Search Engine Optimization Basics

How to Optimize your Blog for Google Search Listings

Search engine optimization begins by realizing that you don't want to optimize for the search engines (plural) - you really only want to optimize your blog for Google.

I have gleaned from my comments and emails that a few of you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by information overload. You just started a blog for the fun of it and in due course you started learning a bit about this and a bit about that and before you knew it you have opened Pandora's box. You all want to make money with your blog. You have found out that it isn't that easy. What's the biggest single hurdle everyone blogging faces?

How to Get Traffic.

Sure this is obvious but worth emphasizing - without traffic your blog is pointless and has no hope of making money.

Not just any traffic will do however. You need search engine traffic - Google's.

I am going to try and simplify things as much as possible. There is a lot to learn but most of it can be added later. There are a few basics that need to be applied right from day 1 and this is what I will concentrate on here.

Ranking Number 1 in Google

SEO boils down to two things.

1) On Page Search Optimization

2) Off Page Search Optimization

That's it - see simple.

On page optimization boils down to two things.

1) Blog Layout (URL, Blog Title, Description, Sidebar Headers and then all the crap thrown in to bugger up the blog's layout.)

2) Post Layout (Post Title, Post Header, Sub Headers, Post Content)

Off Page Optimization boils down to one thing.

1) Backlinks (Quality PR, site relevant, keyword relevant links)

I'll make this really simple. Let's pick a niche (a whole other can of worms not covered today). Let's say I want to rank well for the term "Search Engine Optimization".

Blog Layout

The ideal URL would be searchengineoptimization(dot)com.

My blog title would be "Search Engine Optimization".

My Sidebar would have SEO in the titles.

You are not likely to ever get the perfect URL but it is wise to make your keyword fit into it one way or another. It may be ugly but having it in the URL makes a difference when it comes to highly competitive niches.

You can rank well without it but the top spots usually go to sites who have the keyword in the URL. See below (click to enlarge).



If you ignore Wikipedia the top ranking sites use the keyword and the rest don't. You can tell a lot about how Google ranks a page - in this case it is assuming I want information about SEO more than I want to hire an SEO company. The listings show two information based sites on top and the SEO companies fill in the rest of the list. Wikipedia is number one because it is not monetized. Google almost always ranks a non-monetized site higher in the serps when all other factors are equal.

Regardless of the URL you must use your Main Keyword in your blog Title and variations of your main long tail keywords in your description. Ideally you want only keywords in the Title and as much as possible in the description. See how my Title and description is set up below.



If you can create sidebar titles with your keywords used prominently great but not critical.

That's all there is to optimizing your blog's layout. Really.

The Google bot crawls your page from the top left, down the left column, then top second column and ends at the lower right corner of your page. It is looking for information in the form of text or html. It doesn't read javascript or images without alt tags.

It only wants to know one thing - what your page is about as specifically as it can.

When the bot visits my page it reads in order; my URL, Blog Title, Blog Description and then the post title, Content header, content sub headers, the content using LSI which means it can tell if your main keyword is backed up with lots of relevant content (long tail keywords) in the actual post, links, comments, and then the rest of the crap on my page.

Nowhere between my URL and my comments does the bot run into a distraction - no HOME page link - no previous post links, no menus, no anything that doesn't scream what my blog is about. By the time it reaches my actual post, the bot reads "make money online" in my URL, my Blog Title and my Description. The bot knows exactly what my blog is about before it hits my post. This is SEO. Now humor me - read the first 3 things the bot sees on your blog. If it can't tell what your blog is about by the time it hits your post then you have a problem.

This is what the bot sees on most sites,

http://everythingabouteverything(dot)com

Welcome to Larry's Blog

Join with me as I post my thoughts on everything in the known universe.

How would you categorize this. If you can't do it neither can the bot and it will get filed under the search terms "Larry" "Blog" "Universe". Really.

Now the bot reaches Larry's post but not before it is sent off on a half dozen links pointing to Larry's favorite posts or an affiliate link or two - and recorded that the site might be about "home" "links" "contact us" and various other things - but no matter as it eventually reads Larry's post entitled "My Thoughts on Everything" and after reading the post the bot decides the post is about "Larry" and nothing much else. We won't know because it will never be found on the serp's.

If the bot has you categorized by the time it hits your post you are already outranking most of the people in your niche. You may be 750 in the serps but there are millions lower than that.

Post Layout

The post is a bonus. The bot has me indexed for my main keyword before reading my post. After reading the post the bot will have added a good many long tail terms to categorize my blog under as well. In todays post it will know that this post is specifically dealing with SEO. The post title and 1st paragraph took care of that. Go back and read it - you can't help but know what my post is about and neither can the bot. This is SEO.

Does your last post tell the bot what your post is about in one paragraph - specifically? If it doesn't you have a problem.

If it has to decipher a post with lots of keywords but none of them are highlighted in bold or used as a header or heaven forbid not used in the title then your guess is as good as mine as to what it will or will not index the post under. It will usually pick the keyword used the most - not necessarily the keyword you wanted.

The remainder of your post should concentrate on using as many related keywords as you can to your Post Title's Keyword. These are known as long tail keywords. Don't just repeat the main keyword.

Most blogs who know what they are doing pick a keyword for the post title and one longtail in the content. This is correct if you write short posts. I like writing epic posts (duh - no kidding) and the reason is because I can stuff tons of related content into a long post. The benefit is that I get indexed for a lot of terms this way without having to write a lot of posts. Either way is fine.

I have had people say to me that they don't want to write such contrived posts - they want to write naturally. If the post looks contrived maybe you aren't a very good writer. I've stuffed the crap out of this post - does it feel contrived to you or is it natural flowing?

Reading this post can you spot all the keywords I will be indexed for?

Let's see...

Search engine optimization
How to Get Traffic
Ranking Number 1 in Google
On Page Search Optimization
Off Page Search Optimization
Blog Layout
Post Layout
Backlinks
SEO

and then a bunch of other terms like Page Title, Post Title etc.

The more terms I get indexed for the more traffic I get. Simple. Really.

And that's all you need to know about Post Layout. Again... Really.

An aside...

Do you know how much flak I get for using a free blogspot.com blog?

"What could he know - he's using a free blog. Hahaha!"

I know this - they rank really well on Google's search index. Most people assume this is because Google owns blogspot.

Nope.

It's because the out of the box layout of most templates are perfectly optimized for Google. Remember the first three things the bot sees? This template makes it impossible to screw things up. Wordpress self hosted blogs can be optimized just as well as this one but that's not what happens. People want them to look pretty and end up screwing them up with one snazzy plug in after another. All the crap you add for your readers just confuses the issue for the bot.

If you want to make money online then you have to forget about readers. You aren't looking for readers (in most cases) you are only interested in traffic. This is niche marketing.

Before anyone asks - yes you can get a "pretty" wordpress blog ranking well in the serps. Absolutely. Optimized content and titles can overcome crappy layout but you may not outrank the perfectly optimized competitor. Less is more in SEO. The easier you make it for the bot to categorize your blog and your posts the better.

Keep it simple - everything on your site that doesn't scream out your keywords is just fluff and isn't necessary. One Exception - Always have an "About Us" or "Contact" section. This tells Google that your blog is likely a legit site. Splogs don't leave calling cards.

This is long enough for today. I will cover Backlinks next post.

One last thing.

If you are starting a new blog - do not monetize it. I will explain further next post.

Everything I have just told you is exactly the way this blog is optimized. No secret tricks. Does it work? It may be ugly but there are only 10 other sites outranking me for the term "make money online" as I write this. You decide.

One more last thing... use your main keyword, in my case, search engine optimization , in your last sentence of each post. Just a little reminder for the bot as it heads off to read all the crap.

The biggest mistakes affiliate marketers make

If you are new to internet Affiliate Marketing, the whole thing can seem too good to be true. A real home based business that make you more then enough money to live on and you don’t even have to bother with products or shipping. Many new affiliate marketers simply jump into the online business without properly researching it first and end up frustrated and angry that they aren’t making big time money within the first few days. Here is a quickie guide to common mistakes that affiliate marketers make and how you can avoid them.

Patience is the key to success
You must be patient! For even the best affiliate marketers, it takes time to build a customer base and traffic to your site(s). The people that are legitimately making $10,000 a month and more in Affiliate Marketing spent years getting to that level, not days or even months. For some that are new to the trade, it seems like that level of success is an overnight thing, but it isn’t. Once you pick an affiliate program, after researching it ahead of time, of course, you need to stick with it. You should change your content on a regular basis, update your site weekly, add in some holiday-themed pages and make sure you stay up to date on product information from your parent company, but the most important thing to do is to simply stay the course. If you jump ship after a month, the chances of your Affiliate Marketing site taking off are slim to none.

Focus on a few programs first
The second big problem that many affiliate marketers fall prey to is subscribing to too many Affiliate Programs at once. By doing this, it makes it very hard to provide top-level page design and content relating to all of these programs at once. You should only subscribe to two or three programs at once and work on a few sites. This will allow you to give these programs your laser-like focus so you can turn them into money makers sooner rather than later. Don’t start too many projects at once or you can end up throwing in the towel. Make sure that you are always leaving yourself enough time to handle your projects properly, otherwise your work will begin deteriorating. Focus on quality first and leave your big ideas for later or you will end up with hundreds of unfinished, low quality sites. Patience is, again, very important. It may seem like the best way to go is to load up your site with two dozen Affiliate Marketing sites but there is little chance that will make you any money. If your site is focused and well maintained, you’ll be in much better shape.

You must realize that you can’t do EVERYTHING. The vast majority of mistakes that new affiliate marketers make are ones out of inexperience. They want to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible. What they don’t realize is slow and steady wins the race. Dedication, patience, hard work and focus are the best friends of affiliate marketers.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate Marketing has quickly become one of the most popular and the most effective ways to advertise on the Internet. The premise of Affiliate Marketing is very simple.

Affiliate Marketing is a “pay for performance model” in which an affiliate webmaster is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, or sale provided through his efforts. The affiliate earns a commission based on a certain value for each exposure (CPM), visit (Pay per click), new customer (Pay per lead), sale (Pay per sale or Revenue Share Percentage). So, basically, an affiliate webmaster works on promoting a product or a service from the Affiliate Programs of his choice. The affiliate webmaster usually uses text links, banner ads, articles and other promotion methods on his own website in order to send traffic to the website he is promoting.

A company, let’s say eBay, goes to another web site and asks them to place a banner or link to eBay on their site. Every time a user clicks on that eBay banner and visits the site, the owner of the original site (the webmaster) gets a commission. In this particular example, the affiliate has been paid on a “Pay per click” basis. It’s as simple as that.

The history of Affiliate Marketing goes back to approximately 1994 with the trailblazing music website www.CDNow.com. They were, as far as most people know, the first site to pay other sites for directing Internet traffic to them. Internet giant Amazon.com soon caught on and became the site most associated with Affiliate Marketing. Today, the practice of Affiliate Marketing is used by essentially every major web site in the world.

Why Affiliate Marketing?
One of the reasons that Affiliate Marketing has proven to be so popular is that it is completely based on performance. In most cases, the company doing the advertising doesn’t pay a single penny to the site that is carrying their ad unless there is evidence that Internet traffic has been driven to the advertising site. There are, however, other ways of doing Affiliate Marketing.

Some advertising sites have paid the site hosting their link based not on the number of times an original IP visits through the link, but on the number of times the banner ad was “seen.” This method presents a whole host of problems since things like hit counts can be forged and there is no way to insure that just because someone visited a web page that had your logo on it that they even saw it or if they did, that they even knew what it was.

Other methods of Affiliate Marketing include paying only when a link is followed AND some kind of transaction takes place. This can be tough on the site hosting the link because the attention span of the average Internet user isn’t long enough in most cases to follow a link and then either complete a purchase, or fill out a form of some kind. The conventional method simply pays a host a commission for every time an original IP is directed to their site.

In a matter of only a few years, Affiliate Marketing has become one of the most cost effective ways to drive traffic to a site. Since, in most cases, both the advertiser and the host profit from the set up, there is no reason to believe that Affiliate Marketing won’t be a dominant advertising method well into the future.

Make Money Online - Two basics for a successful website

We are all dreaming of financial independence and one way of achieving this is to work at home as an online marketer. If you want to make a lot of money online without ever having to put on a suit and tie and going to the office, there are two important things you need to know about Affiliate Marketing. The two basics that you can combine to really power a successful website in order to make money online : content and links.

The first thing you need to keep in mind at all times about Affiliate Marketing is: content is king. You must know how to write your own articles and how to come up with quality and effective website content. Getting people to look at your website is not that hard but to keep them returning to your website is not an easy task. Making them read more than a couple of lines is a bit harder because most of the people reading online articles have extremely short attention spans. It only takes a second for your reader to click away from a website.

The second most important thing is to gain links that point to your site, which will bounce you up in search engine ratings. Make sure the links are always from web pages that focus on the same topic as the articles they point to, otherwise you are going to lose points with the search engines and that should be avoided at all costs. It could take months for a webmaster to gain a significant amount of relevant links on other websites but increasing your link popularity is a very important step for great search engine rankings.

Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing:
Choose a niche market to promote, identify some topics and start writing articles. It’s very important to select an affiliate program based on a subject that you are personally interested in or you’ll have a hard time to come up with new ideas for your articles. Get at least 10 articles up on your website, get links for every one of them and then keep an eye out on your stats and see if people like them or not. Come back later and re-read your articles to see if your writing style is really crystal clear and if the ideas stand out from the text and are easy to grasp by anyone.

Keep writing as much as you can and in a short while you will notice that your site is getting a lot of attention and traffic because of the original content. Marketing campaigns and flashing banners are nice, but you don’t need them. Just write articles and get links. Then write more articles and get more backlinks. Repeat this until your website becomes a mandatory stop for people who want to be well-informed on the topic you’ve chosen. Establish yourself as an expert! The links and surfer clicks will give you good ratings and the original content will make you unique.

Write good articles and put in plenty of keywords related to your niche because if your website does not contain related keywords, surfers will be unable to find your site in search engines. Make sure the links to the merchant website stand out and get other websites to link to you. Solid backlinks from other related websites and original content are what drive many of the search engine spiders. Write several articles per week to update your site and as more and more people find your site via the search engines, your ranking will go up.

These are just a couple of the internet Affiliate Marketing fundamentals that you need to do in order to become a successful affiliate marketer. Sounds too simple? Well, it sort of is simple, but not as simple as you’d expect. What you need to do is to write good articles with useful informations for your potential customers. Good, keyword rich, content is the best way to drive traffic through search engines and it gives the visitor a reason to keep coming back to your website. For a realistic strategy to making money online, visit http://www.makingyouricher.com. This online marketing program covers a lot of Affiliate Marketing fundamentals.

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Ways on How to Maximize Your Profits and Affiliate Sales

Any marketer knows very well that there are dozens of ways to advertise a product, any product. It’s not a big deal to come up with an idea that has a good chance of catching the eye of some surfer and get him to click on your affiliate links.

The real problem is to come up with something that makes surfers click through and actually buy something, because this is what puts money in your pocket. Nevertheless, affiliates are not in control of the conversion process, since this is the job of the merchant website, and the only thing you should focus on is to find the top selling products and the best places to advertise them. Some Affiliate Programs offer live stats on the testimonials page so you can make up your mind about what you want to promote and where by spotting the top selling products.

There are lots of places to promote products and maximize your sales. Like chat rooms. Go on the popular chat programs and join the conversation if the topic borders on the things you are trying to sell or start a conversation yourself. Just be polite, be on topic and push your products in an honest and non-offending way. Don’t rush in yelling: “LOOK Y’ALL WHAT I’VE GOT HERE!” This will only get you banned.

If you think the company ads aren’t creative enough, or if you have specific information about your target customers, then feel free to adapt existing ads or write new ones from scratch. Nobody’s forcing you to go with an ad that could be improved.

Or write an e-book about the problem that the product you’re selling is designed to solve and present the said product as a very good solution. Put the e-book on your website and invite everybody to download it free of charge. People like freebies and will certainly welcome the chance to become informed without paying anything. Submit it to free e-book directories in order to reach more people.

People need to know that a product is actually working before they decide to buy it. If you’ve tried the program yourself, then write about your experience and a personal endorsement. Let everybody know what kind of benefits they can expect from using the product.

Maximize your chances by subscribing to more than one affiliate program and list all the links on your website on a directory page. Advertise your directory far and wide and then you may have affiliate networks trying to get your attention in order to be listed with the existing ones. Submissions are good, so accept every request.

Create your own signature file. Use a spiffy headline that’s bound to grab attention, talk about the product you’re promoting and keep everything simple and to the point. If the text is longer than five lines, nobody’s going to bother to read it, so take care.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to advertise products to reach wider audience on the Internet, because the Internet is nothing else but communication. All that you need is to feel free to mix and combine promotion techniques to suit your product and your view of how marketing should be done: E-book promotion, article writing, blogging, SEO , etc…

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