Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Making Money With A Passion

Posted by Jamie on September 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »

We wouldn’t even think about being a doctor, teacher, brick mason, construction worker, or a rocket scientist, without the proper training.  There are things you must learn or be taught in order to be successful.  This is true for just about any job or business.  You just don’t jump in unprepared.

 So why do people think they can make money online without being properly prepared?  The same thing applies to Internet Marketing.  I know I didn’t give it much thought when I started, probably because there are unsavory people out there who’d have us believe it’s a “walk in the park” and requires nothing more than a belief that we can just do it. 

 Well that’s not the way it has been for me.  It could be considered a walk in the park compared to a 9-5, and putting up with the working world punching a clock for a boss that doesn’t have your best interest in mind.  Still, there are rules you have to follow and pitfalls you must avoid to actually make Internet Marketing work for you.

 Some Internet Marketers will make more in one month than most people will make all year, while the majority won’t make a dime.  Why is that?   I’m not sure; maybe some just have a knack for making money.    

 However, to make money online you must have a passion for the company, product or services of the Internet business from which you expect to make money.

 In this case, passion means you’ve researched the company and like the products or services they provide.  You then translate that “like” into excitement and work that usually accompanies passion.

 Now there are many online entrepreneurs that are so good at what they do, they don’t need passion because they can sell anything.  But what about those who are not so knowledgeable at working an online business successfully?

 Just having passion can’t make you successful online.  You must also have a good website, good marketing, proper advertising, and effective keywords, etc.  Those things can often be learned from a company you join with a mentoring ship program, but if you don’t have passion you can reduce your chances for success.

 So if you don’t have passion for the company, products or services provided to you, you probably will get tired of the work you are being taught and just give up.

 Internet marketing work is usually not that difficult but it does take some motivation caused by passion, to get you up and running with a sustained effort, so you won’t stumble.

 Internet search engines provide a great resource to learn about the Internet Marketing Industry for business opportunities.

Look for a company that is solid, founded on good principles, and is easy to understand with great products that are sellable for which you can have a passion.

 If you have the attitude of; that one sounds good and the compensation plan looks great so I think I’ll start a business, does not sound like a decision based on passion.  So don’t be tempted the next time you hear that an Internet “guru” has done that, because remember, they are experienced and can sell just about anything without having passion for the company or products.

 Now hopefully the goal is to get you to the point where you can sell just about anything online.

 There are other steps you should make before starting an Internet Business, but if you first don’t find the right company, products and services that stir up passion in you, the other steps will cause you frustration instead of bringing you success.

Take care,

Jamie

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“Making Money with HubPages”

Posted by Jamie on September 10th, 2009 | No Comments »

Well, at the time of this writing, Christmas is right around the corner, (a little over 3 months away).  I know that may not seem that close, but I was in two of the warehouse stores the other day and both of them had displays of Christmas paraphernalia. Every year it seems the stores are starting earlier and earlier to try and make Christmas sales. 

 If you are an internet marketer, that probably applies to you also, at least to start setting up sales pages.  Now I’m new at this, and this will be my first holiday period for making money online. As a matter of fact, I haven’t even thought about this until I got an e-mail pushing a product that reminded of it. So I started checking out other websites of people that are experienced at sales pages. Of course there are many ways to have a sales page, I don’t know that many myself, because as I said, I’ve been at this only a few months, but I know they’re out there.

 One of the websites I came across was HubPages; it seems they have been around awhile and a lot of people have them.  They don’t have just one page, but many, many pages.  The authors of the couple of pages I visited had more than a hundred.  HubPages is a site where you can create your own web pages for free.  Each page is called a hub and is a separate page that can be connected to other hubs or left as an individual page. With the proper SEO techniques, they could make a lot of money from many different products, with each HubPage promoting a different product.  You can go to their website HubPages.com and set up an account.

 One of the ways to get products to promote and sell is to set up an Amazon Affiliate hub.  If you are familiar with Amazon (and who isn’t?), you know there are probably thousands of physical products to sell and get commissions on. You don’t necessarily need to choose an expensive product to promote so you can make a large commission on a sale.  It’s better to choose the ones that have high demands, the ones people think they can’t live without.  This way, you have a better chance of making more sales. 

 The way to do this is to go to Amazon and check out their best selling items. Once you pick out a product, you will need to set up your hubpage.  In the URL name make sure the keyword ie: the “product name” is in there, kinda like this; hubpages.com/hub/yourproductname.  Then you will want to write around 500 words of content about it.  You can rewrite the review of the product from Amazon or information you find elsewhere. 

 Then you add your Amazon affiliate link to the hub.  You can add two links to the same domain, so place your links, where you think people will be more likely to click on the “Buy Here” button. 

 It also helps to add pictures and videos.  You can get pictures of the product from Amazon, the product pages, or the manufacturers page, and you can get videos from YouTube by searching the product name.

 There is a more indebt post on this at Tracey’s hub, if you want more information.   

Since I am new at this, I haven’t actually joined HubPages yet, but since Christmas is around the corner, I think it’s time.  

 Take care,

         Jamie

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Money Making Basics Part 2

Posted by Jamie on September 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

In my last article, I wrote about getting your site indexed, and the relevancy of; content, the amount of content, and keywords, according to Google’s algorithms.  In this article, I am going to talk about; the age of a site, page ranking, and back links.  

Age of a Site

 It seems Google likes older sites better than new ones.  They will give a higher preference to older sites verses new ones, in order to help eliminate spam blogs and all the sites created on a daily basis, from dominating its index. With the proper SEO technique this can be defeated.

 Page Ranking

 Google has come up with a system to rate pages on a website according to their importance. Every site has a ranking from zero to ten.  The higher the number, the more important Google thinks your site is.  If you are fortunate enough to get a ten, you will definitely be on the first page of the search engines. If you have a new blog or website, you have a very low ranking because it’s possible Google hasn’t found it yet, but if it has, you will be indexed for the topic you write about or the niche you’re in.  If a person searches for your post or site, they would probably find it several hundred pages deep in the search listings.  This is almost like not being listed at all, because who looks through hundreds of search pages to find what they are looking for.  Most people find what they want by only looking two or three pages deep when doing a search.  The goal is to be on the first page to get the most traffic to your site.  All sites start out at zero, the longer a site is up and running plus the original content you place on it will get you a higher ranking, but not much, maybe a two or so.  If you want to get a higher ranking quicker, you need to get back links. So in order to get on the first page, you need a good page ranking and back links. Google has to think your site is important enough to put you on the first page of the searches.

 Back Links

 So what are back links?  They are links on other websites, forums, directories or blogs that lead people back to your site when they click on your link embedded in their site. The more sites that have a link pointing back to your site, the more important it seems be.  If other sites are sending you traffic, then you must be an authority on your topic or niche.  When Google sees this, they will rank your page higher because you must be important and knowledgeable in your field.  The higher the ranking, the higher up on the search pages you will be.

 One thing must be clarified though.  The sites that have your back link must be relevant to your topic.  If your topic is tires, and a back link comes from a food site, Google will ignore that link because it has no relevance to your site.  However, if the link comes from an auto site or mechanic site, etc Google will see it as relevant. 

 Another factor is the ranking of the site that has your link.  If you get a lot of back links from sites that have a zero ranking, then this will give you a page rank of one or two.  If you get links from sites ranked five or higher, you may get a ranking of four or five.  If you get a link from a seven or higher page rank you will rise in the rankings very quickly and the age of your site is irrelevant.  In general you will get a higher page rank if you get back links from a higher ranking site than yours.

 Just remember to only get links that are relevant to your site.  If Google finds you getting links from non relevant sites, they could ignore them or drop you in the rankings.

 One more thing about relevant links. Some relevant sites may want to trade links with you; however, you will gain more from one way links. When they link with you and you with them, this is called two way linking.  This usually doesn’t help you much, unless the other site has a higher page rank.  Most of the time they won’t want a link from you anyway, because there is nothing in it for them.  When other sites give you a link without getting one in return, Google sees this as relevance to your importance, and ranks you a little higher.  A higher ranking means a higher listing on the search pages which leads to more traffic, which means more chances to make money!

Well that’s it for now.

                                     Take care,

                                                           Jamie

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Money Making Basics #1

Posted by Jamie on September 3rd, 2009 | No Comments »

Most beginners are eager to build an internet marketing business but don’t know where to start.  The best way to begin is to have a blogsite,because there is no investment except time, and you can learn the basics of online marketing without spending money.

It’s best to start with one blog and by using SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, tweak it, so Google will find it and index it. This way, you will start getting traffic from Google within a few weeks, or sooner.

 So what does getting your site indexed mean?  This is all about search engines and letting them know that you exist. If they know your site is out there, then you are indexed.  So how do you know if you are indexed? Just query your URL address for your site; if it comes up in the search engine, then you are indexed.  If it says no page exist by that name, then you are not indexed.

 We are only concerned with the top three search engines: Google, MSN and Yahoo, (although Yahoo may be consumed by Bing in the next few years so I’ve heard).   However Google is THE search engine you want to please because they process the most queries.

 If you type in “How to Make Money Online” on the Google search bar, it will search through all the pages it has indexed from all the sites it crawls everyday, then gives you a list of the most relevant sites to that phrase.

 Google has developed algorithms to determine relevancy based on things like page content, the volume of content, keywords, the age of the site, page rank and relevant back links.

 Let’s go over what Google thinks is relevant.

 

Content

 Google likes to see unique or original content. If you want to get indexed fast, use only original material on your blog. Do not copy and paste from other sites or you may not get indexed, plus it may be copyright infringement.

 

Amount of Content

 Search engines like a lot of content, the more pages you have the better.  So keep adding pages to your site and the search engines will crawl it more often and your site will get listed more often when your keywords are queried. The more articles you write, the more information the search engines have to work with to list your site under. If you write only one article on a subject containing four hundred words or so, you probably can’t give all the pertinent information that needs to be given that one might want to know about that subject. By writing several articles on that subject, you can cover all the information pertaining to it.  Plus you will be adding more key words for the search engines to find.

 

 Keywords

 Keywords are very important in telling the search engines what your site is about, so they can list it in the proper category. If someone is doing a search on racing tires, Google will give them a list of pages pertaining to that subject. As I wrote in a previous article, if you are selling racing tires on your site, you had better have “racing tires” in your page title, post titles and through out your article a few times, this way the search engines will know what your site is about and what you are wanting to promote and sell.

 In my next article I will talk about the relevancy of the age of a site, page rank and back links.

 Until next time, take care,

     Jamie

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Search Engine Optimization-Long Tail Keywords

Posted by Jamie on August 17th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

This my second article on SEO or Search Engine Optimization. In the first I touched base on Keywords and the importance of them. This discussion will take them to the next step, which is Long Tail Keywords.

Long tail keywords are really phrases that have at least three or more keywords in them. When a website wants to be more specific about their product or service, they can and should, use long tail keywords to describe what their webpage is about. In this way, you can be more specific in a search engine and on search engine results pages.  Long tail keywords draw less traffic, but tend to draw more quality traffic which leads to more sale conversions.

If a website is selling tires and has different styles and varieties of them, and someone is just surfing the web and types in “tires” in a search bar, the website may or may not come up on the first couple of search pages. But, if the website has a specific page dedicated to racing tires and a searcher types in “racing tires” in the search bar, there is a good chance they will show up on one of the first search pages. If the webpage has a specific brand of tires on it, and a searcher refines their search to this particular brand, they have a much greater chance of being on the first search page.

When a person has refined their search phrase to be this highly specific, they know exactly what they are looking to buy, and in most cases this will convert to a sale.

Long tail keywords will optimize your site by creating content to match the search queries, and will attract people who search for a particular product or service using similar search terms, which makes for better quality traffic.

Long tail keywords lead to a higher conversion rate, because when people land on your site through a multi-phase search query, they are more likely to make a purchase from you.

Your website can rank better on search engines using long tail keywords, because of weaker competition.

You get more targeted visitors to your website, which over time can lead to increased search engine traffic, because your pages will get indexed and ranked for specific phrases related to your website.

There are free keyword tools out there, which will show you the most relevant long tail keywords according to the search volumes that match your single keywords. Both Google and Yahoo offer these tools.

Until next time, take care.

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Search Engine Optimization-Keywords

Posted by Jamie on August 13th, 2009 | No Comments »

I wanted to talk a little bit about SEO or search engine optimization, specifically Keywords.  Truthfully, making money on the internet is not that easy, at least not at first. And it certainly has not been easy for me! This is the way it began for me.

Some how I opted in on a mailing list (I think it was my wife), and got an e-mail saying they would give me 10 web pages from Click Bank for a few bucks and register me on search engines, then I’d be on my way to making millions.  Well the money never came in, and I’m not even sure where those sites are now. So what happened?

Well, you can have the best website out there, but if no one knows it’s there, you’re dead in the water, in a huge ocean with man eating sharks! The experienced internet marketers will eat you alive and Google will bury you so deep even the worms won’t find you.

 This is where SEO or Search Engine Optimization comes in. In other words, getting traffic to your site. There are many tricks to this and I’m still learning what they are. But I will try to pass on what I learn. 

 The first thing is your key words.  Keywords are the words people type into a search box when they’re looking for something online. The search engine uses the keywords to decide which web pages to deliver in the results pages. That’s why keywords are crucial to your online marketing – use them in your web site copy and you can rank well on Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other search engine, ignore them and your pages will rarely be found. This tells the search engines what your site is about, ie; making money online, search engine optimization, training your dog, etc. It is always best to have these in your URL title if possible and through out your pages. Over 80% of all online transactions begin with a keyword search!  To compete, you need to target all the relevant keywords.

 If you are writing an article, your first paragraph should be a summary, and include your primary and secondary keywords. I have found putting keywords in bold letters may let the Google bot find them quicker.  You may not want to do this to every word,  every time it’s mentioned though, because this can be annoying to the reader.  

There is a lot more to this subject, as my research continues, I’ll provide more information.  There are programs out there that can help you, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Good Keywords, Keyword Spy, and others, a good search would be “keyword tools”, and see what comes up.  Just remember, an understanding of Keywords plays a major part in Search Engine Optimization.

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