I've been in Winnipeg for the past couple of weeks and in between taking care of some Lodge business I spent the best part of a day tutoring an old friend in the art of making money online. I've known Jim for about 15 years - he's a mechanic and travels north every few months to work on various pieces of heavy equipment. He is an avid car buff and rebuilds old cars in his spare time. This led him to join several internet communities who shared his passion which then led him to start his own website which led him to learning that some people could make money with a website which led him to start searching for methods in which to do so which led to him finding a blog that explained the process. In Jim's words "I spent 3 days reading the blog before bothering to see who the writer was - I clicked the about page and fell off my chair - it was YOU!"
This has happened frequently over the past year. I have tried to separate my Lodge business from my online business but more and more friends from the "real" world have been coming across this blog and while they don't know me by my online nick name (I got it years ago when I bar tended my way through University) they quickly put it together when they see the about page. Unfortunately this is something I was hoping to avoid. Let me explain.
I spent most of yesterday sitting in the airport waiting on plane delays (weather related) and finally took a peak at my mountain of emails that have accumulated over the last two weeks. As usual there were a few that I wish I had read in a timely fashion. (Court, Monika, Chanya, Frank - sorry, will be getting back to you today) The rest can be categorized as follows; people asking me to review their blog, people asking me to JV with them, people asking to advertise on this blog, people writing really nice comments about how my blog has helped them and not asking for anything (thank you all), people wanting to trade links, people asking to pay me to mentor them and of course the usual spam. There are also a fair number asking me why their blog isn't ranking well on Google without supplying me with all the pertinent info.
Having spent a day with Jim I learned a great deal. He reminded me of just how confusing this whole MMO biz is and gave me an appreciation of just what beginners are facing these days. I confess that I have lost touch with a beginners point of view as it has become a fairly easy game for me. Bruce who runs a work from home blog asked me on the Affiliate Academy forum a few weeks ago about this very issue;
Bruce's comment
You always make it sound simple but I am questioning what I am missing and probably others are missing as well or everyone would be succeeding like you are.
I worked hard and was seeing some real nice results up until about a month and a half ago. I was a happy camper as I was solidly on page one of Google for a handful of terms and getting more and more search traffic.
I've mentioned this before but now the bottom has come off and I am way down to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th pages if at all for most of my terms. It started and has continued where I would take two steps back (in the rankings) and then one step back up. Over and over until I am where I am now. (talking about my main blog only here)
I have done nothing differently to my knowledge to start this downfall and so I am wondering how someone like you (or anyone) can have such spectacular success. I have now gotten out of AMA and deleted all my articles so that no more will be published but this all started way before that.
This is my big question: Is it the quality of your links? I have to think that your ability to get better links than most is a very important factor in your success. You write with the best of them but it seems that your SEO can only take you so far.
Bruce's comment has stuck with me and after working with Jim I've mulled this issue over a great deal.
Why does this seem so simple to me and not to others?
Put the coffee pot on and I will tell you all a story.
When I started online web 2.0 didn't exist. Social Media didn't exist. I started out knowing from day 1 that if you are going to make any money online you needed a steady stream of traffic and the only way to get that traffic is with Google.
I have never changed my position on this. Google is still and always has been the best source of traffic online. Social media showed up and everyone jumped on it because it is easy to get traffic using social means. The problem is that social traffic is sporadic, requires hours and hours of work to maintain and in the end it doesn't convert well into money. You have all heard this from me before but in spite of this almost everyone of you still chases it and this is your downfall.
I had several emails informing me of yet another list of "Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs" that doesn't have me included on the list. My readers like to rib me about such things and I must have a hundred emails asking why I am not on the former 45n5 list. The fact is that these lists are part of the problem - many of you are trying to get on these lists and that's because at the heart of the matter you are a blogger looking for recognition from other bloggers. You want to be the next Problogger and spend all your time trying to get attention from other bloggers thinking this is the road to making money. Well yes it is a road but you have no idea about just how much traffic you need from the social arena before any serious advertising offers show up.
Do you realize that most large advertisers won't even look at you if you aren't pulling in at least 250,000 unique visitors a month? Do you have any idea of how much traffic that is? That's 8300 visitors a day - every day. That's 350 visitors every hour or almost 6 visitors a minute - every minute of every hour of every day.
You think that stumbleupon or digg or making a top 100 list or commenting on blogs is going to get 6 visitors a minute to your site month in and month out? And now the harsh part (and I don't mean to insult) you think that your site is so unique and interesting that 250 thousand people will keep coming back to read it. Okay - so you realize that maybe you aren't the most talented and interesting writer so you resort to gimmicks like starting a Top 100 list in hopes that people will spread the word and maybe even use your Badge and send you links. Or you will run a contest. Or you will give away a free ebook to pad your RSS numbers. Or you will come up with any number of tricks or treats to get people to your site. And then they are gone...
Perhaps the hardest thing to realize is that you aren't talented enough to capture 250k of readers based on your writing alone. Let's face it - if you are an exceptional writer word will get out and you will eventually have thousands of followers without you having to chase them down. Think about that. If you need contests and lists to keep people coming back then maybe you aren't producing value that will do it naturally.
But Griz - social media gets me links.
Sure it does - for your name or blog name. All useless. Ranking in Google for your name won't get you traffic.
Yes many of you finally understand the power of keyword anchored backlinks but you are trying to get them using social media.
And that is your downfall. You are at heart a blogger and not an internet marketer. You want to rank on Google but wouldn't it be nice to combine that with becoming well known.
I spend zero time using social media - okay, I have stumbled a few friends blogs in the past and tried everything half assed just to see what the fuss was about but always toss these networks to the side.
I do one thing and one thing only - I study Google.
I experiment constantly while you guys are socializing. I don't read about SEO from others - I learn it first hand. I have developed a system that while changing as G changes still proves to be the most effective way to make money online with the least work involved.
The first rule I have is focus on the task at hand - making money. Toss your dreams of becoming famous out the window as it will simply sidetrack all your efforts.
Find a Niche
Yes I slap up hundreds of blogs to test the waters with but I do have a general system in place in order to find the best niches.
I always start with the goal of making money from Adsense. Why? Because it is the largest advertising network in the world. 5.5 billion in sales last quarter - 1.7 billion in profit. Google has a 67% share of search traffic and is by far the biggest source of traffic online. All the social media sites combined don't handle any where near the daily traffic that Google does.
If you want to make money online then go with who provides the most traffic and use the largest advertiser. In this case Google just happens to be both. A no brainer.
How I do It
I look for niches that can provide me with at least 1000 visitors a day. I didn't say keyword - I said niche.
I look for niches that have enough keywords to provide me with 1000 visitors a day.
I want a niche that lets me build keyword rank in ascending order from least competitive to highly competitive. (I will show you what I mean below)
I want a niche that is competitive.
I want a niche that has lots of Adsense advertisers.
I want a niche that allows me to write long rambling posts.
An Example
Make Money Online
Just for the hell of it let us pretend I could possibly dominate a niche dominated by such well known bloggers as Darren Rowse, Shoemoney, John Chow and the rest of the A-List. And just for a lark let us pretend I could do it using a free Blogger Blog that looks like crap. Why - well maybe if I did people might catch on that you don't need a fancy looking site like the experts claim and that you don't really have to spend money on hosting either. Yes - a bold claim I know. Some people might even figure out that nothing makes people click on Adsense ads better than an ugly site.
So if I was to take on this task how would I do it.
First off I would target a long tail keyword that contains all my shorter competitive keywords in the long tail.
I would use a variation of the long tail for my URL.
example
"How to Make Money Online for Beginners" - my long tail
makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com - my URL
or
"How to Learn Knitting for Beginners"
or
"How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies for Beginners"
These are all examples of killer long tails. Why? Because they contain "How to" and "Beginners" in them. One term "How to" is used by people looking for information. I use "Beginners" because people will notice it in the serp's and click on your site because they are likely beginners looking for info on "How to" do something. And they contain my prime and secondary keywords as well. Let me show you.
How to Make money Online for Beginners - least competitive. A Long Tail
How to Make Money Online - more competitive. A secondary keyword.
How to Make Money - very competitive. 50,000 searches. A secondary keyword.
Make Money Online - extremely competitive. 27,000 searches. A secondary keyword.
Make Money - really extremely competitive. - 200,000 searches. A secondary keyword.
Money - the big Kahuna - 3.3 million searches last month. The prime keyword.
This niche also allows for literally hundreds of related keywords that you can rank well for and though the traffic might not be much for any particular term they all add up.
Here is a list of some of them.
(Click Images to Enlarge)
Btw - Statcounter is a huge site - millions of visitors. Notice how he monetizes his site? Notice how Technorati monetizes their site? Check out most of the big sites and ask yourself why they use Adsense to earn money? Because it pays better than anything else online...
So - that's how I would plan my site.
Next, while you folks start stumbling and digging and leaving comments to and fro, I get down to the task of building backlinks. Real backlinks. Backlinks that contain my keywords. Backlinks that are contained in posts on other sites. Not sidebar. Not in the do-follow comments. In the posts! And they don't just point to my home page - they vary to all my pages. And they don't just contain my main keyword or main keyword phrases - they contain terms like the list you just read on my stat counter page. They don't appear in bunches - they show up regularly, consistently and continuously.
This is a long slow process and it doesn't get me on those "Top 100" lists and Darren Rowse doesn't send me any link luv but I do start getting search traffic. A little at first when I rank number 1 for my long tail.
Then a little more traffic shows up as I rank well for more terms.
Then a few more terms...
Then a few of the more competitive terms...
The big Kahuna... well actually I don't rank at all for "Money". Yet... if it takes another year or two so be it - it will be worth it.
Now obviously no one in their right mind would set out to take on a competitive niche like Make Money Online using a free ugly blogger blog and hope to succeed against the likes of John Chow and company... ;-) but if you actually focused on what matters (think anchored keyword backlinks) and spent your time gathering up those links then maybe you could just possibly dominate a not so competitive niche. And maybe just maybe you would look at this as a business and do what it takes to get those anchored links. And maybe just maybe you would set aside instant gratification and console yourself to making a not so bad income from Adsense a few years down the road instead of looking for money today.
Then again what the hell do I know about dominating a niche - let alone a competitive one. Maybe I should try and use a wordpress blog to make money instead... come to think of it - why just use one blog to dominate a niche. There are ten spots on Google's page one listings. Imagine the traffic.
Btw - this site doesn't get 250k uniques a month - it only averages 3 visitors a minute so the advertisers aren't lining up yet. Well that's not quite true - I do get a few requests as it seems the advertisers don't just look for social blogs with huge readership - they seem to find me because I rank on top of the serp's. Go figure. The thing is they don't want to pay me what I earn with Adsense so I'm not much interested.
Now all facetiousness aside. I have gone through everything I do online in my posts over the past few years. Does it work? Yes it apparently does. I'm not famous but I do make money at this game which was the whole point in the first place. Would I rather be Darren Rowse? No. He works too hard. I don't.
and that brings me back to Jim and all those who want me to tutor them.
I don't want to.
I used to manage a large Resort hotel and Golf Course. I had 13 Board of Directors and several hundred staff - all of whom made it their purpose in life to bother me. I made lots of money and hated every minute of it. I quit and bought a nice little Fishing Lodge in the middle of nowhere just so I could have some peace and quiet and not work for anyone else. I do what I want when I want and life is good. I started online just to while away my time and found it challenging. The internet was new (still is) and I wanted to see if I could make money on it. I succeeded beyond my expectations - well not really, I expect a lot but I have found my forte online and can duplicate it over and over.
Unlike the A-List and most of you I am not interested in selling you anything and this includes my time. Tutoring people for money means I am working for them and my time becomes their time. Not interested as quite frankly folks I don't need the money and don't want the responsibility of you not succeeding. I am more than happy to tell you all what I do for free and hope that a few of you catch on and succeed at this. Those of you who treat this as a business and spend your money and time wisely can do exactly what I have done. Those of you who just want to be bloggers will have a hard time gaining money or fame from your efforts as you tend to spend most of your time copying and following people that are selling something.
Learn the basics and you will find that everything else will follow. Get ranked on top of Google and you will find that not only do you make money but if your niche is a social one you will also gain readership, advertisers and hell maybe a little fame without ever having to waste time chasing it.
I'm not saying anything new here but I need to say it often as I get new readers every week who find my site while... yup, searching on Google. Invariably they write me and ask how to make money online. They don't want to read two years worth of posts and think I can send them back an answer in an email. I can't. If you are new here then start reading. Those of you who have been with me a while have another question - "How do we get those quality backlinks?". I have answered this privately on a few forums not available to the public. Most of you understand what I have told you but still don't know where to look. I have subtly left a trail in my sidebar and footer sections that will lead you to where you want to go. The lower they appear in my blog the least effective they are and that's as much as I will say about this in public. They will get you started but the most effective means is to get out there and contact the sites that can help you most. It is slow and tedious but that's how I have done it. One link at a time. I can be patient and wait a year or two to reap the rewards. Can you?
I hope this post doesn't come off badly as I do enjoy yakking with my readers but I have created a monster when it comes to emails and people looking for direct help. I simply can't get back to everyone - hell I can't even find the time to read all the mail never mind respond to it. In most cases your answers are already on this blog and you will have to look for them. Don't skip the comments - there is a goldmine of info in the comments and I will try and target the lesser asked questions in future posts. I feel a sense of guilt that this has become larger than I can handle and ask for your understanding if I don't get back to you.
Oh in response to not making those Top 100 lists - I'm on top of the only list that matters - Google's.
I suggest you get on top of Google's list as well and stop wasting time with anyone else's list.
Cheers
Griz
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