Events, Happenings & Cool Stuff

I’ve been seeing the ads all over the internet promising to show you how to get rich from Google. Unless you are extremely lucky, this will not happen.

Here is a copy of my latest check from Google. This was for an entire month, and you can see it is nothing to brag about.

This Months Google Check Brought Me In $234.00

On the other hand, who wouldn’t want a check for $234.87 a month? It’ll pay my electric bill or most of my car payment.

Last year when I was doing my taxes, my accountant said “Can I ask you how you get income from Google”? I laughed and said it’s hard to explain, but to be short it’s advertising. If you look close to the top right of this blog page you will see a block of Google ads. Excluding myself, every time somebody clicks one a get a portion of the money that the advertiser pays Google to display the add.

Depending on your niche, it’s tough to figure out what pays. If you keep an eye on your Google Adsense Campaign you can get an idea.

I write many blog posts about cars, so Google tends to throw car ads up there. They pay pretty good! Yesterday I made $10.49 from 10 clicks.

Yesterday's Google Adsense Earnings

Some good bloggers can make some cash when they find their niche. If they write good content they can develop some decent traffic and make a good living, but they will never tell you what their niche is. You must figure this out yourself.

I am in no way a professional writer as you can tell by my grammar, what I am is a keyword writer. I have a total of 10 blogs and about 20 websites, and I write only get traffic to my websites and client’s websites. Google, Yahoo and Bing just love fresh content.

Some bloggers don’t need seo because they write their own script to manage a Google Adwords account. What they do is bid on long tail keywords which cost about .10 cents a click, then when a user reaches their website there is advertising on there that will make $1.00 or so a click. So basically they paid .10 cents for your click but made a .90 cent profit when you clicked one of their ads.

My business partner for Showroom Logic wrote a script for us related to cars. We pay about .08 cents a click and most car dealers pay between 2 or 3 dollars per click.

So what I am saying is simple, their is no way you will make a living from 1 blog any time soon. You have to build a following and learn the tricks to viral marketing and such.

Do some Googling and read some forums, you will find that there is a lot of information out there. You just have to be careful who you listen to.

This morning, I posted a blog post on one of our California Used Car Blogs. The first thing I do when I finish a blog post is to Google  the Google Blog Search to make sure the post was indexed. (It always is, including this one). A true, self hosted Wordpress Blog with the right extensions is one of the most powerful ways to get listed in organic (free) search engine results from Search Engine Like Google, Bing & Yahoo.

This Post Was Indexed & Listed In 1 Minute On Google

As I stated above, normally I have to make a Google Blog search. I simply searched for “Automated Social Networking System For Car Dealers” and I found the post about 5 or 6 spots down on a regular Google search. Now, is this a good longtail keyword to rank on? Probably not. What I’m trying to explain is how fast this post was indexed by Google.

A true Wordpress Blog will “Ping” Google every time you publish a post. The Googlebot will instantly come crawl and index your site. I always Google my blog posts to be sure I don’t have any penalties. Another words, if I have a mature blog and I get indexed fast all of the time, it’s great. But if all of a sudden it doesn’t happen anymore than I may have a Google Penalty like duplicate content.

Please don’t think you can simply launch a blog today and this will happen. You have to prove yourself to the search engines first. Three basic things will point you in the right direction:

1. Buy Your Domain Name For At  Least 3 Years – If you only buy it for 1 year, you will be considered a spammer suspect. That’s what spammers do.
2. Get Links Pointing To Your Blog From Other Websites – I could write an entire book on what kind of links to get, but lets keep it simple. Links from Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.. have NO SEO Value, so they don’t count. Get real links from personal websites and some blog comments. Try to get listed in the DMOZ and other powerful directories.
3. Blog Frequently: Consider blogging about twice a week, and don’t be afraid to link to other articles and blogs. Google likes seeing that because that is what the internet is all about. It is a world wide web of links.
   

I run so many blogs I lost count, but I only do it for one reason: Traffic. Any website that I am directly affiliated with will have a blog. 30% of my traffic will come from that blog. It’s that simple.

For more information on a Wordpress Blog, visit wordpress.com.

Besides generating traffic and directing your traffic to other websites, you may want to throw some Google Adsense on there. If you look at the top right of your screen, you will see a block of ads from Google. Every time someone clicks a link I get paid anywhere from .10 cents to over $2.00. Do I make alot? No, but who doesn’t want a check from Google for $200.00 every month? Even my accountant asked me: “How do you get Google to Pay You” ?

Last 7 Days I Made An Easy 50 Bucks

Depending on your niche, backlinks to your website are getting harder to get. This is one of the most important factors in how your page will rank in Google, Yahoo and Bing Searches. You could have the “prefect website” when it comes to proper coding and URL Structure, but if you have no backlinks you will be a website with very little traffic.

I still see some major websites (especially in the car industry) loaded up with footer links, and I’ve know for at least 2 years how footer links lack quality. I’ve even been involved with some heated discussions on some SEO Forums about the matter.

Matt Cutts is the unofficial internet spokesman for Google, and he is the head of the Google SPAM team. Every now and then he posts a series of videos answering questions from webmasters all over the world. Today he cosigned my theory:

So where can you get good backlinks?

1) The best backlink you can get is from a website with relevant content to your website. I suggest you find a professional blogger and hire him or her to write a blog post for you. Usually they’ll give you 2 external links.

2) When obtaining backlinks from bloggers, they will ask you what your anchor text is. You want your anchor text to be something people search for. Like if I was to get a backlink to my used car website in Orlando, I would tell them to use that anchor. Note the link, it has my keywords in it.

3) DMOZ is a great backlink, but good luck getting in. There is rumors of corruption within DMOZ. All of the editors that approve and deny links are volunteers. Unfortunately many of them are your competition, so they will never let you in. just apply for DMOZ, move on and don’t hold your breath.

4) Yahoo Directory: This is a great backlink because a human approves you, so other search engines know you are not a spam site because you’re listed in there. Unfortunately it costs 300.00 a year.

5) Internet Directories: There are 10’s of thousands of internet directories out there. They don’t hold much weight, but it’s still a backlink. Work on submitting to 2 a day. It may take 2 months to get approved (unless you pay), but in a years time you will have over 700 backlinks.

There are a few things you should understand before you try to build backlinks:

1) Links with the nofollow tag doesn’t flow pagerank. It has been debated that they may hold a little weight, but Matt Cutts says they don’t at all. Watch This Video:

2) Javascript links do not pass juice, therefore you are wasting your time.

3) Don’t look like a “link farm”. Let’s take a nationwide car dealer for example. Let’s say you owned 500 dealerships all around the country. You may think you’re being slick by linking each dealership to each other. This could actually get you penalized. The reason? One of the factors search engines consider is who owns the domain name. If you visit whois.sc for each domain name, it will list the owner. If all of your domains are registered to one person or company, you are now an official link farm.

4) Links from your Facebook Account, Twitter and other Social Networking websites do not count as backlinks.