Want to know which blog theme will earn you the most money?
It's a common question on most web related forums - "What blog should I make to get the highest income?". Often the response involves focussing on keywords related to insurance, attorneys, health, and medicine. So what next?
From the information provided, most people go on to creating a blog focussed on one of the keywords mentionned above. They copy/paste or rewrite articles found on Google or Wikipedia, then sit back and relax.
A week or so later they check their Adsense earnings. $0? Fair enough, it is a fairly new blog, so they add a few more articles or try to keyword-stuff their own random, uneducated attempts. They also submit their link to search engines and online directories, maybe even covering some basic search engine optimisation.
Another week goes by...
Maybe a click or two? Some people are just lucky. For those who aren't, don't worry! You're only about $0.13 behind. Time for some more link building?
A month or so later...
... and another view of your dissapointing account balance.
"Fine, I give up!"
So HOW do I make money on my Blog!?
It's simple, Stop focussing on your earnings!
It probably sounds like I've lost my mind completely, but here me out.
A blog is nothing without users. A constant flow of traffic (both new and returning visitors) makes your blog "healthy". Focussing on them and quality content is what will make your blog successful.
From having quality/unique content, other blogs, websites, and social bookmarking sites will link to you, further increasing your traffic levels, potential returning visitors, and your search engine results position.
So how do you provide this content? It's easy, focus on a topic that interests you!
Blogging on a topic you have a passion about will help you through those hard, early days where getting noticed can be a bit of a struggle. But, once you begin to get a following, place adverts in subtle yet high-income visual positions (such as the top of the page, at the beginning of an article, or just above the comments etc).
With a reliable constant flow of incomming traffic (and returning visitors), there is a higher chance of your adverts being clicked upon, with a greater number of (advert) page impressions.
So, don't focus on high paying keywords, focus on blog users and content. Doing so will in effect gain you more traffic, exposing more of your adverts, giving YOU a greater chance of earning money from your blog.
Tuesday 26 June 2007
The Best Blog Niche for Making Money
Friday 22 June 2007
10 Tips to Optimise your Web Page
The SEO Checklist for your Website
To rank well in search engines, submitting your site to directories is not enough. Sure it will increase your Google PageRank, but to appear in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) you need to optimise your pages.
So, here is a list of 10 things you can do to optimise your web pages:
- Research Keywords - Whilst this involves no coding, it is the place to start. Without this first step it is extremely difficult to optimise your pages. You need to understand which words you need to highlight and cover in your content in order to be listed in SERPs.
- Original Content - Copying someone else's content is easily done, but apart from breaking copyright law it also harms your PageRank/search result listings. Try to write your own articles to stand out from the crowd and also give web users a reason to visit you, rather than a page with the same content as numerous other websites.
- Sufficient Text - Try to aim for a minimum of 200-500 words in order to give your page some weighting. Anything less is likely to be pushed to the back of the que in SERPs.
- Unique Page Title - Along with unique content, this is one of the highest priority factors in Google's search algorithm. Give each page a unique title and try to include atleast one of your selected keywords.
- Unique META Description - Popular search engines such as Google tend not to give much weighting to META data. However, it is highly recommended that you still include it as it's not officially declared that META data is completely ignored and is still used in lesser known engines. Describe the page, but try to keep under 200 words.
- Unique META Keywords - Try to stick to relevant keywords for each page. Again, try to limit the amount of words you enter.
- Placement of Keywords - Make sure you enter your most important keywords in the first and last paragraph of your page text. Ideal placement would be header text and summary/conclusion. Ensure that the keywords are entered in a way that a user can read logically.
- Keyword Repetition - You should try to frequently include your chosen keywords (or variations of each word). Again, keep the text so as it flows in a logical manner and avoid "keyword stuffing" at all costs!
- Emphasizing Keywords - Use bold text, bullet points and headings to emphasise your keywords. This helps search engines focus on which are most important.
- Image Tags - As search engines cannot read images, add "Alt" and "Title" attributes to each of your images. Include keywords in the description but try to keep it short.
And there we have it, 10 things to take into account when trying to optimise your web pages.
Please note that whilst you need to emphasise your keywords in text, titles, images and headers; avoid spamming techniques by all means as they will have your site peanalised by the search engines.
Thursday 21 June 2007
Submit Your Site to 380+ Directories for Free!
Todays find is a great piece of free software called Directory Submitter, released a couple of weeks ago by Brad Callen, the guy who produced SEOElite. Unlike most software solutions out there, Directory Submitter doesn't automatically submit your site. Instead, you create a "Project".
Each project contains your website, title tags, keywords, description, and contact details. The software is able to list each directory by a range of options. The most useful probably being Google PageRank.
On the version I tested today, the max PageRank site is 6, followed by about 20 at 5, and loads at 4, continuing down (eventually) to 0.
Once you select your chosen directory (individually) it opens the page within the software's inbuilt web browser and fills in all the details for you (according to your selected project information), leaving you to enter any visual verification text and the category your site falls into.
Due to this method of registering your website, directories will not (or should not be able to) list your site as a spam attempt. The only automation is field text, everything else is manual meaning your method abides by what is generally seen as the "legal way to submit a link".
So whilst it is still time consuming, it will save you significantly more time than if you were to do this process entirely manually, and atleast this way you know it's not risky like the automated bot submissions.
This is a highly recommended product.
Monday 18 June 2007
Safari Browser now on Windows PC
Windows users now get to use Apple's Safari Web Browser on their PCs.
The browser currently comes in the form of a public beta, and is freely available on the apple website (The file size is around 14-15MB).
Apple claim that their browser is the fastest out there, with a few charts comparing it against Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. The figures certainly look nice, but how does it really compare in use? Well, I decided to download it and check it out.
After a very smooth and simple installation I was presented with a very nice looking browser. Sure, it looks a little out of place in the windows world, but I like variety, and it looks very clean. I'm not quite sure how my screen resolution holds up against everyone else's setup, but I'm confident in saying that it's pretty damn good.
My first port of call was my own website. Two things about the site were instantly noticable:
- The images look cleaner and sharper than ever before. I have no idea why.
- The bold fonts look blurry. Ew.
As for speed, I must say that the pages did load very quickly. This is pretty good as they tend to anyway on my 8MB connection. I wonder if anyone on a slower connection has witnessed any more noticable improvements in speed? You will have to comment.
For now I am quite impressed, and this should hopefully help in developing websites (if this browser renders websites the same as for its Macintosh users). As of yet I have not witnessed any bugs. Although it is worth noting that it seems to display JavaScripted elements a little differently to IE and Firefox. But, this is still the Beta phase, so maybe they will clean that up (or we need to clean up our code, lol!).
The privacy feature is also nice for those who worry about such things as logged sessions and cookies. It keeps all details nicely hidden which aids for safer browsing of dodgy websites.
I highly recommend you try out Safari, it's always nice to have alternatives. Definately download it if you do any sort of website development, as it's good to see how well scripted your CSS is.
I'm looking forward to the final release.
PS. If you have used this browser and come accross any of your own bugs, problems, or even improvements, please post them up here as I am interested in seeing how this goes. Thankyou.
Thursday 7 June 2007
Ask.com - New Look
I noticed earlier today that Ask.com has undergone a new look.
Well, I say new. This "look" has been available for quite some time under an alternative URL (filed under askx.com, with the project name Ask 3D).
After the recent "the other search engine" campaign I was curious as to where Ask were going next. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the answer. The new look is nice, and a modern step forward (in the right direction) from the old "Ask Jeeves" days (oh how I miss him). But the main thing I look for when using a search engine is to have results relative to the search query entered.
Within 5 minutes of experimentation I found links to sites that barely resembled what I was looking for, along with descriptions of pages which expired in January. Nice.
Ask has a strong competition. Not only from everyones favourite rival Google, but Microsoft and Yahoo too. Compared to these big boys, Ask lags way behind (in my opinion). There are some nice touches, and the apple inspired design is refreshing. However, this looks like a search engine I won't be using anytime soon...
Wednesday 6 June 2007
Google AdWords Traffic & Cost Estimator
Today I came accross a very useful tool for Google AdSense and Google AdWords users. Namely, the Google Traffic Estimator.
The results given in this tool include keywords/minimum bid, maximum CPC/predicted status, search volume, estimated average CPC, estimated ad positions, potential clicks per day and potential cost per day. All without the requirement of either signing up to AdWords or logging on.
It is worth noting at this point that the tool does not keep track of the history and various other settings/stats you are given when logged into the AdWords site, but it is still very useful for those who wish to check out the cost per click for the keywords they are attempting to target their webpages to.
