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...