying Callen’s products (I saw the same email this morning) then the only 2 worth buying are SEO Elite and Keyword Elite. That said - the Google Adwords Free Keyword tool is just as good for standard keyword research.
The rest of his stuff is just crap.
Someone you know,
Legally and technically Google can’t stop you from using alternate advertising on your sites - anti trust issues.
In the real world I have noticed many strange things happen when I have used Bidvertiser or Kontera and others in conjunction with Adsense and quickly dropped the others. To be fair I can’t prove anything and quite frankly none of the competitors come close to providing the income that adsense does. They simply don’t have the available inventory of advertisers that Google has and you tend to get a lot of irrelevant ads or very limited ads that don’t convert well.
Short answer - stick to adsense.
Hi April,
Hope all is well - you are late!
I’m curious to see how many “cookie” searches I get too. lol
Good tip regarding the “buying Keywords”. The term “free” is also a good long tail prefix.
Thanks for dropping in April.
Michigan Bankruptcy,
oh I looooove soft cookies!
atlfreestyle,
If you are referring to the ads on your Today.com site you didn’t do anything - they belong to Today.com. You can’t add your own ads on this domain.
I am only using this site in order to build a support site for my main site and not for Adsense.
If you don’t have an Adsense account you will have to set up a self hosted site using wordpress for example and then according to the new rules maintain it for 6 months in order to get approved for Adsense.
Existing Adsense users can add Adsense to new sites at any time but new applicants have to follow the new guidelines (as of January 2009)
TomG,
I have reciprocal links for continuity - people who don’t know what I do can find my other sites and get up to speed and to let my regular readers know about this site. If this was a real site I was using for Adsense I would only have the links going one way.
I have to do things for demonstration purposes that I would never do with sites that I don’t make public.
Griz,
Been reading your stuff for a few months now - I’m quite obsessive about all the concepts you teach, and I’ve seen a few work on a small scale (I really don’t have much time at the moment to focus on my online ventures, but I plan to over the summer and hopefully beyond). I also sent you an e-mail about your private forum - that still up and running?
I have a few simple questions regarding backlinks. If you are just starting out and join a cheap network (contentconnect), or create your own network by setting up multiple websites across multiple IPs, is there any ceiling to the number of backlinks you should obtain in a period of a day or a few days? I thought I’ve read that if you go from 0 to 10 or 20 a day that might be frowned upon by Google. Or is that keyword dependent?
Also, I know one-way links are far superior to two-way, but is that a generality for all links (i.e. site-wide sidebar vs embedded in post content). For example, if I become friends with someone in my niche and we both write about and link to each others posts, how would this link juice compare to exchanging sidebar links, or compared to only one of us linking to the other?
On a personal sidenote - it looks like you live the life in Canada. I recently watched Les Stroud’s documentary about how him and his wife lived out there for a year, built their own cabin… I was so intrigued by that lifestyle. I would be thrilled if I could get going with this online marketing thing so I can immerse myself in nature somewhere. Unfortunately my current career path is geared towards city living, but that’s just not who I am…
I’m also an avid golfer, so it was good to hear you enjoy a round, too.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Ray
Adam,
Your blog description is not showing on your site - fix that first and you should see it displayed in the serp’s.
I am not a code monkey by any stretch and suggest you ask Frank at OpTempo for some help with your set up. He’s a good guy and can probably set you straight in a jiffy. Just mention I sent you.
hey Griz,
If someone clicks on a link you have anchored with your perfect anchor, but the anchor was on a non niche related page, like say a comment on a blog, and then that person clicked on your adsense.
Would Google count that as a related search since the hyperlink had the keywords in it?
M
the other thing I am finding out is that most of the geotargeted niched Ive worked, although tending to have high CPC, then to really have dreadful traffic. The ones I have on page one are only getting say 5-10 clicks per day.
Have you found the same thing? Or am I just picking poor geo targeted keywords…
Hey Griz,
About the new Adsense 6-month rule. I started my guitar blog on 28 January. I signed up for Hubpages on 31 January, applied to Adsense through Hubpages the same day and got accepted to Adsense the same day. I’ve even made an eye-popping $0.35 through Hubpages and a custom search engine I put on my blog ( I know, I know, impressive … lol.)
Anyway, if the 6-month rules exists, how did I get an account unless there’s an exception for Hubpages or somebody at Google was drunk at the keyboard or something.
John,
I’m not surprised at the increase in Adsense CTR and earnings but I am surprised you went with “Uglifying” your site. Lol.
Since you did I need to fill you in on something quick - you need to add a lot of text (relevant stuff) on the bottom of the page. You are not allowed to just have Adsense on the page - you have to provide some content or risk being banned. Do this quick as your sudden increase in earnings may set off a flag and signal a manual review.
Sorry I should have mentioned this earlier but I never dreamed you would really do it.
Just add some generic Guitar content - nothing fancy or useful but make it legit enough to pass a manual review.
After reading Loreceeon’s reply where he mentioned 3 sites built since December 2008, but that he’s not adding adsense until June…
When do you recommend adding adsense to a niche site? And are there certain things that should be in place prior to adding it?
Also, Loreceeon is making 2,000 word posts to his sites. Is that really necessary and do you recommend posts that long?
I’m asking these questions, since you seem to feel that Loreceeon “gets it.” Obviously, I still don’t “get it” yet.
Hi John. I’m a girl. No offense taken; just don’t want any misconceptions to take root early on. I plan on hanging around here a while
I’ll let Griz answer your questions–I’m still a beginner at this and don’t want to sound like a know-it-all.
Geiz,How much content and how much traffic is optimum to put adsense on a blog.
John!!!
I know you say it’s on you, but I think we all really really really recommend you get some content on that page!
It really is against the adsense TOS and an adsense account is really really really had to get back (live basically kiss it good bye) once it’s gone!
Youre right, ultimately it’s up to you, but come on! We want you to be able to fight another day!
If you’ve had dismal earnings so far in it’s original form, then why not just add the content and risk a few less clicks…
Matt :O
BTW-Griz, Vic is getting you back online at the Academy. He totally forgot, and we miss you over there as well.
I came across an interesting site that I thought you might be interested in:
http://www.onlinesportsbetting.net/
It’s either your blog, or someone isn’t very creative in their site description!
John,
Thank you! We can all feel better now!
I’ve been testing one of the things you wrote here and I have to say I’ve seen pretty interesting things and I really want to ask you some basic questions I have in mind to get me started.
1. I read something (on your blogs) and some other seo blogs I trust about long tailor keywords and authority. I’ve realized that there are many niches (I’ll could say unlimited niches) in which people (and I mean big sites) only get a few anchor links with the main keywords from same pay directories (with Good PR), get a 3/4 PR and are ranking number 1 for that keyword. What I trying to get here is that those sites are not using long tail keyword for the autority and they only have a couple of high PR anchoring to them. Can I overcome those sites (with high PR-3/4) and basicaly autority for the main keyword if I use long tail keywords to build the autority from PR 0 sites? I mean, you’ve sayed that PR is only a bonus (hei, that PR 5 directory anchored me with my mind keyword), but the basic aspect of google is relevance, based on content, right?
2. You’ve sayed that you’ve overcomed big PR sites by using PR 0 blogs and I guess that you’re anchors were great. I think that there are many niches where people don’t even handle seo, they just pay crappy money for some directory links and they get traffic because there are not others to compete with them the seo way. I’m just guessing.
3. I’ve saw a pretty interesting thing in serps these days. There are sites (PR 0 sites and new sites) that are basicaly the #4 or #5 on the first page with very very or none anchors or heywords and the only relevance is the title [ domain ] and the content of the site. I saw that G tend to give relevance the ball. That PR 0 site with relevant content was on the big list altough there are high PR sites beneath it, but those sites don’t have relevant content, just pieces of content.
4. It will help me getting backlinks from PR 0 blogs [ new blogs on free platforms ] with long tail anchors and for the main keywords? Can I overcome the big PR that don’t really have relevant anchors?
Is it REALLY that hard to get a google adsense account? I guess it’s a good thing I got 2 back in 2005. My name + fiancée.
But about 2 months ago, using a blogger blog, I was able to get another adsense account (cousin’s name and address) with no problems. I used it for BH, and I think I’m about to get canned haha, I did get the check though and stopped BHing with it, wonder if it’ll get banned in time. (I used the video image behind 336×280 adsense placed on a rotator lol )
Make money with adsense! Adcents rocks.
And I too, sadly, have eaten dog biscuits. It looked too tempting to not try. It tasted like my 6 year old niece’s cookies… (but tastier)
Ray,
The private network invites will be going out this week - sorry for the delay.
As for linking - content links contained in posts are the best but any link is still better than no link. One way links are better than reciprocal but it is not uncommon for sitewide links to be reciprocal and it won’t hurt you.
The thing to remember about links is that they should be natural - you should have a little of everything - one way, two way, site wide, content links, comment links, crappy links with your name/click here/url in them and so on.
As for how many and how fast - again, common sense applies. If the site is new would it look reasonable to get 20 links on day one? Just go slow and add a few at a time - once you have 50 links it won’t look strange to start getting 5-10 at a time. When you have 1000 links getting 20 a day won’t look amiss. It’s all relative and should be built accordingly.
As for Golf - Tiger is back on Wednesday - wooo hooo!
Matt,
If someone clicks a targeted anchored link then they would be seen as targeted - at first at least - but if the link was in a comment on an un-related niche the traffic clicking the link probably won’t convert and eventually G will discount the clicks arising from the link. In other words it won’t help a lot leaving targeted links on pages that really don’t have your targeted traffic.
Geo-targeting tends to get a lot less traffic - think about it - instead of targeting 300 million users in the USA you are only targeting a small percentage of users for “hotel rooms” in Des Moines. (example)
You will get less clicks depending on how small the pool is for prospective users. The trick is to find the right keyword for the right jurisdiction at the right time of the year in the right economy. I set up a condo rental blog for a friend in Sarasota a few years ago - he got lots of traffic DEC - April each year and little through out the remainder of the year. This year due to the economy he has hardly any visitors during peek season.
Jeff,
The problem with the new Google rules regarding Adsense is that they haven’t published anything (that I know of) and we are all trying to parse it together.
I mentioned in another comment the other day that I thought it might depend on a site by site basis but most of the people I have talked to have said they were told to get a self-hosted site up for 6 months and re-apply. Your info is the first concrete example that this isn’t necessarily so - most of the others were trying to start a Blogger blog when they were turned down. Perhaps that has some bearing or perhaps they set up a spammy looking sites.
As an established user I haven’t had any problems using adsense on new sites and have had to collect info from others regarding this issue as I have no first hand knowledge - thanks for filling me in and anyone else who has info on this is welcome to share it with us. As usual G is not going to say much so we will have to work it out ourselves.
John,
Do you need to write long posts? No. But I do for a reason - I get more traffic. The more info you have (content) the more phrases G will pick up and rank you for. It’s as simple as that. The choice is yours but long posts have some advantages.
Read this post in regards to Adsense
Knowing when to add Adsense to your blog
Neil,
Read the post I just linked to above in the reply to John.
Costa/Lissie - I get a lot of “Griz” related traffic - been that way for a while.
I’ll have to work on the Video series… lol
RG,
The on page layout is good but add some filler like RSS subscriptions etc. Anything to get away from the spam look - spammers don’t add all the bells and whistles - you should.
You might want to modify the theme as well - like I do. Spammers just use the basic template so get away from that.
Otherwise - start building your content and work on backlinks.
Ray D
The blogger you linked to is a reader of mine and he asked how to duplicate my site layout - didn’t realize he was going to grab my tag line as well. lol (I have come across several sites now that have borrowed my little blurb - damn - shoulda’ Trademarked it!)
John Dimick,
Smart move - a gateway page with just adsense is totally against their TOS and you would be banned instantly if someone reported you.
The content added is better but still a bit thin - another couple of paragraphs would help. Sorry - I don’t want to see you pissing away that little gem of a site - it has aged well and could be a good money maker so don’t take any chances.
Lissie - good point. I didn’t look at RG’s URL’s just the page layout.
RG - don’t use Trademark Brands in URL’s or Blog titles - the lawyers will be sending you some nasty letters.
Leo,
I have beat out lots of “big” sites using long tails to dominate dozens of terms. PR is nice but having more anchored keywords (even PR0) than the big sites is all that is needed. How many you need is dependent on how many high PR links they have using the proper anchor.
Most sites with good ranking don’t really have very many anchored links and are easy to overcome. Very few people really understand or even know about anchored keyword backlinks - I have been telling people this for ages but for some reason the concept hasn’t really stuck. I suppose because I am the only one talking about it and not Darren Rowse.
In answer to all your points - the site with the most anchored keyword links wins the ranking game. Period. That is all the SEO you really need to know.
Test it - join a link network, start a new blog that can’t be traced to you and just send the new site as many varied (but relevant) anchors as you can. Watch what happens. (use some common sense though - don’t send 50 on day one - slow and steady)
BooBoo,
Go easy with the black hatting - don’t screw yourself - Adsense is too valuable to lose once you know how to make it work for you. It is the ultimate way to make passive income - some sites will bring in money for years to come with little to no work involved.
Myln,
The simple answer is I haven’t got around to figuring out wordpress yet or the post titles would be pointing to the home page like I do in Blogger. I do this to transfer the keyword authority that each post will eventually get to the home page. This will cause the home page to rank well for every term I target. If done right I can usually get two pages on the first page of the serp’s - the home page and the post page. More serp positions = more traffic.
Denise,
Good question and I wish I could remember why I had to add the Gadget. It had something to do with getting a Link into my description (bet you didn’t notice it) and I couldn’t do it using the description box provided.
Good point Frank - I thought it best to avoid confusion and keep people away only because they are likely to get themselves in trouble. I sell brand name shoes and have never had a problem as the companies are benefiting from the advertising and the sales. As you said - if you do it right and know the company you can use Brands. How you use their brands has a lot to do with this - promoting them works - using their name for your own ends (and not theirs) doesn’t. Of course some like Disney will nail you for anything you do - I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask the companies before hand and explain your proposal up front.
Dave,
Thanks for that. It does appear to be a “site by site” decision on the part of Google then.
A good reminder that you have to have a privacy policy or you won’t be approved. I now suspect that most of those who have been denied haven’t read the TOS very well and G has simply brushed them off with the six month blurb.
Thanks again Dave.
Griz,
A quick question regarding building links to all the long-tails that I am ranking for on page 1. Let’s say I have 100 long-tails that are on page 1 on Google (they all are at positions 7-10). I want to move all these keywords up the SERPs to at least in the top 3 position if not higher. So where should I go about buidling links for all these keywords? Should I start a lense, hubpage, blogger site, etc. for each of these keywords and link from there? Should I do article submission for each keyword and include a couple links in the resource box back to the internal and/or homepage? Should I start leaving comments on do-follow blogs? Exchange articles with other similar sites and use in-content links? What kind of strategy would you recommend? Thanks.
I have exactly the same question that KF has.
Frank and Griz,
So when when you are using the brands in your posttitles you can get in trouble….yeezzzzz.
So titles like: where to get brand for cheap / best ways to find brand.
mmmm, I have to look into this a bit when it can be done and when not
Dennis
Thanks for the info Griz
Griz, thanks for the input about branding and blogs. How long does it usally take to get indexed by G? I’ve had some blogs out there for 2-3 weeks now and if I put the blog address into the G search with quotes states that it can’t find that url….Is G treating my blogs as spam and therefore not indexing them or??? Any suggestions?
So let me see if I have the trademark thing straight. If I were making a post on where to buy shoes for cheap, and then used longtails like buy Nike running shoes for cheap, discounted Nike cross trainers for cheap, cheap sale priced women’s Nike, etc within the content of the post, I would avoid the trademark issues and be optimized correctly for Adsense?
If I use the brand name in the URL, blog title or post I could be in trouble, correct?
hey janey_pico,
You also need to get anchored text links with those keywords to the site and the page.
Well in my husband’s home country there is a wonderful dessert called ‘Oil Cake’ and I kid you not! They are very good but very oily. Also in his country cookies are called biscuits, so now we gotta generate some new keywords.
Chocolate Macadamia Nut Biscuits
White Chocolate Run Biscuits
How to Make Perfect Chocolate Biscuits
I Need a Recipe for chocolate chip biscuits
what is the best recipe for peanut butter biscuits?
easy biscuit recipes
etc
etc
etc
DianeS
By the way, just what did you DO to make it so we all have to have a today.com account to post here now….grrrrrrr just like the old blogger……….grrrrrrrrr
now i am hungry, need to eat some cookies or biscuits
oh here is one for you
wheat-free cookies
how to make gluten-free cookies
easy wheat-free biscuits
how do you make wheat-free cookies?
how to bake gluten-free biscuits
I tried to create a today.com account as Diane or DianeS but it wouldn’t let me. G-d only knows why I chose lightning as a user name. I am not fast as lightning, but these comment threads fill up that fast!
Griz I know you’ve said it someplace but I can find it - have spent hours looking too -( How often do you post to a new “money” blogger blog. Do you put the 2000 word initial post and link to it and get it ranked to see if you can get traffic - or do you keep posting to the money site using your long tails in the post headers? Not sure where to but my initial efforts - the money site or the blogs the sites linking to it…
Thanks Griz.It is good to be back home.
Griz:
Man, I’ve been devouring all your content over the last year at MMOFB and more recently MMOWG and of course this, your newest creation. I think I’ve read everything at MMOFB at least once and over time I find myself going back for 2nd and 3rd helpings… It’s all just sooo good, even after reheating!
I’ve created two dozen niche blogger blogs and I’m having good results so far with ranking, getting traffic, and getting clicks, all by putting into practice the tips, techniques, and strategies you’ve provided. Thanks so much for all you’ve given us!
That said, I have a few questions.
Private Forum
I too sent you an email over a week ago requesting to get into the private forum related to MMOFB… looking forward to your response when you get the chance as I’m looking forward to getting into that forum. Are you still accepting new members?
Blogger Blog Extras
In your response to RG above, you said to add to the layout extra bells and whistles, e.g. RSS feeds, etc. to make the site look less spammy, more legit. That’s a great tip, one that I’m going to have to implement, but how does that square with only providing two points of exit for the visitor, I.e. they either click an ad or the back button? With these things, are you not adding extra non-paying exit points? Perhaps only have the extras prior to adding Adsense then remove that stuff once Adsense is added?
Blogger Template Modifications
Also in your same response to RG, you recommended modifying the template, again, since spammers will use it as is out of the box with no modifications. This too is something I’m not doing. If you’ve mentioned this in all your other content, either I didn’t see it or can’t remember! Can you give some pointers on how and/or what to change in the Blogger Minima template, for example?
Thanks Griz!
Gary
Griz, what if our niche has decent related long-tails that don’t happen to contain the primary keywords that the site is targeting. For instance, if the sites primary keyword is “garden lights” and you want to target “outdoor solar lighting”. Even though it is in the same subject area, it doesn’t help build authority towards the primary keywords. Should we still target it if the traffic is good and competition is low? Can it hurt the effort to have a highly targeted site?
Sorry for the delay in answering the comments folks - a little tied up with our winter road freight.
Some of you mentioned that you had to register to leave a comment this morning. It should be fixed now - please let me know if any of you have trouble leaving a comment.
Denise,
I don’t know why but that hidden link seems to have some clout - I have done this on several blogs and shortly after adding the link my rankings usually increased to the top couple of spots. They were all authority sites to begin with and were on page 1 but the link seemed to push me to the top. Maybe a coincidence but I keep doing it now just in case it does have an effect.
KF,
You just answered your own question - all of the above. Use as many resources as you can to obtain backlinks - the one’s you mentioned are a good place to start.
You can also use a paid service like connectcontent.com or join our little community of like minded souls at Free Backlink Service
Neil - see my answer to KF.
Dennis Jr,
By the time I’m done I should have a good collection of “cookie” keywords for my brand new “Make Cookies with Griz” blog! lol
(kidding everyone)
Dennis - not Jr,
I’d really like to steer clear of the Brand issues. I’m not a lawyer and really don’t want to give out advice that I’m not qualified to make. Use at own risk - how’s that for covering the old rear end.
RG,
If you have access to a link from any authority site you can get indexed in minutes. I don’t know if G is treating them as spam or not. Have you been building links? The sooner you get links to them the faster they will get indexed.
Janey,
Your strategy would work fine for optimization purposes. I can’t say that you would avoid trademark issues - I’m not qualified to make that call. I can only say I have done what you are suggesting and haven’t had a problem. Yet. This doesn’t mean I won’t have a problem in future.
Diane,
I didn’t do anything - the people behind Today.com thought it would be a good idea to make all commenters register to comment. This happened last night and today the small army of bloggers here at Today revolted in the forum and the Administration rescinded.
They claimed they were doing it to combat spam - in reality they were trying to build a list - not a smart move. It should be back to normal. Let me know if you have any problems.
Lissie,
If it is a niche that I know is profitable then I will post quite a few epics over the course of the first month just to give the bot lots of relevant food for the serp’s. At the same time I backlink daily for just about every long tail that shows up in the serp’s. An all out blitz really and by the end of a month I usually have a fair number of well ranked keywords. From that point on I tend to post much less and backlink continually until my main keywords hit page 1. Not very glamorous but it works.
Btw - when I say epic I mean huge - my MMO posts are short by comparison. I’ve had one post that ran over 50,000 words and couldn’t be posted - had to break it up into shorter blurbs - Blogger seems to have a limit on more than just comments. Lol.
Gary,
Private Forum
Sorry about the delay on forum invites. We have a few issues that I think I will make a post about before sending the invites. Soon.
Blogger Blog Extras,
In the good old days you didn’t have to camouflage an Adsense site. These days you do and that is why I add the bells and whistles. I am guilty of taking things for granted and didn’t mention the obvious (to me of course lol) - ie. the two exit points “click or leave” applies to “above the fold” - most clickers will never get below the fold if your site is optimized right.
Push the bells and whistles to the bottom of the page where they are less likely to be seen and use things that surfers are not likely to click like mybloglog, RSS, or feeds from some other sites you have. Make sure whatever you use either funnels them to another site you own or to something related to you where you might funnel them further (mybloglog for instance) The thing is that once they get past the fold your chance of getting a click is diminished greatly - I get one sidebar click for every 100 clicks up top.
Minima Template.
I have done a few posts about the changes I make to Minima on my Blogger Basics blog. Look through the archives to find all the tweeks but start here; How to change the width of Blogger Blogs
Elizabeth,
Thanks for the keywords! Lol.
Mark in KC,
Google will recognize the relevance between “garden lights” and “outdoor solar lighting”. Both are relevant to “outdoor lighting” and your blog will be targeted for that main keyword as well as just “lighting”.
A blog like that just needs to be set up for a broad range of keywords.
Use a URL like outdoorlighting.com
Blog Title: Outdoor Lighting
Description: Outdoor lighting, garden, solar, wind, halogen, lightning bugs, moonglow etc
Post titles: Pick a long tail and go to town on it.
Thanks Cookies - I see you beat me to the link!
Damilik,
Lol. That is one smart server you got there! Sorry for the delay - I have a post coming about the private forum. I have to set some groundwork first and then I’ll send out the invites.
Griz, assuming I’ve given the AdSense ‘bot good keywords to chew on, what does AdSense for content do if someone finds my site for a search term where nobody’s advertising? Does it substitute closely related ads, generic “find it at Google checkout” ads, public service ads (ack), or no ads? I see that AdSense for search either doesn’t display any ads at all if there’s no advertising for a particular keyword phrase, or the ads displayed are very generic and unlikely to attract clicks.
I’m glad you raised hell with Today about the registration–I tried 3 different user names this morning and it wouldn’t take any of them. If they’re going to harvest my e-mail, they could at least do it competently.
Griz,
Help me out here. I am still clueless or rather confuse over all this keyword stuff.
1. When using Google Adwords Keyword Tool, should I set the “Match Type” to “Broad” or “Exact”?
2. When I type keywords in Google search, should I type the words with quotes or without? Or allintitle:, to determine the actual number of sites of that particular keyword.
3. I see Frank Carr use all his post title “Earn Cash Online”. Is it advisable to use same post title for all posts?
4. What is main /primary keywords or keyword phrases? Does it mean we use them more than other longtail keywords?
Thank you for your attention.
Griz,
Help me out here. I am still at sea over this keyword stuff.
1. When I use Google Adwords Keyword Tool, should I set the Match Type at “Broad” or “Exact”?
2. When I look for the search results at Google, should I use quotes or without quotes or allintitle:? Which is considered the “correct” way?
3. For instance my may main/primary keyword is “making cookies”. Can I use it on every post titles, plus my other long tail keywords?
Thank you.
Found you by accident. I was searching Google for ways to make money online with cookies and oil filters and you popped up. Thanks for the help.
I don’t know about the googleadsense advice, but all this talk about cookies is making me hungry.
OMG I must have picked the worst niche in the world. So following your example on cookies and replacing it with movies.
How to enjoy 2009 movies on your ipod
How to enjoy movies on your psp
How to watch movies on your (enter electronic gadget here)
2009 movie calendar
Great stuff Griz. Quick questions.
1. With extremely specific keywords, such as “pearl ear rings”, how would I provide much content?. I think I’d be lucky to get a couple pages. Post a few things and let it go? I could post about jewelry, design, etc…but I”m getting away from pearl ear rings.
2. To get backlinks, it seems the quickest and fastest way is through a submitter. True? I could post articles for weeks by hand and not get the backlinks I’ll get with a submitter.
I’ve got a couple sites designed and I’m ready to create backlinks. These are the two questions I have right now.
Thanks in advance!!!
D
Griz,
makes sense …well is starting to a little bit
but basically you should be making a blog site on how to do
something or make something? and thats it?
and what is a backlink ? do you mean just adding a hyperlink when
u edit your blog to the keywords you use?
It’s just you use a lot of blogger talk…and for beginners
like myself its a little over my head..
thanks for the info though so far!!
-Tara
Hi Lorecee,
You’ve added some excellent information so thank you for that. I’m pretty green and wondered if I could ask you a question, you said:
“I found a niche paying $8.00 per click where nobody has discovered keyword anchoring yet.”
How do you research the fact that no one was keyword anchoring that topic? Just curious as I have a couple niches in mind and would like to do that as well if possible.
Thanks,
John
Hey Lorecee,
How is bookmarking demon working for ya?