Become An SEO-Expert in 15 Minutes

Temporary Update Notice:  In preparation of the higher volumes of traffic this page is about to receive, I am doing some major shuffling on the backside.  So, please bear with the changes and occasional (hopefully brief!) periods of downtime.  


Here's to making the LostCyclist better than ever!

Image Courtesy of Kevin Saunders

 So you want Google to find your webpage.

After all, why build a webpage if it is just going to sit in the lonely corners of the webosphere?

Basically, my entire "enterprise" is built on getting pages to rank in the search engines. There's a term for it. We call it "Search Engine Optimization", or SEO.

Set your watch.  In about 15 minutes, I am going to turn you into an SEO Guru.

The New Pareto's Principle for The Internet Marketer

Ok, so I've been promising this article since before Thanksgiving.  I have got to sit down and actually write it.


I'll warn you, its a long one, but I've been doing some mega-research, and well, there's no way around its length.  But hey, its your browser, so skim it for the stuff that YOU find interesting.


Maybe if I add some pictures of Jedi and some kittens you will keep reading, yes?


If you can't tell by now, Pareto's Principle - the 80/20 rule - fascinates me (Quite frankly, I think there is an entire book hiding in it) . It's so simple to understand, and you can use it to both predict the rate of future growth of your business, as well as to discover the best areas where your business can grow further. (More on that in a minute)


The 80/20 rule is the closest thing I have found to a shortcut in this - or pretty much any - business.

The Pareto Principle is all Wrong

But it turns out that, for the internet marketer, the 80/20 rule may no longer be an accurate way to determine the growth of internet websites.

November Update

Well, don't you know it? December is here already!

Looks like Santa came a couple of weeks early for me

My first check from Google!  - $115!!

Here's the highlights from November

• Chasing Pace Makes Its Debut!
• Crashing The Christmas Sleigh
• Cracking The $100 Mark!

Pareto's Principle - Synergistic Efforts

After you get done with this post, feel free to read  The New Pareto's Principles For Internet Marketers about specific rules for using these principles to your advantage when it comes to internet marketing!

In cycling - as in every sport - everyone is looking for an advantage.  I can't tell you how many 15-pound bikes I saw (with wheels worth more than my current car) that were owned by flabby doctors.

Giant's TCR Advanced SL 0 $10,300

These guys realized that they did not have the time to work out like their riding companions did, so they were using what they did have - money - to buy themselves some speed.

It's called Pareto's Principle, or the 80-20 rule.

I first ran across Pareto's law in Tim Ferris' original book "The 4 Hour Workweek"  (Which is definitely an inspiring read for sparking ideas - get it at the local library if you are cheap like me)

Basically, the rule was discovered by an Italian bean-counter that discovered that 20% of his pea shells provided 80% of his peas. Oh, and that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the Italians. (thanks, Wikipedia)

(Sound familiar?)

Mid-November update

Hey guys!  It's been a pretty rocking month so far, and I thought I would take ten seconds and share the excitement with you.

#1 On Google!

First of all, the first website I started has made it to position #1 on Google!  I have to say that is pretty exciting.  It's been flirting with the number 1 spot since the first week of November (bouncing between #5 and #1)

Income Update - October, 2011

Hey, hey, hey!


So I've already mostly spilt the beans, but this month turned out great!


We finally made page #1 of Google for a Keyword.  In fact, this was the first keyword that I had ever thought of targeting.  It turned out to require a little bit of work to make it happen, but I'm really proud of the page and what it offers my readers, and I'm thrilled to be on the First Page of Google with it!


What's even more exciting is that most readers really enjoy the page and the relevancy of the information, spending about 5 minutes a visit on it!


And, no, I won't reveal this niche. Too competitive.

Discouragement

What do you do when you are discouraged?

You know, that gripping fear of dread when you realize that the road you've turned down is nothing but an unmarked trail twisting through the foggy jungle of uncertainty?

Believe me, we would all race back to the safety of the "real road"  -- if we knew just where that was.

It turns out that life is full of uncertainty.  It is full of doubts, of failures and of fears.

All too often I've found myself quaking before it all - too terrified to move.

In fact, last August I was almost ready to quit this whole game.   Everything was changing.  Google was "slapping" people's entire businesses out from underneath of them.  I had already spend countless hours on this enterprise.

Was it really going to make me money?  Was it really what I wanted to do?  Would I ever see the day where I stay home and play with my kids?  Would I ever realize my fantasy of having a 4-hour workday?

Maybe I should just give up and go back to college.  But will I be able to find work in the field I choose?  Will people accept my college degree when there are so many unemployed people with BOTH a degree and experience?


Normally, this is when I quit.

This time, I had a wife that wouldn't let me quit.  (She was quite adamant about it)

So, instead, I developed a My Battle Plan against Paralyzing Fear.

I promised to share it with you. Here it is:

Battle Plan For Over-Coming Paralyzing Fear


One Caveat: This is not about fighting a lack of "Hutzpah" or "Umph".  That, my friend, is called "lack of motivation" and must be re-kindled by other means...

It just so happened that as I was about to face these questions in my life, I was reading a book by a former Navy Seal: Richard "Mack" Machowicz.(I read it about once every 18 months - its that good)  You may have seen him on Discovery Channel, talking about tactical weaponry.

Before he was on the Discovery Channel, he wrote this book "Unleashing The Warrior Within" which talks about battle tactics and how to apply them to your life. (The one in the photo is the newest version which I haven't read.  The old one is out-of-print)

So here was what I did, to pick myself up and move forward.

A two-step process:

1. Know Your Goals 
All right, so our soldier-boys are going to take down the enemy.  What enemy?

There is a lot of bad in this world.  A lot of things that need to be killed, destroyed and replaced by something beautiful.  (Which, begs the question "What is beautiful?")

What should our soldier-boys be taking out first?

In your own life: what is the most important thing you need to accomplish?

For me?  I want to raise a family that glorifies God and does good in this world.

That was easy.  What's the next important thing?

It turns out I have a lot of goals:  I want to be fit, build schools in Africa (and possibly Mexico), be debt-free, play guitar (at least - if not other instruments), be awesome, be gentle, be educated...

So, which goal should I take on first?

Here's where this becomes and actionable exercise.  Get up from your computer and go get a pen and paper.  Or, promise me that you will bookmark this page and come back with a pen and paper sometime.  This is an excellent exercise.

Create a list of the top 5 (or 4 or 8...) things you want to accomplish (in no particular order).   These will be your "targets"
Family
Fitness
Debt-Free (AKA "Blogging" since that is my method of choice for fighting said disease called debt)
Guitar
Portuguese

Now, we're going to use Richard Machowicz's CARVER Matrix to determine which "target" should become your first goal.

A little Explanation.  The CARVER matrix looks at what things are most easily achieved, and will give you the most success.  Read this Wikipedia Article for a full explanation.

Here's How you work through it:

Take each target.  Ask each question and rate it from 1-5, with 1 being "least" and 5 being "greatest".

C - Criticality: How vital is this target to the overall mission?
A - Accessibility: How easy is this target to accomplish? Do you have the tools/time to accomplish it?
R - Recognizability: Will you recognize when you are doing things that help you hit this target?
V - Vulnerability: What can get in the way of hitting this target? Work? Stress? Politics?
E - Effectiveness: What will hitting this target do for your life?
R - Return on Effort: Will the enemy recover after you hit this target? Are we cutting off a limb?

Let me Give you an Example
So, with my Bloggin'-for-profit enterprise, here's how I looked at it:

Criticality? Boy, howdy! If I could accomplish this target, I would have no-debt and lots of free time.  It would, in one move, eliminate most of my obstacles to future goals for my life. It is a 5.
Accessibility?  Yes, I have a computer.  Yes, I have some "free" time.  Yes, my wife is supportive. This one is a 5.

Recognizability? Well, I will recognize the money as it comes in, but I will also recognize when I am writing and creating either content or promoting my sites... and when I am just reading forums or taking a day off.  Also a 5.

Vulnerability? Very vulnerable.  May take some time and requires about $50 a month (high estimate) to pursue, but overall, very vulnerable. I'll give this one a 4.

Effectiveness? You might call this "Effect on Happiness".  Anyone up for a vacation to Puerto Villarta?  How 'bout a scouting trip back to Africa? Accomplishing this target might just let my family change the world. Its a 5.

Return on Effort? How easily will my debt recover? It all depends on Google. But, there are ways to diversify both the business model and the traffic to help make the company more stable.  I'll give it a 1. (with time, it will become a 3)

So,when we look at it.  There was one "1" that was holding me back.  Here's how all of the goals fared:

Targets	Critical	Recognize	Vulnerable	Effect Happiness	Return	Total
Family	5	5	5	5+	5+	25+
Fitness	3	5	2	3	2	15
Blogging	5	5	4	5	1	20
Guitar	1	5	4	2	2	14
Portugues	2	4	4	2	4	16

Suddenly, I'm discovering some crazy stuff.  Like learning Portuguese is more important to me than Playing the Guitar.

I also stacked Blogging next to other ways of becoming debt-free such as "college" or "small-engine repair".  While the outcome would have been similar, neither one allows as automated of an income, as rapidly, with as little investment... The choice became very clear when I put it on paper.

SOOO, Discover your goals and then....

2. Create an Actionable Plan
The book has a whole chapter on this.  Let me just say: you can't see very far into the future.  So ask yourself this:

What is the next thing I need to do?

Shame, shame, shame...

You are already freaking out again, aren't you?  You could build another website create a press release add some more photos do keyword research add helpful comments in forums to create more traffic buy a backlinks blaster to create more backlinks... AAAAACK!

Didn't I just teach you the CARVER matrix?  Use it!

Take each target, fill out the matrix as easily as you can.  Pretty soon you will be using it in your head to determine whether you should go to Wendy's or Subway.  (What is more important - fitness or the time driving to a further restaurant?)

I had my goals.  I started a list of the next thing I needed to do.  I did it.

And then the next thing.

And then the next thing.

It's to the point now, where you CAN'T drag me away with your sales pitches to chase shiny objects.  (and, believe me, the internet is FULL of shiny objects).  I matrix it and see how it fits. 

ok, so the Christmas Blog was a little bit of a shiny object

Is this a cure-all?  I don't know, I haven't tried using it on a break-up.  But I have found that it has helped me to control the uncertainty of life and focus on things that the Good Lord has put into my hands to control.

For everything else?  I just play that Keith Green Youtube video every now and again.

Hope that helps some of you.  Feel Free to Add your comments, agreements and dissents below.  

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Income report coming up in a few days.  You guys are going to love these numbers!

Hey guys!

Just wanted to pop in and mention a website that I've found.  It's a little different income model that what I am doing - but quite fascinating and profitable.

I think a lot of you will love there stuff: http://adsenseflippers.com/

I even entered my email address to get their free "Blog Blueprint".  Read it last night.  Got some exciting ideas in this noggin' -- then I couldn't sleep.

Next week, I think I'll move this little guy off of blogger - if I find the time.  Maybe when I do the income report?  Just put up with the site design changes, ok?

It turns out that www.nomorewhitesocks.com is going to be smaller than I had hoped.  Instead of 100 product reviews, I am going to do 50. It's just costing me too much time to try to launch it AND maintain the other sites at the level they need.

So here's to beautiful fall leaves, being an Uncle (again), and rocking out the world.

"I play for keeps, 'cause I might not make it back" - Bon Jovi

I. Love. This. Gig.

I need your help.  If you have a moment, can you scroll to the end and read the last section before you leave?

Thanks again,

Q

Well, up until this month, I have only updated this blog once a month.

However, that leaves me with a lot of scatter-brained ideas that I try to cram into a long, boring post.

Since when are blogs suppose to be boring?

They ain't.

"Be Interesting" - Matt Cutts


I learn more in a day than I could blog about in a week. 

Who has ever made the mistake of calling me humble?

When I put up my last post I was pretty bummed.  

I now have more than one page sitting on the first page of Google for key terms (which I never thought that would happen).

But I was making less money than I did last month.

More visitors  +  Less $$ = sad lostcyclingdude

So I spent the middle of this month trying to increase my conversion rate of visitors.

Conversion is awesome 

I went back through my list of site changes.  I found two key things.

A.  On one site, I had set up more -ahem- agressive ads - and made the theme darker to make it prettier.  However, since my site colors now matched my made one of my themes darker and I had set up more convenient ads.   It was prettier, but the same color of ad.  I took the site back to a lighter color that let the ads "pop" more.  

I double my conversion rate on that site.  My people could see the ads.

Plus, the color variation was easier on the eyes, allowing people to stay on my site longer.  My pretty colors were scaring my visitors away.  

B. My site with the most traffic also tends to give me the biggest-paying clicks.  I began looking at my pages more carefully, and realized that most of my pages had no ads on them.

That. Exactly.  Thousands of words of content, but no ads.  Apparently, my wordpress design (theme) had some sort've coding bug that was interfering with my ability to display ads.  

I brushed off my coding skills and set about inserting the ads manually.  Oh, my, but it is a beautiful thing!

So, I'm excited about my end-of month report!

Giving Back

At my real job, sometimes they want us to offer products to our customer's that we - as customer service reps - are certain our customer's will hate.  However, you have to put it out there.  And, sometimes you find that it is an excellent idea that your customer's actually go crazy over.

I'm trying to focus on giving customer's the things they need.  Do the interwebz need another blog about solar energy? I checked, and yes, they do.   The web world needs my insight.  It needs my research.  It needs my passion.

"The Interwebz Needs Your Insight" -The LostCyclist

If you are just playing Google's game, you won't last.  I fear for some of my sites because I started them to "play the game".  But, now, I'm discovering that it's about "giving back". 

Writing with that focus in mind is transforming my pages into something really cool.

(One day I want all of my blogs to be this cool)

Read This

You made it this far? I'm impressed. You must really love me.

Ok, best cool stuff I've ome across has to start with the zenduck (again). Read his "The Secret To Making Money Online"

Somebody told me they're making $1 a month for every 1,000 words they've written.  Dang-A-Monkey, that's a lot of content!  (then Google happened a week ago, and they are making less. tee-hee. love this gig.)

This whole business is all about writing helpful content about important keywords.  These guys focus on "micro-niches" (and they might just be a little spammy) but I love their keyword research strategy. How To Find Keywords

Help Me?

As I mentioned in that last post, I'm starting a blog about Christmas Gifts.  I changed the website name from that crazy-long thing I had in my last post to something easier to read: www.nomorewhitesocks.com 

That's Right. I'm Racist. Only black socks around here.

(They dance better)

This new website will be a last-ditch effort to fill a need, but hopefully my candid reviews are something people will love. 

Next year, I will begin working on this site in August, and get some good videos and stuff up that my viewers can truly appreciate.  

So...Can you check it out for me?  Come back here and let me know what you think about site design and whether the articles are helpful. (Or PM me on facebook or TKA if you are one of my lucky friends.)

I'd love to have your insight.

I'm a slacker

I thought I was going to be super profitable this month.

I thought I was going to update this Crazy Ideas blog with a bunch of great ideas...

All I did was change the domain name. It is easier to remember now:

http://www.lostcyclist.me

So far, nothing has been done but to sit back and watch my Adsense income drop WHILE my traffic increases.

In frustration, I have started a new website.  And I'm going to give it a frenzied effort.

In order to light a fire under my fatso underside, I'm going to reveal the domain....

http://thedudesgiftproblem.mycoolinfo.com/


Let's see what happens.

September Update

September update.

Did I just say those words?  It's September already!

While you are here, I hope you get a chance to read the edited page above "The Game Has Change".  I think it a good read, and a lot more comprehensive than the page I used to have in its place.

Random Stuff.

 For those of you who have not heard yet, I am now trying the Dragon NaturallySpeaking as a way to write articles.  So far, I think we are still in the learning phase, it is a little frustrating.  But I think at the end it will save me time.

I had to pay for hosting renewal this week. It ran about $100.  When I started, I paid about $60 for my first year. You know how those things are --  you enter the first year at really low price, and then they raise the price on ya'.

So it has me wondering if this the right road to be on. Here I am almost $300 into this enterprise and frankly, I'm not seeing that kind of return yet.

But for the first eight months of those hosting fees I did nothing but let it cost me.

I've made all my money in the last four months, and if I'd started a year ago.  I could probably be retired right now.

Maybe that's too optimistic - who knows? Let's just say that after five months of truly working I'm really excited by the potential.

And I'm really glad to have you guys watch from the sidelines.  Win or fail - hey, we'll find out if this works out.

I have a really great idea, I really want to share with you guys.  In case you haven't noticed, Christmas is just around the corner.  And I really think there's a lot of potential to make a lot of money in very few months.

I kind of got this train of thought from this dude called the Zen Duck.  He started off like I did not long ago, and he has really done well for himself.  Here, read the article for yourself.  I have this crazy idea about how we could probably write a few posts, send it a few back links, and make enough money to help pay for Christmas.

But, frankly is not something I've done enough research on to be able to give any authority to it.  However, if I get enough free time at the end of this month I will pursue the idea myself and if some of you want to join me on this crazy little moneymaking enterprise it will be a great time to hop on.

I even have a worked out how it won't cost us any money -- that's always a positive exhalation point.

If nothing else, it might be a great way to decide if this Internet marketing is something that you would like.  Maybe you won't make any money, but you'll do all the same work that I would be doing.

And, I've learned that if you do enough work, you will make a go of this.

Enough rambling.  If you guys want me to do a post on my idea, just comment below and I'll take the time to flesh it out for you. I will try to keep the work required to under one hour a day.

And if you get completely crazy like me and spend $300 on this enterprise?  Well, I know people who spend more on crazier stuff.

Monthly Report


Alright, so some fun things this month. We had one page make it to page one of Google.  For four days.  (It was ranked #4.)  It has since slipped back to page 23 (#20-24 in the rankings), but during that little time near the top we made some fun bank.

This was especially great because I was doing some website updates during the first two weeks of the month that cost me 10 days of profit. seriously.  We made like a dollar during the 10 days.

Plus, thanks to my wife's help we were able to take one of the websites from 13 pages to 30 pages.  There were times where we had the same Google document opened and were both typing in it at the same time. It was a pretty crazy end of month there to get those all done.

So here's the breakdown -- I hope it's inspiring.

Last Month:
Income: $26.18
Vistors: 2110

This Month:
Adsense: $27.89
Amazon: $5.98
Chitika: $0.50
Share a sale: $0 (New Affiliate.  Hoping to see a boost next month)

Total Income: $34.28 (31% increase)
Unique Visits: 3039 (44% increase)

August Update

Doing the Next Thing

This world is constantly changing, improving.  Nowhere is that more true than here on the world-wide-web.

You see, this money making idea I've latched onto used to be a very straight forward process:
1.Create Content
2.Build Backlinks
3.Make Money off of Visitors

It's a simple plan, and thousands of people began repeating the process and dumping all sorts of crappy content all over the website. It had become a virtual cesspool of where Wikipedia was regurgitated all over the top-ten Google results.

Google recently changed things up with their "panda" update, and started cleaning these crappy sites out of their search results.

Suddenly, people were going from making $1,000 a month to $60.

The Keyword Academy Nearly Ruined My Month

You guys probably know that I rely a good bit on the Keyword Academy for the tools and advice (and cool forum badges that show everybody how much you are making) that they offer.

These guys are really to be admired, because when they see that the game has changed, they are are willing to research a new game plan and make the necessary changes.

The problem is, is that the changes are so radically different from what I had signed up for, that it meant completely revamping my whole plan.

I don't do well with complete revamps.

I seriously spent nearly a week, paralyzed.  The Keyword Academy still doesn't have their new plan figured out. And there hasn't been anyone who has taken it from $0-$1,000. So what do I do? Do I scrap all of my websites and start over? Do I quit Backlinking? Do I drop my Keyword Academy membership and go back to college?

I'm not good at jumping from a current plan that has multiple proven successes to one without a proven track record.

At the same time, I don't want to become extinct just because I refuse to change with the times.

It was really, really frustrating. Frankly, I was overwhelmed and depressed.

I'm really happy to say that I was able to overcome the depression and come up with a game plan. There was a few things that played into my "recovery", primarily my darling, encouraging wife.

I've also been studying a book called "Unleashing The Warrior Within" which takes the principles behind the mission success(es) of the Navy Seals and breaks them down for handling day to day problems.  There are some powerful tools in this book, and I want to share a few of them with you - in a separate blog post.

I've come up with my New Plan

1. Create AWESOME content.

•  It is seriously taking me up to 6 hours to write one post for my webpages.  But the effort is paying off.  One article that I rewrote, shot from being ranked below 100 on Google to #23 (3rd page) -- just 3 days after I had rewritten the old post.

• Go for the Long Tail. We talked about this last month. But its all about answering every single question I can find to answer about my subject. And then next month when I find another question to answer, I'll add that too. (My primary site has 12 pages on it - and 377 keywords that people used to find those 12 pages with)
  

• Reduce my "Bounce rate". I don't think it matters right now, but in the next year I'm personally convinced that it will. I'm going to focus on create content that keeps my readers reading, and not bouncing away to other webpages. A lower bounce rate is something I think the Big G will really like

2. Go for NATURAL backlinks 

• I will still manufacture backlinks.  I've seen their power, and I can't see very many people who are making money without creating their own backlinks.  However the pace at which I build them will slow as I spend most of my time trying to create stellar content.

• Point them at the homepage.  There is more research (thanks, Keyword Academy!) that most naturally - built websites have about 50-70% of the links pointing to the homepage.  And so I will have a huge effort on pointing links to my homepage (about 50%).  Hopefully, by making the homepage powerful, that power will trickle down and help the rest of the site to rank.

•  Vary the anchor text.  I used to send 40 links to a page with 4 different keywords (Such as "blue boat" "fast blue boat" "neat blue boat"...) Now, I'm going to my Google Analytics and finding those long tail keywords people are using to find me with and incorporating them as anchor text.  Yes, I am hoping to camouflage it a little more

• Create awesome, well-researched content that people will want to link to naturally. (see above)

3. Make MONEY off of Visitors

•  I'm branching out from Adsense and looking for things that might convert better, or have higher commissions. I'll keep you posted.

Bleary eyed? Bookmark this page for future reference.  You'll use it. 

____________________________

Let's look at What we did this month:
 
We wrote (or rewrote) a total of about 6 articles. We also added about 80 backlinks to our primary website, which resulted in a HUGE jump in traffic. We also "prettified" our websites and added better banners, etc.

I'm switching the way I calculate traffic.  I want to know how many UNIQUE visitors I have and eliminate repeated traffic, as well as my visits.  So I started using a different traffic calculator (Google Analytics instead of Google Adsense which I was using before).

Say it with me... Show Me The Money!! 

Last Month: $14.60

Adsense:  $14.74
Amazon:  $10.65
Chitika:    $0.79

This Month: $26.18

That's a  79% increase.  Good stuff. 

Total Visitors: 2110 (unique)

All right peeps. Enough rambling here with you guys.  (Hopefully it will be helpful to one of you.)

I have a bunch of articles to write.  A house to clean. Some brush to get out of my lawn. A car to fix. Some coffee that must be enjoyed.  And some Frank Sinatra to listen to.

Ya'll work hard now...

July Update

This has been an exciting month!  We closed on the new house, got it painted and cleaned and, with the help of a lot of friends and family, we got moved and mostly settled in.

I've got to say I am now super motivated to see if I can get these websites making enough money to cover the house payment.

....
Lessons From July: 
It's More Than Blogging

Really, these websites are really just blogs.  Most of them are even built on Wordpress, one of the largest blogging platforms.

All I am doing is blogging.  Anybody can blog.

The only difference - and the reasons these make money while blogs do not -  is that my articles focus on keywords and repeat that main keyword (or key phrase) at least 1% of the article. (For those of you who don't have a math degree, a 500 word articles has 5 mentions of the key phrase)

That's the difference.
....
The Power of Long Tail Keywords

I went through Google Analytics this month and took a look at which searches were driving the most traffic to my webpages. Most people don't look for "how to paint rock",  instead, most people search for "How to paint my rock furnace so that it looks like natural stone" (something my wife did an amazing job at this month).

Case in point, I have an article targeting  the search phrase "Tassimo T-Discs". 

It's never done amazingly.

I suddenly noticed last month that there was a surge of visits to my beloved Tassimo article.  Turns out, that Starbucks is discontinuing Tassimo.  I rewrote the article, included the phrase "Starbuck Discontinues Tassimo T Discs" 2-3 times, and provided some relevant information as to what the options were for Tassimo lovers now that Starbucks is out of the picture. I also added an affiliate link to some of the remaining Starbucks product that Amazon had, which provided my one Amazon Sale for the month.

I did the same thing for the top articles on each of my websites, found the top searches, and rewrote portions of each article to better answer those users' needs.  Google loved it and moved these articles up in the rankings, and I saw a nice increase in traffic for these pages.

Expanding Your Range

A keyword may look awesome on paper, like some of my alternative energy keywords do.  However, we (my wife has had to help me.  I'm not that good at beauty stuff) just started this new website about beauty topics.  It has half of the articles on it (9) that the alternative energy website does (23), and only about 1/10th the number of the backlinks (5 versus 60) .  In June it had nearly twice the visitors and made almost as much money as the older, more worked on site.

Both sites are going to be winners, but you can believe that I am super stoked about growing the beauty site.

However, you need to write several articles and explore many keywords before you find your winners.  It's the shotgun approach.

Show Me The Money!!

Last month:  $5.44

Adsense:  $10.83
Amazon:  $2.98
Chitika:    $0.79

This Month: $14.60

That's a 168% more money than last month. Pretty cool.


Total Visits: 1,494 (Total visits are something I am still struggling with.  The software I've been using also counts repeat visits and my own visits.  However, I used it for last month, so I'll use it again this month)

We're mostly settled into the new house. Anxious to see how focused I can be in August's sweltering heat!

June Update

June saw the start of three new websites. One of these is nothing more than a place for other entrepreneurs who are part of The Keyword Academy to post articles as a way to gain "backlinks" to their website.  It made about 98 cents this month, which is awesome considering that I have about $3 invested in it.

The other two websites are in beauty and health niches.  The Darling has helped some with these articles, especially since I'm not much of a beauty expert.


I am way behind. The Keyword Academy, where I am getting step-by-step instructions on how to start this business,  encourages you to start 4 websites, and then begin promoting the winners.  I have one fully  launched and two that are barely launched.  In June, I wrote about 1/4 of what I had in May.

I also wrote about 8 articles for textbroker to make a little immediate cash to fund my Keyword Academy membership.  

We had about 960 visitors to all of our websites this month. My goal is to get to 1000 per day. 

Despite my slacking, we actually saw a little increase on the monthly income.

Last month was $3.86

This Month:
Adsense: $2.16
Chitika:   $1.17 - (This is income is entirely from infobarrel)
Amazon: $2.11

Total:  $5.44

So that's a 41% increase. If the income keeps increasing at 41%, I should be able to "retire" in 18 months.

I'm not holding my breathe. Yet.

April/May Update

Right after my kid was born, I revitalized my interest in making money using the internet.  It is the perfect job, really.  You can work from anywhere and at whatever times best suits your family.

From there I got side-tracked into web programming.  Frankly, I still firmly believe web programming would be the faster route for me when it comes to being self-employed, and offers a more sure future.

However,  my out-dated computers didn't seem to handle all of the coding practice I was subjecting them to.

So, in frustration, I quit programming and suffered from horrific boredom for a couple of weeks.

April
After enough time pacing, I revisited Pat Flynn's blog and found an article for beginner online entrepreneurs on different sources for creating online income.

He mentioned Infobarrel, and I jumped in with both feet.

From the 10th of April until the 11th of May I wrote about 15 articles.

While looking for tools to help me analyze which keywords would be most profitable to write about, I ran across The Keyword Academy.  Turns our TKA is a complete package - tutoring, tools, forums and one-on-one support.  All for $33 a month.

May
They encourage one to focus all of their energy on "niche sites".  A niche site is a site that is focused on keywords that are too low-paying for large businesses to have any interest in targeting.

You go where there is no competition. For example, it would be extremely tough to rank a website # 1 for "Cell Phone Chargers". However, "Solar-Powered Cell Phone Chargers" would have less competition.

They encourage one to shy away from the big content farms like Hubpages, Infobarrel, Squidoo and eHow.  Those website tend to change the rules, make Google mad at them and disappear with all of your work and dreams. Plus, they require you to share your income with them.

And so, I returned to building my own websites, I had one that I had started right after my son's birth.  I unlocked the dusty doors and began again.

So Here's The Money Breakdown:

April:
Adsense: $.08

Total: 8 cents

May:
Adsense: $.43
Amazon: $2.98
Chitika:  $. 45

Total: $3.86

Nice increase. Switching to my own website really seems to be helping my pocketbook. We'll have to see what June holds.

Ok, Here's My Big Idea...

I  want to start a bunch of websites that provide helpful, well-researched information about products, services and skills that people often use Google to search for.

Then, I want to take these pages to #1 on Google. Like, when you search for "pot holders", I want you to see my page on potholders first.

Using all of this amazing traffic that Google is sending my way, I will advertise with banner ads and sell useful products on commission.

Here's where I'll keep you apprised on how well I progress...

Coming soon:
How I Got Inspired
April/May Progress Report