Work From Home-Earn Extra Money With A Cash Blog

Guest Post by Kris Beus Webmaster of Make Money Online

Blogging has opened up a new world for those who lack the time to learn HTML, CSS, and other web languages. Though it has become easier to begin an online presence through different resources in Web 2.0 making money is still very difficult and takes plenty of patience and time. The most difficult part of running a blog created to generate cash is the time in which it takes to learn SEO and other aspects of online marketing. The best resource out there for people new to the online business world is to spend plenty of time reading articles at ezinearticles.com and participating in the webmaster forum v7n.com/forums.

Once you gain a fundamental understanding of online marketing it is a good idea to begin researching your competition. Personally I am in the make money niche and spend a hour or so daily going over not only my competitions backlinks, but also looking through their website making sure to stay up on any new programs that are being offered to help people make money. You can apply this to any niche. For example if you run a website or blog about politics then you will want to constantly be visiting high authority news sources such as cnn.com and others to keep up with any new updates in the political world. Also to compete within your niche you will want to keep up with the number, relevancy, and number of backlinks that your competitors have. When researching the backlinks of competitors I usually use Yahoo’s site explorer which you can utilize by going to yahoo.com and in the search type link:http://www.yourcompetitor.com and it will show you the top thousand of your competitors link partners.

You should take a few months building your backlink foundation realizing that your competitors in most cases have been around quite a while so catching up will take time. Do not give up your job for your online endeavors until you have a blog that is already generating enough income to satisfy your monetary needs which usually takes at the minimum six months and only if you spend at least a few hours each day promoting and posting new content. The only reason new bloggers fail is they pick a niche in which they see monetary value yet have no real interest in so after a couple months they let the blog die. When choosing the niche (category of web presence) in which you wish to build a blog make sure it is something you feel that in a year or two you will still be able to write about. I have heard different theories on how to create a successful blog and one idea that I have seen come up over and over again is rather than create a blog which you are passionate about you should create one that consists of popular subject matter. There is a couple of reasons this is flawed first what is popular right now will not be popular in a couple months or years. The second reason this usually fails is the blogger who created the blog only because it was popular really does not know much about the topic and only hoped to bring traffic in because of the popularity. One problem these people run into is the ability of their visitors to tell that their knowledge of the subject is very limited and usually lose credibility within the blogosphere.

So once you have created a blog within a niche that you feel very passionate about and have begun catching up to your competitors which results in targeted traffic from search engines it is time to monetize (begin creating an income from your blogs visitors). Usually the most used effort that I have seen bloggers use to make money is Google’s adsense. Usually when bloggers ask on the forum how to make money, adsense will come up, something though that I feel should be mentioned is when trying to make money with a blog adsense is not your only option. If you run a blog that is mainly informational then perhaps setting up an affiliate account with amazon.com and offering books which will compliment the information on your blog would offer a higher return compared with a PPC program. Another possible option if you feel that selling books or video would not work well on your blog is clickbank.com. Click Bank is a website that allows you to set up a free account then sale stuff that compliments the topic of your blog. For example if you are running a blog on the appropriate way to fly fish then offering a fishing pole and a book about the correct way to tie flies would probably make quite a bit more than receiving the few cents that adsense offers. Now on the other hand if you are running a personal blog which really has no items to compliment it adsense would be the perfect way to monetize.

Too have a long lasting successful blog do not ever sale out. Once you have earned a high position in the SERP’s there will be many offers for advertisements. Only take the offers if you feel they add to your blog and will help your visitors/readers. If you begin spamming the backlinks which you get from other webmasters for having a unique helpful blog will disappear meaning you will drop in the SERPs. Also if your readers notice that rather than unique helpful content you are turning into one big advertisement they will drop their readership. So if you would like to succeed within the blogosphere never and I mean never give anything priority on your readability and your visitors/readers!

Linkbaiting is something we all do as webmasters! It’s as simple as that. Whether we try to just create good useful content or delve deeper into trying to “bait” others into linking to our posts and pages, it’s all what I would call linkbaiting, and a good thing, as links =more traffic=you earning more money with your blog!  Writing content that covers a topic so well that others want to share what you’ve written, well I think you’ll have to agree, we love it when it happens. Which is why getting completely “natural” backlinks was my first, and best, way to build backlinks in my offsite seo post.

There are, of course, many more ways to try to elicit backlinks from your readers, (some, somewhat unethical, shall we say) and hence the bad rep some people give to the term linkbaiting.

I’m not writing this post to debate the ethics of linkbaiting, I feel it’s something we all do anyway, and there are always those that may cross your ethical line in their efforts to succeed. I feel anyone who continually pushes most people’s ethical limits will ultimately fail at this, as your principles are pretty much out in the open for all to see.

Although the methods you use to try to get people to link back to your site are only limited by your imagination, I will give you some ideas here to start the wheels turning.

• Create the best content-Make your content the best, most complete, out there! Do this and your comment section will start loading up with track-backs as your content gets linked to. Make your content “useful”, tell people how to do something, answer their questions, entertain them, improve their lives in some way. Use video, audio, and images in your content. Try to produce content that is unique, provocative, useful, worthy of attention, and provokes discussion,  and provides real value to your readers. Turn out the very best content you’re capable of consistently, and you may find those incoming links you crave!
• Be first to break a story-Not easy to do, but very effective in getting backlinks to your site. Stay “on top” of what’s going on in your niche, read newspapers and magazines, and write about breaking news in your niche. Give your readers the “scoop” on something.
• Include lists in your content-Something like this post huh? Anyway, content with a good list of valuable resources tends to get linked to a lot. Make your list the most complete, or the best out there, set your list apart, and hopefully above the others available online.
• Provide a useful tool or software-Come up with a useful tool and you will have returning traffic as well as links. I will trade an outgoing link in a minute for a useful tool I can put on my site for the benifit of my readers, as I did here on this page about weight loss (the BMI.)
• Give away free stuff!-Ebooks, software, useful tools, etc. Everyone loves free stuff! (Note to self-get a free page of stuff put up on CashBlog!) Give away stuff for free and people will come over to get it, and give the link to friends so they can too!
• Design something-A theme for Wordpress blogs for instance! Not only can you have a link from each and every theme in use, you can also get a flood of links back from recommendations. I haven’t done this yet, but I’m beginning to think about it more and more! Even though I don’t have many programming skills there are ways to accomplish this and, who knows you just might see a CashBlog Theme at some point in time!
• Contests, tests, quizzes, awards, a feeling of belonging-Give people a reason to come back (to see if they won that big grand prize!) Give them a way to vote on something, create a feeling of belonging in your readers. Let them know you value their opinion. Invite feedback. Include them! Create a community!
• Expose, attacks, rants, shock-I’m not big into this, but it’s used quite successfully by many in blogsphere. Expose someone for what they really are (like an IM guru?) Tell everyone your take on them. Go off! Tell it the way it is! You can of course use shocking language, pictures, video, etc. Be prepared for all kinds of reactions, and you might want to get your home address and phone number off your blog first! lol Using this tactic, a thick skin may also be a necessity.
• Be funny, crazy, or cool-If you are really different in some way, and it catches on, you could become a linkbait master! Try to stand out from the crowd, be unique, be different, be funny, crazy or cool!
• Create fear-Again not one of my favorites, but can be effective nonetheless! Fear is a strong motivator (swine flu scare comes to mind) you can use people’s fears to your advantage. Perhaps give them a solution to what they fear? Now that I think about it my site Natural Remedies And Cures plays on peoples fears, but also gives them solutions as well.
• Make your titles very linkbait friendly!-Very important! Spend some time choosing your title, not only from a seo perspective but from a linkbaiting perspective as well. Grab your perspective readers attention, make her/him want to read your content. You will also find a very linkbait friendly title used in the anchor text of incoming links more often.

Conclusion

Linkbaiting is something we as webmasters do on a day to day basis (whether we realize it or not) and naturally occurring links are some of the best you’ll get, and can come in quickly (can you say hundreds in a day!) So don’t just linkbait by accident, try doing it on purpose and enjoy the benefit (extra traffic and of course extra money for you)  of all those naturally occurring backlinks!

As far as SEO is concerned, offsite SEO is by far  more important than onsite (to my way of thinking anyways.)  Good onsite SEO can only take you so far, but offsite SEO can catapult you to the top of the serps, and in turn bring more traffic with the additional money making opportunities all those extra visitors can bring. Offsite SEO is all about building backlinks. Backlinks come in many forms, and the value of these backlinks (from a SEO perspective) varies greatly. Lets take a look at some of the backlinks, starting with the best and working our way down:

1. Completely “natural” backlinks-These are the backlinks you get from writing outstanding content, and in my opinion the very best you can get! You know, those posts that cover a topic so well , or show a unique way of doing something, or are just so outstanding in some way they make everyone  want to link to them. Hard to do (for most of us) but very effective! Another word for this kind of link building is “linkbaiting”, now linkbaiting has gotten a bad rap in some circles, but I don’t see why. Some may take linkbaiting a little to far (by using offensive language, or trying to be a bit too controversial, or perhaps getting a little too personal in disagreeing with an authority figure) but in reality just trying to attract links with good content, or putting together the very best,  or the biggest, the fastest, the easiest, etc. etc,  resource is a good thing…right? Bottom line, if you can come up with a way that gets people to “want” to link to your site, more power to ya!
2. One way links from a high quality, high PR blogs in your niche-Whether you trade for them , buy them, or whatever they can carry a lot of weight with the search engines. Stay away from link farms or any “short cut” link generating methods, because the risk is just not worth the reward. If you get your site de-indexed by Google-you’ll wish you hadn’t!
3. Article Marketing-Article marketing is quickly becoming my favorite way to generate high quality backlinks! Think about it, you have complete control of the content your link is associated with, and the anchor text used for the link. Writing articles (on a subject that you know well) can become a very fast, easy way to build backlinks. Also if you write informative, high quality articles they will be picked up by others looking for content and can be spread all over the web! (all with a link back to your site(s.)
4. Get listed in blog directories-Take the time (it’s free, for the most part) to get your blog listed in as many of the hundreds of blog directories as possible. I’ve gotten traffic, and backlinks (one directory gave me a hundred or so backlinks) from the few directories I’ve signed up with.
5. Post in forums-Frequent forums in your niche and leave high quality, helpful posts. Use forums that will allow you to leave a backlink, and don’t spam them, become the guy people look to for answers to their questions, an expert in the niche!
6. Leave comments in related blogs-Frequent blogs in your niche and leave thoughtful, helpful, constructive comments. Use the posts keywords in your comment (keywords in comments-it’s a good thing!) Choose blogs (like this one) that offer do-follow comment links, and that use the Keywodluv and Commentluv plugins.
7. Build Blogger blogs, Hubpages, Squidoo Lenses-You don’t want to get carried away (ever heard of link farms?), but making other sites in the same niche with high quality, original content and linking to your main site, can give it a good boost of juice. Somewhat like article marketing but these sites have the possibility of gaining authority and money making possibilities of their own.
8. Write guest posts on other blogs in your niche-Contact other webmasters in your niche and offer to write a guest post with a keyword anchored backlink or two of course. Shoot for the highest PR blogs to begin with for the most bang for your buck!
9. Social Bookmarking-Although I’m not big into the online social sites (this traffic is hard to monetize!) but if you are just looking for traffic you had better, start Digging, Twittering, and Stumbling, as these sites can and will bring traffic.

Some unconventional ways of getting offsite links

Just for fun lets look at some very unconventional link-building methods shall we? I’m going to start the ball rolling with a few, and your job (if you decide to accept it) is to leave a comment with some of your own suggestions. So here’s a few ways to get your link in front of eyeballs that are shall we say “unconventional” ( the links that is, not necessarily the eyeballs!)

• Hang off an overpass on a busy freeway and spray paint your url on the overpass for all oncoming cars to see. Not only will it be difficult to paint your url while hanging upside down, but getting it done before the police arrive may prove challenging as well!
• Find a car you think is driven daily, but you feel won’t get repaired quickly, and spray paint your url down both sides.
• Climb up on your roof (or any roof, for that matter, close to an airport would be a good idea) and paint your url across the whole roof.
• Pay someone (I know it’s been done, but it bares repeating) to tattoo your url on their forehead.

Ok there you go, not only will this tell me if you actually read my post when you leave a comment, but might prove to be kinda fun too. So lets hear what outlandish, off the wall, ways you can come up with to get your url in front of the most people’s eyes!

How important is utilizing proper onsite seo techniques? Very important if you long for high ranking in the serps, and especially Google. If you succeed in a first page showing, for your keywords, in Google, I would imagine the other search engines are going to like your offerings as well.

Offsite seo is probably of even more importance in getting on that coveted first page of the serps, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot by neglecting your onsite seo! If working from home and earning extra money with a blog is your goal, you should make sure all your ducks are in a row, ie. get your onsite seo right, than work on your offsite seo on a continual basis.

A first page showing, for keywords that get searched for (why go after ones that don’t!) will bring your site traffic, and traffic=extra money in your pocket. It’s as simple as that!

So onsite seo becomes a very important piece of the seo puzzle, and one that deserves you attention.

So here’s a list of steps (in order of importance, more or less) that can help your onsite seo be all it can be.

• Use your keywords in your title. This is very important! Google puts a lot of weight, from a seo standpoint, on the title. So don’t waste this chance to use the your keywords. And not only in the title but making your keywords the first words of the title is also a good idea.
• If you’re targeting a search phrase be sure to use it in the form it will be searched for. So if you were targeting “how to make money from home” do have that exact phrase used several times. That’s not to say you couldn’t also mix it up a little, like “stay home and make money” or “earn money from your home” but try to use the phrase that the search engine user will use, as your main keywords.
• Create good content, and cover your topic well! Don’t skimp, when it comes to writing content, whether it’s a post,  article, or anything you write that you either have a link in or that you think  could show up in a search engines results. Use your keywords (but don’t get carried away, a sprinkling of your keywords is enough) and again cover the topic well. I plan on taking my own advice here on Cash Blog, and making sure my future posts have some meat to them!
• Use your main keywords several times. Again don’t get carried away, use your main keywords in the opening paragraph and again as you close, with a sprinkling in the body.It’s said 1% to 5% keyword density is about right, but I just try to make sure Google knows what I’m writing about! This doesn’t have to be difficult,  just use common sense and make sure there is no doubt what your topic is! I’ve seen people bolding the keywords, but I don’t know whether that is really necessary.
• Have internal links to more good content on the subject of your post. Link to other posts within your site that gives the reader (and bots) more good useful information. Be sure to use relevant keyword anchor text in these internal links. Also, I like the Similar Posts Plugin for Wordpress, which automatically puts several relevant posts at the end of each post.
• Use your keywords in your tags. Don’t be redundant, but be sure to include all your keywords in your description tags.
• Include a site map. If you use Wordpress use a site map plugin to help the bots find all your pages, if not create a site map page. Try to make sure your visitors can access any page of your site within three clicks of your home page.
• Break up your content with images. If you use images (I need to use more!) be sure to use keywords in the “ALT” tags.
• Don’t forget the importance of your domain name. Pick a domain name that has your main keyword(s) in it,  preferably the only word(s), or as close to first as possible. Register your domain name for longer than a year. This may not carry a lot of weight but every little bit can help!
• Use your keywords in the comments section too. Use your keywords in your replies to comments on your blog. You’ll find knowledgeable commenters using your keywords in their comments to you.
• Create a custom 404 page. Or at least make sure anyone who lands on that page can find relevant information within your site easily.

Conclusion

Onsite seo is really pretty straight forward,  just follow the steps one by one. Once you’ve done this a few times for your articles it becomes second nature. I found a site that gives your pages a “grade” for your site’s Marketing Effectiveness my Work From Home site got a 95.6% grade which is pretty good. The site also gives you recommendations on how to improve your grade (I’ll be improving mine.) You can also find many other free online tools to judge your sites effectiveness from an seo perspective.

If you have more onsite seo suggestions to add, please leave a comment and share them. Remember this blog sports both the Keywordluv and Commentluv plugins as well as a Dofollow plugin so you get the full advantage of the links you leave in your comment:O)

Want To Earn Extra Money Online? You Need To Win The Popularity Contest!

This is a guest post from my IM buddy Andy Bacon, enjoy!

So you want to work at home and you think an internet business is the way to go.  You’ve heard about the big paydays and the webmaster lifestyle and you want your piece of the pie.  Well I have great news for you.  The pie is huge and your slice is there for the taking if you are willing to work and apply proven techniques.  The field is wide open for people who want to earn extra money online.

We haven’t even begun to see how the internet is going to change the way business is conducted both in the US and around the world.  Every year the value of goods and services sold on the web increases by billions of dollars.  You can sell literally anything on the web if you know how to market and how to find customers. People used to say, “You can’t sell that ‘whatever product’ on the web.”  Then somebody with a new marketing idea would put up a site selling the ‘whatever product’ with a new twist.  And before you knew it, she or he became the next internet millionaire.

You can do the same thing but you need two ingredients.  You need a marketing plan and you must have a steady stream of customers, or traffic, to your site.  Of these two, traffic takes the most work but it really is the easiest.  For boat loads of traffic all you have to do is get Google to love your site.

Let’s say you are selling dog bowls.  Your goal is to have Google send the people who search for dog bowls to your site.  The customer gets to your site, finds a bowl she likes and buys it.  It’s really quite simple.  The only missing piece of the puzzle is how to get Google to send search traffic to your site. 

You can think of the web as a big popularity contest and Google as the busy body who always wants to know what everyone else is talking about.  In our dog bowl example, Google will send the searchers to the dog bowl site that has the most people talking about it.  This makes absolute sense.  If a lot of people are saying you have great dog bowls on your site then Google figures you must have great dog bowls.  

Likewise, if no one says your web site has great cat bowls then Google will not send any customers your way who search for cat bowls.  You are popular when it comes to dog bowls but not so much for cats.  So if other web sites vote for you in the dog bowl popularity contest then you get dog bowl customers.  If the other sites don’t vote for you in the cat bowl contest you will not get customers from Google looking for cat bowls.

One web site votes for another by linking to the second site.  A link is just a way for the internet user, you, to get from one site to another.  You have probably clicked on links a thousand times.  They are usually blue and when you put your cursor on the words and click your mouse button you are instantly taken to another web page.

The great thing about links is the words used to build the link can be anything you want.  This is good because a competent webmaster will use the words to tell you what is on the page you are clicking to.  For example, if the link said Bob’s Website (this is only a demonstration link) you wouldn’t know what the site was about and you probably wouldn’t click on the link.  But if the text said Great Dog Bowls and you’re in the market for a dog bowl it makes sense to click on the link.  The words that are used to describe what is on the page are called anchor text.  Google looks at anchor text as votes in the popularity contest.

Google keeps track of the anchor text whenever one website links to another.  Every time your website gets linked to with the anchor text Great Dog Bowls you get another popularity vote for the term ‘Great Dog Bowls’.  The more popular your site is for a particular anchor text the higher Google will place your site on the search result page when someone searches for that text. The anchor text a searcher uses in the search box is also known as a keyword.

A keyword is simply the word or phrase someone types into the search box when they want to find some product or information on web.  So if I want to buy a really good dog bowl I type the keyword ‘great dog bowl’ in the search box.  Google has already looked at every website on the internet and determined which is most popular for that keyword.  The search results then have the most popular site in the number one position and the other sites farther down depending on how many votes they get.

There is also a ranking based on the content of you site that plays into the search results, but it has very little impact on your search page rankings compared to the number of links or popularity votes you have.  As long as the website is really about dog bowls most of your ranking will come from the anchor text links you receive from other websites.

If you really want to work at home and earn extra money online you must understand how to get customers to your site.  All online business opportunites require traffic and the best way to get traffic is to have Google love your site.  Google loves popular sites.  So if you want to get Google search traffic you have to win the linking popularity contest and get the most targeted anchor text links.  You can visit the Online Christian Business blog for more tips.