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