Hello again my friends! If you are just now finding us, you can very easily catch up by reading Internet Marketing 101- Blogging. I want to stress that this blog is written to provide beginners, quite possibly you, with a strong foundation on which to build an online marketing business so that you can continue to build your knowledge and increase your chances of making money online.
If you are like me and you are just starting out, I have a strong suspicion that you are very excited to get SOMETHING going but you are feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. Well my friend…..you just found your starting point.
By arming yourself with knowledge, especially structured knowledge, you can begin your journey to online success.
Did you know that there is a description for what you might be feeling right now?
Yep…..
I call it…..”Paralysis of Analysis”. This means you are literally paralyzed by all the overwhelming information you have read and you can’t bring yourself to dive in and start DOING something. For some it may be a fear of failure, fear of choosing the wrong path, fear of losing money…..the list could go on forever.
Here’s my answer to that…… JUST DO IT! Take each step as it comes. Absorb it, reread it many times, get familiar with it before moving on to the next step.
As I mentioned in the first lesson, the best and easiest place to begin is with your very own blog. As I explained…..it is a very simple way to get started. Remember…baby steps. If you take simple baby steps it all comes into focus and you start building on your knowledge without realizing it. It’s really amazing to see someone evolve in this industry.
The great thing about blogs is that they are free and they are an excellent way to learn the basics of online marketing without spending money to do it. Start with one blog and learn how to customize it using SEO techniques that we will cover as we move along.
To begin with…..our ultimate goal is to get YOUR BLOG indexed by Google. If you do this correctly, Google will eventually start sending traffic to your site. Some sooner than others based off of content.
How long does this take you might ask? It depends on many factors but I will generally say that CONTENT IS KING. Understand that this is not the only factor but it is very important. The more relevant, unique content you post on your topic/keyword, the faster Google will notice you.
Before we go any further, let's discuss a few key terms so you have a better understanding of what we are trying to accomplish.
Indexing - This term refers to the search engines. Quite simply…. Do the search engines know that your site exists? If they do then this means that you have been indexed by them. How can you tell? Just enter the URL of your blog into the search engine to see if it comes up in the search results.
For example, I would use http://internet-marketingguru.blogspot.com. If it says that no page exists by that name then you have not been indexed yet.
There are several different search engines as you probably know but we are only interested in the top three: Google, Yahoo and MSN. These 3 engines account for 75% of all search engine queries carried out on any given day with Google processing the most queries by far (about 50%).
The basics for how this works go like this…. If you go to Google and type in a query (search for) "how do beginners make money online", Google will search through all of the pages it has indexed in its system (read and recorded) from all the sites it continuously crawls on the Internet and it will present to you a list of the most relevant sites concerning your query (search term).
The brains at Google have come up with algorithms that determine relevancy based on several factors, such as things like page content, the age of a site, keywords, sheer volume of unique/original content, page rank and most importantly, relevant back links.
Now….let’s take a closer look at some of these factors……
Page Content.
Google REALLY likes unique content. You will get indexed a lot quicker if you use original material on your blog. If you copy and paste content found elsewhere on the Internet you won't get indexed very fast and usually not at all.
The age of a website or blog
The older the site or blog is, the better. This is not critical but Google will give older sites a much higher preference over new sites simply to eliminate all the spam blogs and sites that are created daily from dominating its index. This can be overcome with the proper technique.
Keywords
The term “keyword” simply refers to what your topic is. For instance, if I wanted some info on “make money online”, I would type in “make money online“ on Google and it would present me with a list of sites related to make money online. Google uses keywords to generate its search results. If you have a website or blog that discusses how to make money online and you have used this keyword enough times in your posts then Google will rightly assume that your website is about making money online. If you only used the keyword once while talking about money then Google will probably not use your site in its list for make money online but may decide that your site could be about the stock market instead.
Specific keywords and moderate use of them throughout your blog is very important for getting your site listed in the proper category. This is done by using your prime Keywords in your page titles, post titles and sprinkled a few times in your articles. Just know that it is very important NOT to use your keywords too many times as it will get you into trouble because Google will see your site as a spam blog and delete you from its index. The rule of thumb is that you want to use your keyword 6 or 7 times per one hundred words.
As a rule, keyword density should not exceed 6-7% of your total article. This is very important.
Content Volume
The more pages you produce the better. Search engines really like content. Good quality, original content and the more the merrier. If you keep adding pages to your blog or website, the search engines will crawl you regularly and your site will get listed more often when your keywords are searched.
Why?
Think of it this way. If you write just one article about a subject, how much info can you give in three or four hundred words? Sure you can get a lot of information across in a 300-400 article but you will also leave a lot of pertinent info out. The more articles you write the more content you give the search engines to list your site under. For example. if my site has a thousand pages on everything there is to know about making money online then I guarantee I will get listed for every query made about making money online. The more you get listed the greater your traffic will be and the more clicks your Adsense ads will get.
Page Rank and Back Links
Page rank is closely associated with back links. Google has devised a page ranking system that it uses to determine how important your pages are. For example, if you followed the first lesson then you have now created a blog on Blogspot.com. At present you probably only have one post on it after our exercise in the last post. Congratulations if you have been adding more content! You are a few steps ahead of the game!
However, it is highly unlikely that Google has found your blog already but if it has then you would be indexed for whatever topic you picked. Someone looking for your post using Google search would likely find your site listed a couple of hundred pages deep in the search listings. Heck, you might as well not be listed at all! I mean really…how many times have you searched past the 4th or 5th page for information when you were searching for something.
Ideally you want to be on the first page to get the most traffic to your site. To get on the first page you need, above all else, page rank and back links. Only the sites that Google deems as important get on the first page.
Let me explain this further.
Every site is ranked between 0 and 10. The higher the number the more important your site is. If your site is a 10 then I guarantee your site will be listed on the first page and without a doubt in the first few positions, if not the top position. Currently the new blog you set up probably has a ranking of 0 (zero). Content and the age of your site will gain you some ranking over time. If you do nothing else but post original content then you might get a ranking of 2 in a year from now, possibly sooner. A ranking of 2 will not get you much traffic. How can you speed up your ranking? Simple... get back links and get lots of them.
Back Links
So…..what are back links? Quite simply, they are links placed on other websites, blogs, forums or directories that connect people to your site. In other words, they are clickable links that point back to your site (called hypertext and usually blue and underlined). The theory is that the more sites that have links pointing back to your site, the more important your site must be. This makes perfect sense. If other sites are sending traffic to your site then you must be some kind of authority for your niche or topic. As a result Google will give you a higher page rank because of your importance. With a higher page rank your site will then get listed higher in the searches.
However….there are some rules to this. The back links that count must be relevant to your topic. If your site is about "horse shampoo" then links from pet sites and animal care sites are great. If you have links from a site like mine then Google will ignore the links because my site is in no way relevant to horse shampoo.
The page rank of the sites giving you links is very important. If you get 100 links from pet stores to your horse shampoo site but all the incoming links are from sites with o page rank then you might get a ranking of 1 or 2. If you get half a dozen links from relevant sites that have a page ranks of 5 or higher then you will end up being ranked at 4 or 5. If you can get a link from a page rank 7 or higher you will vault up the rankings quickly and the age of your site will not matter.
In my experience, you can get thousands of links from sites that have no relevancy to your site and this won't help you at all. With this in mind, I strongly caution you against using link exchanges or link farms. These types of links worked in the past but no longer since Google ignores them across the board. Plus….if Google catches you linking to sites that are not relevant to your site, you will be penalized and lose your ranking. This is how link exchanges work. People buy or sell links to anyone else regardless of relevancy. Steer clear of this!!
One last thing.... You will gain more from one way links. Lots of sites that are relevant to your site will trade links with you. They link to you and you link to them. This is called a two way link. Don't bother as this won't help you much. The exception would be if the other site has a high page rank. In this case go ahead but in reality high page rank sites only want links from other high ranking sites. They will not link to you unless there is an advantage for them. One way links are the best because Google sees them as a confirmation of your importance since they think that the other sites think you are important enough to give you a link without getting one in return.
The Google Sandbox
One more last thing... You may or may not of heard about the “sandbox effect”. When it comes to Google nobody really knows the full story on how they tweak their system. One of the most confusing programs they employ is the “sandbox”. This is a system that keeps your site off the charts for an indeterminate period of time. This is in order to stop spam sites from getting listed fast. A new site may sit in the sandbox for 6 months collecting quality back links and gathering lots of original content and still not get listed in the searches. Then one day, all of a sudden, you find that Google has suddenly recognized all the back links and quality content you have posted and bumps your site way up the charts.
Just remember…..This is normal so be patient and use the time to get good back links and keep adding content. Another thing to keep in mind is that it's normal to get listed in Yahoo and MSN long before you get any listings in Google.
Whew! We have already covered a lot, haven’t we?!
Well, sit back down because it isn’t over with just yet. Today’s lesson is actually pretty simple…..
Write an article about your Blog's subject matter and post it.
Here are your guidelines…..
- Shoot for a minimum of 400 words.
- Use your Keywords 24 times throughout the whole article.
- Use your Keyword in the Blog Post Title
- Use your Keyword in the first sentence.
Use your Keyword in the final sentence. - Try and Put your Keyword in Bold type at least once in the article - a sub headline is a good way to do this.
- Put your link in the link field so that the post links back to your site.
Your link is http://yourblog.blogspot.com - replace "yourblog" with your sites URL name. Mine would be http://internet-marketingguru.blogspot.com
Post your article on your Blog.
After you have finished on your Blog go to http://www.GoArticles.com
Select Submit/Edit an Article
Fill out the info to join GoArticles.com (It's free!!) and then I want you to rewrite your article leaving all your keywords the same but use synonyms for all the rest of the main words.
Note: Synonyms are words that mean the same thing as the original word. ie. "New" is a synonym for "Original". (I apologize if I am insulting your intelligence but some people really don’t know this)
I'm asking you to do this so that you have two articles that say the same thing but are written differently. You will post the second article on GoArticles.com. (It's very easy to do and the site explains how)
Why are we changing the articles like this??
In a word…..Google!
If Google finds duplicate articles, they will not index the pages that the articles are on. This way you will get your blog indexed. The GoArticle posting is what will get you those free and easy back links I was talking about earlier.
Before posting the second article, I have to show you how to embed your sites back link in the first sentence of the article. I will explain the reasons for this later so just follow my instructions as this is very important.
Example: Let's say your keyword is "horse shampoo".
Your Blog Post Title should be just "Horse Shampoo". The less extra words the better. You could add more keywords though... like "Make Money with Horse Shampoo" or "Horse Shampoo for a Profit"
Your Sub Heading should be something like "Everything you need to know about Horse Shampoo". Remember to put this in bold print in your blog post. (GoArticles will not let you make it bold.)
Your final sentence in the article would be something like, "Thanks for visiting my Horse Shampoo site".
And now the important sentence... the first sentence would be like this...
"If you think horse shampoo is hard to find then please read this article."
I will now show you how to put your sites link where you typed "horse shampoo".
Note: This is only for the GoArticles post - not for your blog post.)
Here’s how you do it….
<*a href="http://internet-marketingguru.blogspot.com/">horse shampoo <*/a> (replace horse shampoo with your keyword and " internet-marketingguru " with your sites URL name)
This is the code to make a hypertext link.
Important Note: The two * should be removed as I had to put them in as spaces for you to read this code. Without the * you would see this horse shampoo. If you hover over the link you will see the back link pointing to internet-marketingguru.blogspot.com in your browser window.
Highlight the entire block of code, copy it and paste it after highlighting the keyword in your first sentence. The final sentence will look like this;
"If you think horse shampoo is hard then please read this article."
You have now put a back link into your article that will point back to your site from whatever sites end up downloading your article and posting it as content on their sites.
Note: GoArticles has an author’s box that allows you to put a back link to your site in it. When people publish your article on their site they are required to post the whole article and your Author Bio (containing your link) as well. Sadly a lot of sites will just post the first few lines of your article and tell their readers that they can find the rest of your article at GoArticles.com by using a link that says "For More, Click Here". This effectively cuts out your back link in the author's bio which is located at the end of your article. By putting your link in the first line of text they can't eliminate your back link if they don't publish your whole article. Pretty sneaky, huh??
If you haven't figured it out yet, this is how you will get lots of back links to your site - one way back links, which the very best kind! You will be surprised how many times others will use your articles as content on their sites. People don't want to create their own and are happy to download someone else's work. Keep in mind that you will be downloaded more often if you have picked a popular niche.
Another Note: The sites using your article will likely not get the page indexed as Google will hit them for duplicate content. You won't have to worry because the GoArticles post is different from your Blog post. While your competition is busy not being indexed using your article you will be getting indexed because of your unique content. Your competition actually helps you by giving you back links while you hurt them by giving them duplicate content. Your site uses unique content and you supply the other 9 sites with duplicate content embedded with back links to your site. What is Google seeing? They would rank you at the top as the authority because all the other sites are pointing at you.
Whew! That's enough for today!
Tune in again for more lessons on internet marketing and all of the different ways to make money online.
(notice how sneaky I was about using my Keywords into the last line - and I made it bold to boot)
Until next time…..
