How to Make Money Online for Beginners

But, But, But... I'm A Writer Dammit!

2009-11-05T11:23:00.004-06:00

Freelance Superstar

(Regular readers see note below this post)

Over the years one gets a fairly good read of the types of people who follow your blog. I mean this only in the most general sense. For example I can tell you that (based on the types of ads clicked) about 80% of the people who land on this site and take action (click something) are simply looking for a way to make a few bucks quickly without a lot of work involved or time investment. Programs like Project Payday and Cashcrate are designed for this audience. They are work at home jobs and not for the 15% of my readers who are looking to build a long term passive income online via Internet marketing.

This blog has focused on explaining the basic tasks involved in creating and maintaining a network of blogs that can produce residual income over a sustained time frame. If you are new here and not just looking to make a few dollars fast then I encourage you to start at the beginning of my archives and read forward - don't skip the comments.

By the time you are done you will have a good understanding of what is involved if you hope to make money online. At least as far as affiliate marketing and PPC (Adsense revenue) is concerned. Those of you who want to speed up the process and don't mind spending a few dollars can buy Janet Smith's Nomad's Guide to Making Money Online. It's the only ebook I have ever recommended to my readers and the reason is simple - Janet has outlined my methods in the book and does a great job explaining the basics to beginners. Unlike my blog the book is organized and to the point. It is a huge time saver but rest assured you can still learn all you need to know for free by reading this blog.

This brings me to another ebook just released by Monika Mundell called Freelance Superstar and it is aimed at the other 5% of my visitors - the "I'm a writer crowd". Over the years I have had umpteen writers ask for my help - they have great content but can't make a dime with it. From my perspective I have explained that they don't optimize their writing for the search engines and as a result they only get traffic from the social networks. In short they get readers but not buyers. This group of readers have always proved frustrating to work with - I offer advice on how to tweak their posts and blogs (using SEO) and invariably they tell me that "I'm a writer dammit!" and don't want to compromise their artistic integrity. Shortly thereafter I wish them well and leave them to their artistry.

In Monika's case however we have one such writer that wanted to make a career online being a freelance writer - making money writing for others as opposed to trying to make money providing content on her own sites. She does have her own sites as well but Monika's main income comes from selling her writing and helping others do the same. I have known Monika for years now and watched her learn the ropes from the ground up. She asked if I would help promote her book and as an old friend I am happy too. I am not going to write a review as you can find this already provided by RT How to Become a Freelance Writer and Lissie Consider a Freelance Business. I have never been comfortable flogging ebooks to my readers and turn down requests on a continuing basis. The fact is most people let ebooks collect virtual dust and rarely act on the information provided. Monika is one of the truly good people online and if you are really interested in making money as a freelance writer then I know she can provide all the guidance you will need - the best feature about buying her book is her - the fact that she will go out of her way to help people. Just visit her site Freelance Writing and pick her brain.

For my Regular Readers...

This post is obviously aimed at the hundreds of new readers I receive every week who write me emails asking where they can start - it seems no one really wants to read three years worth of posts. Most of you have learned that I tend to repeat topics on this blog often - a necessity given the influx of new readers. My plan is to keep this site aimed at beginners and deal with other topics that may be of interest to my advanced readers on my other site Make Money Online with Griz. Many of you noticed that I let both blogs sit idle for several months and I will be discussing the why's and wherefores shortly - hint, it has to do with how the new G serp algorithm works.

Unfortunately my plans lately have been interrupted by life. As many of you know I have sold the Fishing Lodge and have spent the past two weeks sitting in meetings with Lawyers, Bankers, Insurance Agents and Real Estate agents finalizing the Sale of the Lodge and the purchase of a home down south in the civilized world. I am still living up north but will be moving our belongings south on the winter roads this Feb/Mar. All these dealings have made me realize something - I don't have the same amount of time to commit to my online business when living in society. I should say - the reason I have been successful online is to a great extent because I have spent 16 years living on an Island on a far off remote lake in Northern Canada. I was able to run my Lodge and maintain my blog network on a daily basis without any outside social distractions - there isn't a lot of other things to do living in the middle of nowhere.

I have done nothing for the past two weeks accept race around Winnipeg from one meeting to the next and I must say - I'm not sure I like the civilized world. If I wasn't doing this for my kids I would never leave the bush. Perhaps I have turned into an eccentric old hermit as a result of living off the beaten path. I have been telling myself that at least there are Golf courses in the south...

End result of this ramble is to say that I have a large number of emails waiting - many regarding the new automated niche support page on the Griz blog. I will get back to everyone as soon as things are tied up here in the city and hope to be home by the weekend. For those of you who aren't subscribed to the Griz blog you might want to check out the last post if you are in need of backlinks - Niche Support

Okay - that's my update and I'm sticking to it.

Cheers,

Griz

Here is the house for those interested. It cost more than I paid for the Lodge 16 years ago - apparently housing prices shyrocketed while I was away... I did manage to get 4 acres with it - just enough room to build a 175 yard Par 3!

Monster Energy Drink vs Vermonster Beer

2009-10-19T12:15:00.016-05:00

Here is another classic case of David picking on poor Goliath again. I am sick of small family run businesses who think they can start a business in their basement, work hard, pay their bills and save enough to finally move into a warehouse and hire 7 other people who think they deserve to make a living by working hard and taking pride in what they do.

On top of that this little start up known as the Rock Art Brewery go and trademark their Beer in the state of Vermont using the name Vermonster. They think I will think that this is a clever spin on their state of Vermont name. Not so - the moment I heard it I was immediately confused as to whether it was a Monster Energy Drink and even though it doesn't look like an energy drink, or smell like one, or have the same labeling or packaging I was pretty sure it wasn't a Beer and must have been a Monster Energy Drink.

And get this - they are refusing to cease and desist using the name Vermonster on their beer even after poor huge Billion dollar energy drink conglomerate Hansen Beverage Co asked them to stop because while Hansen doesn't make a Beer but does make Monster Energy Drinks they are concerned that they won't be able to make a Monster Beer in future because Vermonster will confuse consumers.

Just because Vermonster has a beer and produced beer first is no excuse for harming poor little huge Hansen Beverage Co and I urge my readers to use the net in any way you see fit to bury this little upstart that dares to get in the way of Corporate America.

Of course some of you may actually think the upstart deserves support and you heathens can check out this video blog if you insist on hating America...

(Not safe for work) Allyn Hane Hates Monster Energy Drinks

or this Monster Energy Drink Sucks the Life out of Small Business

or this Rock Art Brewery vs Corporate America

or this Monster Energy Drink - Corporate America Gone Bad

or this When Is A Monster A Bully?

or this Monster Energy Drinks Side Effects

or this Monster Energy Drink Attacks Vermont Beer

or this Hey Monster Who's the Noob Now

or this Camel Piss (Monster Energy Drink)

or this Monster Energy Drink Hates America

or this The Monster Energy Drink Company is One Big NSFW

or this Don't Feed the Monster

or this Monster Energy Drink vs Vermonster

or this Boycott Monster Energy Drink

or this Monster Energy Drink Hates America

or this Why the Hansen Beverage Company Needs to Fail

If these people don't stop slamming Monster Energy Drink word might get out and wouldn't that be a bad thing... Maybe you good citizens might want to call the poor folks at Monster and warn them that there are people saying bad things about them - the horror... Monster Energy Drink at 1-800-426-7367

or if you feel you just have to voice an opinion here is a poll Monster Energy vs Vermonster Beer

or sign this petition Tell Corporate America that you will not Tolerate the Bullying of Small Companies

or join the Facebook group Vermonters and Craft Beer Drinkers Against Monster Energy

Why the SEO and Social Media Industry will Hurt You

2009-10-17T15:15:00.002-05:00

I have talked about the importance of SEO a lot over the years but no more. The simple fact is that SEO - or at least what the experts claim constitutes SEO is not the same as what I think it is. To me SEO means just one thing - keyword targeted backlinks. That`s it. You don't need to know another thing to rank well in the search engines. Ok - sure, tell Google what your site is about preferably using your primary keyword in your url, website title and write content related to your keyword. I won't even bother to say you even have to do that but it helps. Adobe has owned the "click here" keyword for years and they don't use that term at all. They rank for the term because they have the backlinks that use the term "click here" in the anchor text.

Adobe doesn't optimize a damn thing to rank for that term - no H1 tags, no clean code, no pretty website and no text or keywords relevant to the term. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

They just have the best assortment of keyword anchored backlinks using the term and maybe even the most. Period.

So why does a SEO industry even exist?

Quite frankly it's all smoke and mirrors and designed to take money off of people who don't know any better. Dave Starr from Living in the Philippines For Real sent me an email this morning pointing out that some fella known as Great Scott wrote a post called Whiteboard Friday - Getting Indented Listings and that it was posted on SEOmoz. Dave suggested that the fella must read my blog as his post is similar to the last one I wrote about Getting Double Indexing in the SERP's. The subject is the same but I don't know how similar it is - it's a video presentation and I haven't bothered to watch it.

What for? - I already know how to do that so a waste of my time but thanks Dave for letting me know. I've never read a thing on SEOmoz. I get lots of emails referring to the site for one reason or another and I know that the owner is some kind of big shot in the SEO world but as I said above - the SEO world is all nonsense to me. I have nothing against the owner as I don't know him - I only know this - I've never read anything about SEO from anyone and don't really understand why such sites exist. How do you build a site around "Get Keyword Targeted Backlinks"?

Once you have told people that what else is there to say?

So my view has always been that everything else is just fluff or the owners of SEO sites are trying to make money providing services to people who don't know any better. I've said this before - if I charge you $10,000 to get your site ranked well in the search engines I have to convince you that what I do is "complicated" and involves "lots of work" and there are many "metrics" involved. White hat or black hat the end result is always the same - if a site ranks well in the search engines then it is because of one thing and one thing only - backlinks. How these experts get those backlinks is, I suppose, what differentiates the well-respected ethical SEO experts like SEOmoz from the spam SEO experts.

Now I'm sure many ethical experts will try and convince me that there are all sorts of important aspects to ranking well but they will be wasting their time. The fact is I have been ranking sites on top of the serps for years without ever reading anything SEO related and don't have a clue about the "200" metrics that are involved in "good website development". The only reason I know of 200 metrics is because my readers keep asking me about them. I only recently learned about "good website development" because it showed up in an article one of my readers pointed me to. Apparently it means "good SEO" or in my parlance people who build backlinks ethically. They never mention "backlinks" though because well that would then be un-ethical. They don't build backlinks - they practice "good website development". Get it? Wink Wink.

(Btw - before someone wants to play the spam card on me - every site I have on top of the serp's has legit content that provides accurate and useful info for the people who visit my sites. Exactly the content they are looking for based on the keyword they enter into the search box)

As far as "ethics" is concerned - it's all bullshit to me. There is nothing ethical or unethical about ranking well in a search engine. It's just a search engine - not a God. There are no rules because there are no laws. When laws are passed stating that one may only achieve search engine dominance by doing A and B then doing C will become illegal and maybe unethical. Till then it's all just a competition and if people frown on your methods so what? If you win you win. If you lose you lose.

An aside - My friend Chewie, who runs a make money online blog called What A Wookie and I have been working on some sites lately and a few weeks ago we built a new site targeting a popular product. Yesterday it started showing up on page 1 of several data centers for its main keyword. It outranks the ever popular wikipedia entry and dozens of other aged and trusted sites. I don't recall optimizing it for 200 different things. Maybe I'm just a genius and create perfect sites just by luck or unconscious skill but I doubt it. I do know that I wrote three posts targeting three different long tail keywords that all contained the main keyword in them. I know that the blog title contains the main keyword and I know the post titles use variations of the primary keyword. And I know the content of the posts are relevant and accurate in regards to the product. I also know that I posted 3 relevant articles (real articles about the product - not spun or spam) on three different but related sites and linked them all to the new site using three variations of the keyword in the anchored links. I also know that the new site didn't get indexed until I posted the links on the other sites. I also know that the other sites have authority in the niche. So you tell me - how did the new site get to number 6 on G in two weeks for a term that wikipedia ranks number 9 for after several years in existence. In fact the only sites that outrank our site are the owners of the product and the site that they sell the product on. They have 3 listings each. The answer - just 3 measly backlinks on three relevant sites. I guess that is "good website development". And I didn't read a single SEO expert to do it.

So is that unethical? Why? Our site delivers exactly what a searcher is looking for if they type in the keyword. They will leave happy with the product. Is it unethical to rank higher than someone else just because the other site has been around longer or has more pages or more fans and readers? Bullshit. It's just business and competition is part of business. If we make money and they don't too bad - we did a better job.

That's how I feel about the SEO experts and why you don't need to waste your time with them and now let's look at the "Social Media" crowd.

I saw Justin from SEOZombie post a twit or tweet or what ever the hell you call it the other day about some other fella named Derek Powazek who was ranting about SEO and stated the following,

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.

This fella feels that he has the one true way for marketing online,

The One True Way

Which brings us, finally, to the One True Way to get a lot of traffic on the web. It’s pretty simple, and I’m going to give it to you here, for free:

Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.

He then proceeded to use facebook and twitter and an email to "tell People About it".

His premise is that all you need is social media in order to get traffic. No SEO at all. The end result of his efforts was that he promptly got his post ranked #9 in Google for the term SEO. His follow up post stated the following,

And after less than 24 hours, my post about SEO is the ninth Google result for “SEO”. (Logged out, so no personalization. I’m not counting the indented sub-results or the Google in-site promotions.)

His contention was that all it took was social media to do it. In reality all it took was a shit load of backlinks from the people who read his social media promoted post - not the social media itself. Ironic that he promotes social media as the panacea and yet uses it for SEO - or in my terms "to get keyword anchored backlinks". There is a certain irony in lionizing seo and then bragging about how he managed to rank well in the search engines.

Worse he offers the following advice that both tells you how to rank well in Google (he is wrong) and why you shouldn't use Google because all you need is social media.

CLIENTS: If someone approaches you about optimizing your search engine placement, they’re running a scam. Ignore them. If your site isn’t showing up in Google, fire whoever is making your web pages and hire someone better. Sign up for social media services (Twitter, Facebook, etc) and participate there. Pay for quality writers and designers – that’s what will actually raise your ranking in the long term.

WEB DESIGNERS: Learn to code your own pages. If you can’t, hire someone who can, and listen to them when they tell you why putting all that text in an image is a bad idea.

WEB DEVELOPERS: Educate your designers about proper web development. Educate your clients about how the web works. Follow Google’s advice. Read A List Apart. Writing good code won’t just help your Google rank, it’ll make certain your site is accessible to screen readers, mobile devices, and all the browsers out there.

SEO SPECIALISTS: If all you do is SEO, you need to expand. Hire a visual designer and some kickass coders and become a real web agency. Start making sites good from the get-go instead of cleaning up other people’s messes. Besides, if all you do is SEO, your days are numbered. Social media is rapidly becoming much more important than Google. (Number one referrer to my site this week? Twitter.)

Really? He tells us that Google is unimportant and validates his success by demonstrating how well he ranks in Google...

Btw - you can see his ranking for SEO here - #9 In Google for SEO

And BTW again - he no longer ranks for it - long gone and I would explain why but since G doesn't matter...

The thing is - is he right? All you need is social media to drive traffic? Well I suppose if all you want are readers he is right. If you want to make money (a subject he is noticeably quiet about) then social media won't deliver the right kind of traffic. I would be more impressed if he managed to get traffic for a niche that made money. If he had written a post about Credit Cards and his horde of readers came and signed up for a credit card I would have been impressed. If he had managed a page 1 ranking on G for that term I would have been impressed. (And remained there).

This is the same old same old - a blogger writing a post that interests other bloggers (the people who use social media) and they write about it and link to him supplying the "keyword anchored backlink" that "briefly" puts his post on page one of the serp's. Then the assumption is that it worked because he got a bunch of traffic to his blog - readers, not buyers - and then they leave and he has to start all over again with a new post in order to get more useless traffic to his site. Sound familiar?

Remember the fake Steve Jobs? What did he have - a million readers and quit because he never made a dime. Getting traffic for the sake of traffic is a time wasting and useless endeavor that the Social media sycophants just never clue into until one day they ask themselves... "Ya' know - this is all good fun but what is the point?"

Derek is dead wrong when he says,

Pay for quality writers and designers – that’s what will actually raise your ranking in the long term.

On one hand he says G is dead but he is telling people what he thinks will get them ranked well. If G is dying then why is he concerned about how to rank well? Ultimately his advice is as bad as all the SEO experts. Having good code, pretty sites and great content has nothing to do with ranking well in the search engines. His post didn't make first page for any of those reasons - it made first page because he got a shit load of backlinks using the term "SEO" in the anchor text of the link. That's the only reason. Sure he used social media to get the links but others can do the same thing buying links and never set a virtual foot on a social media site.

My point is this - if you have a niche that is something people naturally have a social interest in like Politics, Blogging, Internet Marketing, Technology etc then yes you can use social media to drive traffic. Just understand that that traffic is not the type that will make you money and if having readers is all you want then go for it. Of course ranking number 1 on G for all those niches will also bring in traffic - more in the long run as you won't have to work for it. You can leave a post up for six months and your traffic will still show up every day. If you use social media to drive traffic you will have to post a lot and then spam the social media sites. In other words work for it.

If you want to make money online then you will have to get traffic for a niche that can convert visitors into buyers. If Derek or anyone else can do this for a site that sells "Oil Filters" using social media then please show me. Until then you might want to rank number 1 for "oil filters" on Google and the only way you will do that is to get more keyword anchored backlinks than Fram. You won't do it with better code, or a pretty site, or better writers. You won't do it with Twitter or Facebook.

In short every time I here a Blogger rave about the wonders of social media and rant about Google's demise I have to ask - you do know that 99% of all the websites and blogs online are there to market a product in order to make money for the owner, don't you? Pretty hard to build a huge social following for Oil filters or window blinds.

For the SEO crowd - how are all your metrics going to outrank Fram? All that good code and "good website design" going to do it?

I'll stick to building "keyword anchored backlinks", make money and leave all the bullshit to the experts - social and SEO.

Cheers,

Griz

Btw - I finally have a new post up at the pretty WP Blog - check it out Webmaster Tools Drops Page Rank

Problogger.com What is Griz Doing?

2009-10-03T16:51:00.002-05:00

Question: Griz, I've read your stuff and just can't get any traffic to my blogs. I'm still on page 77 for Credit Cards.

Answer: Try this. Quit chasing highly competitive terms when you are a beginner.

Pick a topic or subject or product that is brand new. Write a post like Problogger.com. Go get 3 or 4 backlinks for it using your keyword anchor in the link on various other venues. (Hubpages, Squidoo, InfoBarrel, Today.com etc)

Check your stats (see below)

Question: Griz how do you get double indexing on Google's serps?

The very next day write a second post about the same topic and link it to the first post using the keyword in the link. (see link above).

Then go to the first post and link it to the second post using the keyword in the link.

This will give you a double index of both posts thereby occupying 2 of the 10 positions on page 1.

Voila...

If the topic is hot you will get lots of search traffic. If it isn't then so what - you have achieved legitimacy in the serps. Keep posting about new stuff and repeat this process over and over daily and a month from now you should rank well for 30 terms. In the process your site will gain authority for numerous keywords and trust rank in G as a whole. As your authority increases start picking more competitive terms and hotter subject matter. Eventually you will rank well for terms that draw traffic and have your adsense ready or a suitable affiliate product.

If you fail to hit page 1 then the keywords you have picked are for a subject that is too competitive for your means - lower your sights and search for topics that you can hit page 1 for with the minimum of links or no links at all. At this point traffic is not your concern - you want to set a track record for ranking in the serps. Gain trust and keep building links.

This is how you build an authority site.

Start another site and do the same thing all over again. Guess what - you already have 1 authority site ready to help the second. Once you have 10 authority sites... start your Credit Card campaign.

I receive these questions continually and have noticed the same questions asked in the Keyword Academy forum. Just thought a demo was in order. Perhaps Problogger.com Forum will use this as an example? Lol

Cheers

Griz

Problogger.com is Live and Wants your Money for Doing Nothing

2009-10-02T10:38:00.003-05:00

Darren Rowse wants you to pay him $2 a month so that you can join a forum full of noobs who don't know how to make money online. Be quick though because the price is going to go up soon unless you lock in the special first month only introductory price! He has already raised $2,000 for his coffers - ooops I mean raised 1000 members. This is true genius as he will take your money while you do all the work. Brilliant!

I can just imagine the wealth of knowledge that will be spread around. We all know how valuable forums are and this one has someone named Lara Kulpa moderating it which should be a real help since she owns a site called Ginko Consulting (according to her URL in Darren's riveting comments). She will be able to explain to noobs how not to use a useful search term in their domain name too. If you follow her advice then you will learn how to create a pretty site like hers that flogs Darren Rowses' 31 Days to be a Better Blogger. Better yet you will learn how to write posts using the ever popular "5 ways to use numbered lists in blog posts" and "9 Things you must have in blog posts" just like Darren does.

Best of all she will tell you "Why Free Hosted blogs Suck" - even I didn't know they sucked. Guess what - they suck because...

Let's hear it right from Lara shall we...

"They’re simply NOT search engine friendly. Not even Blogger (which is owned by Google). Go to Google right now, and punch in your favorite keyword phrase. I’ll give you a hand: Here’s the results for the phrase “personal finance blog” (opens in new window). How many of those are on blogger, blogspot, or wordpress.com? ZERO. Not convinced? How about “diet blog”? Zero free hosted blogs again. Sure there are exceptions, but those exceptions have likely been online for 5 years or more, and it’s SO rare. I can almost say with 100% certainty that you can’t come up with a phrase that will have a free hosted blog in the top 5."

Wow. 100% certainty.

Thankfully she picked a "popular" keyword for her helpful example. It gets 266 searches a day. Wow. "Diet Blog" gets 891 searches a day Wow - even more popular. (Keyword research by Market Samurai)

Clearly she is an expert and has learned that it is the blog platform that matters - not the ability of the blogger. She does mention exceptions... but disregard them because obviously they have been online for 5 years or more. Yah... that would explain the exceptions...

Like these...

Hmmm... Not 1 Blogspot blog in the top five. 2 Actually. Then again it's only for a term that Problogger "Mr. Make Money Online" himself ranks on page 7 in Google's search rankings. Number 68 at the moment. It's also only for a term that gets 32,877 searches a day according to Market Samurai. (It doesn't but I've explained how bad these estimates are numerous times - just use it for comparitive purposes) As for the "age" factor - let's see, Alan started moneymakerinfo in July 2006 which makes it just over 3 years old. It has been in the top 5 for "make money online" for more than 2 years now. And that "other" blogspot blog was started in Dec 2006 which makes it just under 3 years old and it has been in the Top 5 for about a year and a half... Both have been number 1 for the term. They also occupy top 5 positions for dozens of other MMO keywords...

Any other exceptions - perhaps Lara only likes using examples of "useless" keywords - you know - keywords that get no traffic like...

Asia'h Epperson

or Reactolite Spectacles

or well I could show you hundreds of well ranked Blogspot blogs but that would be telling and I really don't want the competition. Most were ranked number 1 in a matter of a few weeks to a few months and some in 5 minutes... Do Ants Scratch their Asses... (Google it)

Now I know - some of you may think I'm picking on poor Darren again because it might look like he is just flogging another useless program to noobs in order to take their money (he is) but I really hope every blogger and internet marketer online signs up and listens to the advice of quality moderators like Lara. If they do then they will be busy building pretty sites like hers that have an Alexa rank of 751,000 (that's about 5 visitors a day - on a good day), targeted for keywords that drive no traffic, selling Darren's 31 Days to be a Better Blogger and above all - not doing a single thing that might interfere with me dominating the search engines and making money online. Please encourage everyone you know to sign up and send Darren money.

If you would rather make money then buy Janet's ebook and learn how a blogspot blog or any other type of blog for that matter can rank on top of the serp's for terms that actually drive traffic and sales (making money online has nothing to do with the platform you use - it's about driving targeted traffic to your site using SEO) or spend $1 and try out Court's Keyword Academy for a month and follow the tried and true methods of "real" SEO. Will I make money if you do - yup. But you will too... You might also visit Ben for free and read everything on his site - Make Money Online Using SEO. Note: Janet's Book is based on my teaching and is perfect for a beginner just starting out - if you are already familiar with my site and methods you wont learn anything new. Stick with Court and Ben. Or you can just read this blog from back to front.

Cheers,

Griz

If you happen to wonder why I`m picking on poor Darren Rowse see this post Problogger.com

Customizing Your Blog Theme To Make More Money Online

2009-09-26T11:53:00.000-05:00

One of the methods I employ for both SEO and Adsense optimization is keeping things simple. Simple text based sites that make the Adsense and Google bots jobs easy to navigate and index my sites for the Keywords I am targeting. Fancy complex sites are wonderful if your goal is to attract readers. Thanks to the likes of Darren Rowse (of Problogger fame) many bloggers assume that having readers and making money go hand in hand. If you are selling ads then having a lot of readers will help. If you are trying to sell product or use CPC programs like Adsense then you will find that readers are not going to buy anything from you or click your ads. You need search engine traffic for that to happen as they are the type of visitor that is actively looking for something - info or a product - and if you present them with what they seek they will buy or click. Moreover they aren't going to search around on a fancy complex site hoping to find what they want. If the answer is right in front of their face they click. If not they leave and look elsewhere.

This is why keeping things simple pays off when using adsense. A simple plain and boring site may turn off readers but it allows search visitors to see your money links or ads the moment they hit your page. Buyers don't want to sift through posts or a page full of beautiful photos and widgets looking for the item they seek. If the item is right in front of them when the hit your site they will click or buy it and never remember your site at all. You don't care - the site has done it's job. It made you money.

Over the past year I have seen dozens of themes developed that are based on my truly ugly theme that you are looking at right now. The nice thing about Blogger is that it is pretty ugly right out of the box and is easy to modify without any technical skills. WP or WordPress blogs are a different matter as you need some technical knowledge in order to use and modify WP themes. I don't have that knowledge as all my WP friends can attest to. I use Blogger because I am a Techno Challenged dinosaur and my brain is full - I have no room to learn anything else and don't own a cell phone because my eyes glassed over the last time someone tried to explain how to add a phone number into the memory. (True - I may be the only person left in the developed world without a cell phone!) The good news is that you can still do really well online if you are a techno dunce like me. You just need a few friends to help out when things cross over the line between slapping out content (I call it Typing - if you are under 30 you probably call it Data Entry) and setting up a WP blog.

Unfortunately many of my readers don't fully comprehend the limits of my technical inabilities and constantly email me asking questions regarding their themes - specifically how to modify their wordpress themes to duplicate my simple is better Blogger approach. To this end I asked an old friend of mine to intervene and lend a hand as he modifies WP themes for a living. I asked Costa to write up a simple post so that I could refer my readers to his site and of course he didn't do that because he knows me too well. Instead he wrote the following Griz length post just to tell you all to head over to his site if you need help modifying your themes... (I have trained you folks too well!) Lol

Here is Costa's post - his link is at the bottom and he has been a great friend to our community over the years and will go out of his way to help you. Take him up on it!

When you start a blog for the sole purpose of making money online or anything else for that matter, the first thing that faces you is your blog’s theme. Though MMO gurus don’t specifically tell you that the looks of your blog plays a part in your earnings, many Internet Marketers have discovered that a blog or a site’s layout, the color and the fonts does play an important part in increasing click-through and conversion rates. If your theme is right, and by that does not mean beautiful, you can and will make more money online.

Lots of bloggers have the misconception that if they make up their blog to be fancy, unique and beautiful, they will attract readers to come in droves and in turn make lots of money. Purist, like my friend Grizz here, has other ideas. They want a simple, boring and a blog theme that is on the brink of being plain ugly. They will tell you that an ugly looking theme makes the most money and they have good reasons to believe so.

A beautiful and pleasant looking theme keeps your readers at your site for a longer time, something that all bloggers yearn for. They want their readers reading everything they wrote and then maybe stay on to make a comment or two. After that, they reluctantly leave, waiting anxiously for your next update so they can come back to enjoy the pleasant surroundings. Some do not wait, they come back twice a day just to drool over that beautiful theme that you are using. Well and good. You have garnered yourself a bunch of loyal followers. Sick and bad. They will not be clicking on anything. Be it an affiliate link or an Adsense Ad. Their eyes are all over the beautiful Theme to take note of anything else.

A secret not much openly mentioned by pure Adsense masters like Grizz is they hate blog stragglers. People who comes to their blog and refuse to leave. Especially so if it is their money making sites. So they devise ways chase them away as quick as possible. One of the many ways is to make their blogs look as ugly and as boring as they possibly can. If there is a way to make their Adsense blogs smells bad, I definitely think they will do it.

Imagine yourself accidentally dropping into a sewerage pit. Your natural and instinctive reaction will be to stretch out your arms to hold on to something so you can get out as fast as possible. In the same sense and with the same reaction, anyone who stumbles into a boring blog or smelly one if there is a possibility, the first thing that comes to mind is to look for the fastest and the nearest exit point. Where is the fastest and nearest exit? Your ads, of course. It only takes one click. Any thing else will take at least two. Think about it.

There are of course many other creative ways make visitors to your money sites want to leave as soon as possible. Some sets their theme’s background to a very dark color and set their fonts just slightly brighter so it is on the verge of being illegible. Then their Ads are shown in bright neon colors shining the way out for their visitors. Just like the “EXIT” sign inside the cinema. Let your imagination run wild and you will come up with a dozen ways to make your visitors want to leave by clicking your Ads.

All this theme manipulations will however come to naught if you cannot attract any visitors to come drop by. We all know that organic traffic is the best paying traffic. To attract organic traffic, other than all the tips that Grizz has taught us here, we will also need what some call a SEO Theme. Basically, most WordPress Themes are already very well optimized for Search Engines but there is still room for improvements. Proper use of tags, Meta descriptions and so on can improve the Themes visibility and provide better nourishment for Google bots. There are tons of free tutorials out there that reach you just how to do that.

By having to do all this to improve your blog’s income, don’t you think it is a nessicity to know how to customize your Theme? You can’t possibly employ someone to do it for you each time you start money making site and using the same theme on all your sites leaves a footprint as big as Bigfoot’s for people to exploit, not to mention our friendly neighborhood giant, Big Daddy G. Once he finds out you are running an empire of Adsense blogs with the same look and design to chase away visitors, he will fry you. So do yourself a small favor. Visit my site and learn some basic Theme Modification Tips so you can use a different Theme for each of your money making sites.

Thanks Costa.

In my attempt to build up our community please let me know if you have something useful to help us all make money online. I will be more than happy to lend a hand getting your message out. If it benefits you - no problem but make sure it benefits us all. (A new forex robot will not cut the mustard.)

Cheers

Griz

Private Network - 30 Positions

2009-09-24T07:38:00.001-05:00

I'm going to keep this simple. You will see an email I received from a long time collaborator of mine below. He and his partners have been building networks for a year and a half now and in fact put together a project for me this past year. The sites are all PR2 - PR5, multiple C class IP's and fresh (they have not been used for any links yet). I seem to open up a can of worms every time I discuss issues of this nature but I know there is a core group of readers that can benefit from such a network. If you understand link building and have a stable of sites in need of some help then this is for you. If you don't understand what this is all about don't sweat it - you're not ready for this yet. I am not being paid for promoting this nor is there an affiliate link - just an email you can contact the owners with. I am not publicizing the name of this network and ask any of you who join to keep it to yourselves. This has a ton of potential if we keep it under the radar and within our community. It is not being publicized anywhere else. And yes - I am the first and only member using it at the moment - so don't screw it up with spam and dumb ass linking strategies. (No I don't use any networks with this site - it's as white as snow in case you were going to check my links... lol)

Here is the email...

Griz

You can mention that people can email us at linknetwork@rocketship.com. Once we approve them we will let them in. The first 10 people to email us will get the service at $107 dollars for their first month and then $127 a month following. The system is based on good behavior, and releases 2-5 posts per day per website you want links for. Users that use the system the way it is intended according to the rules are rewarded with more posts pushed out to the network per day on each of their projects. The network has automation as well, so the more a user is trusted, the more automated their articles will be, which means pushing links out to the network faster rather than waiting for a review.

The reason this network is better than the others is that several of the more popular networks which I have researched have serious flaws which make it easy to uncover all the sites in their networks. This network has eliminated those types of trails. The network is also constantly stocked with fresh blogs. Another feature which we are looking at implementing in the future is posting articles to static websites. This means a whole new dimension to the way Google views those links. Other options COMING SOON include posting to blogs built for only one topic. This means more targeted links which makes them even more powerful. The limit on users allowed to join the network is 30, and once that is filled we will put others on a waiting list to join if/when we open back up.

And that is that - if you have questions fire away but I may dodge a few of them as I no longer like discussing this issue in public. It works. It is how the real money is made. And it is Taboo.

Update: The 30 positions have been filled. You can still sign up on the waiting list in the event of future openings.

Cheers

Griz

Post Your Own Articles dot Com

2009-09-14T10:50:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure of all the details but I know that RT Cunningham from ConnectContent has handed over the site to Court and Mark from the Keyword Academy. I have had a number of emails asking if it was still operating. I haven't talked with Court about his plans for Connect Content so if I am jumping the gun I'm sure he'll let me know. (I haven't had much time spying in the forum lately so some of you TKA members may be more up to speed than me)

What I do know is that the site is up and running at a .net url. I believe RT had it on a .com url? In any event I was able to log in to my account this morning and everything seems to be working. If you are a member or looking to join the rest of us you can get to the site here; ConnectContent.net

If you don't know what connectcontent is about you can read my post here What is Connect Content

I'm not sure why RT decided to give up ConnectContent but suspect it took up a great deal of his time. He is a busy fellow and likes to play around with the "code Monkeyism" aspect of working online. I do know that he has a knew project up and running called Post Your Own Articles and it caters to "our" crowd. If you need another source for supporting your authority sites then this should be added to your list. The concept is simple enough - post quality articles on the site (no spammy stuff) and link out to your target site. (With properly keyword anchored text of course) You can find out all the details required to become an author and the monetary rewards offered on the Author Requirements page. I'm not being paid to promote this nor is there an affiliate program - just helping a friend and pointing those F.O.G.s who know what they are doing to a new source. Don't forget to send links back to your post pages on Post Your Own Articles.

I'm still evaluating the latest serp update and will be posting about it but one thing has become clear - the best links are unquestionably content links anchored in posts. This isn't a big surprise to most of you but finding authority sites that will allow such links is the hardest part of the equation. For this reason I suggest that many of you should follow RT's lead and create an authority site (supersite) in much the same manner. The more sites available for everyone to use the better - all properly monitored for quality content while offering a source for quality links for users who want to contribute content. The owner gets an authority site because the users will be smart enough to link hubs and lenses and infobarrels etc back to their posts on the authority site which will increase the authority of their own targeted keyword pointing back to their own authority site. And the users get to use the site to target their keywords. A win win...

Another site that you can look at is InnerBuzz - you may recognize many of the authors...

I'm just about caught up and am finishing off a set of posts about the serp shuffle and a few other things which will be posted on the dormant Make Money Online Griz blog. Just thought I would wait till the shuffle is over and then talk about several little tests I set up for this round of serp bouncing. I've told you how to get to the top of the serp's so I thought I would work out what can get you penalized in the serp's and how you can fix your penalties should you see a sudden drop... stay tuned.

Cheers,

Griz

Are you Impressed with RSS Numbers?

2009-08-31T07:12:00.005-05:00

I had planned on a 2 pot post today but was invited out for a game of Golf this morning... what to do... hmmmm...

Winter is on its way so I'm Golfing. The 10,000 word post on how to write a 10,000 word post on Oil Filters will have to wait!

In the meantime I have something rather entertaining and even a bit enlightening for you folks to read. Allyn Hane and Steve Sherron have posted some results after having been featured on some high traffic blogs. Beware the language is not for your mother (if you are a mom don't tell the kids you have heard such things) but I would encourage you to check out these Video bloggers and rethink your strategies if your goal online is social blogging. If you think having huge RSS subscribers and tens of thousands of Twitter followers will make you a force to be reckoned with... well maybe not.

First see Allyn's post Social Media vs Organic Search

and then visit Steve's site for I have a Man Crush on Griz Grizzly

The two posts are related and discuss the same event.

Update... Lissie has something to say as well Social Media Scam? Is Griz A Social Blogger?

I asked for posts worth linking to a few days ago and more of you are starting to come forward. There is one thing you can all benefit from and that is in building up our community. The more authority sites we build between our selves the more sites we have to help us all achieve our goals online. We have the numbers - we just need to get everyone motivated and that's my prime goal at the moment.

If you are interested in using Amazon I suggest you read Tracey's post How to Make Money with Amazon

Those interested in using Adsense might want to follow along with Michael's new site Working on the Go:The Adsense Startup

If you find their sites useful then get out there and let others know with your own posts - you may find that helping others is a good way to help yourself.

Be back later - hopefully in 72 shots or less!

Cheers

Griz

Keyword Elite v2.0 ? - Not a Fake Affiliate Review

2009-08-27T11:18:00.016-05:00

I waited a day for this post just to see how many bogus reviews were going to show up on the search result pages for Keyword Elite version 2.0. As expected the entire first page is full of crap sales pitches for the product and not a single useful post for anyone wondering if the software is worth a dam. Lots of sites selling it (including the ever popular (useless) bonuses if you use my link spiel) but no one who has actually put it to work.

I haven't bought it - don't intend too either. I'll get to my reasons shortly but for now I want to encourage those of you who have to leave me your impressions in the comments or even better - write an honest post and I will add the link to you on this post. No sales pitches please! (You can like it or hate it just no affiliate links) A lot of real people will hear about this program and wouldn't it be nice to offer them some real information and knock the affiliates off the first page of the serps. Capiche?

To begin Splork has started a thread on this topic and you can check it out here, Keyword Elite 2 - What`s the Word?

Simonne has this review as well, Keyword Elite 2.0 vs Google Adwords Keyword Estimation Tool

Alana's take on the program, Keyword Elite V 2.0 Overview – Do you really need it?

Jim has some advice for Brad Callen, Keyword Elite 2.0 Ignores Mac Users

Seems the spam and hype have not gone unnoticed, Paul vents I`m Already Pissed off with Keyword Elite 2.0

Now - I have waded through the Brad Callen Spam Attack this past few weeks and if that wasn't enough reason not to buy his product I'll give you a few other reasons.

First off - it's a Keyword Estimate tool and I have told everyone this often - the estimates are not particularly useful as they bare little resemblance to actual keyword searches. Keep in mind that I may well hold more number 1 serp positions than any one else online and have compared the estimates of Google, Keyword Elite 1, Wordtracker and others to my actual stats and none of them are even remotely accurate. Yup - even Google's as hard as that is to believe. (Oh and Google's is free)

Secondly, having watched the pre-sell videos I couldn't help but cringe when I saw the PPC Adwords module called Adwords Time Machine or some such nonsense. Folks this module is meant to entice noobs into the PPC venue on the belief that easy money is to be made by simply copying the campaigns of the successful PPC users. There are a few problems with this assuming the Time Machine stats are even accurate. First there will suddenly be dozens or hundreds of new players all using the exact same ads for the same products bidding for the top serp spot. In the process Google will be making hay as the bid price gets blown into the stratosphere as the competition skyrockets for the ad placement. Second - the noobs doing the bidding will know nothing about the real trick to effective PPC advertising - Quality Landing Pages - and end up paying $10.00 a click because their MMO blog is not optimized for the terms they are bidding on and the fools will still think its going to make them money because the site that has been advertising for the term must be making money or they wouldn't have kept the ads running for six months. Guess what - the established site is only paying pennies a click because it is optimized for the actual keyword or it is the product manufacturer or both. This little module will cost a lot of noobs a lot of money. A better module would be one that shows how many noobs are bidding on a keyword because of Brad's module and then tell you to stay the hell away.

Let's look at some of the other modules...

A New Advanced Google Site Targeter program which allows you to quickly find websites displaying Adsense that you can advertise your own website on.

Ummmm... useless. You know what your site is about. Type in your keyword in Google's search and advertise on the highest ranked site on page 1 that uses Adsense. Why you would want to do this is beyond me though - just outrank them. Why they would allow you to advertise is beyond me as well - you're the competition.

New JV Diamond Miner program which allows you to quickly and easily find websites that are building email lists, allowing you to mooch traffic from their already profitable businesses.

Ummm... it knows which sites are profitable? Neat trick. Hint - every site with a free ebook or selling a product has an email list. Spam them all and ask to sell your product on their Thank You page. Just Google your keyword to find them - you don't need Keyword Elite 2 to find a list for spamming.

New CPA Magnet Program which allows you to find high converting CPA offers, as well as monetize those offers through stealth keyword generation.

Interesting - I'll let someone write in and tell me how well this works.

Enhanced Speed.

Yawn....

Keyword Elite’s own Keyword Data Source, which allows you to build your keyword lists in seconds, not minutes.

Great except Google's Adword tool only takes seconds and is still just as wrong.

Added the Microsoft OCI Percentage so you can see what percentage of visitors searching on a specific keyword are potential buyers compared to browsers.

Cool - maybe... Let's hear some results from some users.

A Competition Strength Indicator to quickly tell you if a keyword is worth optimizing for… based on the level of the competition.

Ummmm.... do a search in exact quotes and then check the anchor's used in the top sites backlinks. Most competitive keywords don't have more than a few dozen serious competitors and less competitive keywords rarely have more than a few serious competitors. What do you care anyway - there isn't a term online that you can't outrank if you follow my advice regarding backlinks and put in the work. I don't even bother to check the competition anymore - I just get to work and out rank them. Doesn't matter if it takes a week or a year - just do it.

Ok - that's enough. I want to hear your views and if you write a post about Keyword Elite then let me know and I'll add it here.

Cheers,

Griz

Warning - The following comment section contains some strong language that may offend some readers. I have left the comments stand as I do not believe in censorship of other people's opinions.

Write Something I can Send Traffic To

2009-08-25T05:51:00.014-05:00

I like to send traffic elsewhere. Love it in fact. I have no idea how many requests for link exchanges I get every week - more than I can keep track of. The thing is link exchanges are crap - or should I say the sites asking for a link are mostly crap. Too bad. If you want a link then write something worthy of getting noticed.

A few examples;

Carla wrote a hub a little while back that I have meant to acknowledge but haven't got around too until now. (Sorry Carla - please forgive) Aside from showcasing Carla's extreme talent as a writer this post is the B all and End all for anyone wanting to know how to use hubpages to its full advantage. Beginners - that means you! It's called How to Make Money Writing on Hubpages Everyone trying to make a living online should read this - downright excellent.

Note: Faith from Telecommuting Jobs totally understands how you can help yourself by helping others...

In the same vein, if you are going to target a niche (meaning keywords) then learn the art of writing long posts full of great content (for the readers) while laser targeting your keywords (for the search engines). The following post by Dave aka Mr. Dirty Boots is as good as I have seen anyone pull it off. Take a full pot of coffee with you - Dave's fingers were on fire for this Make Money Online post. Read it - he pretty much sums up 3 years of my posts in a single article - brilliant.

Speaking of Niche's - Fiar describes How to Make Money Writing Political Humor and does a great job of showing you how to integrate various themes (Keywords) into a post that you might think is irrelevant but isn't. This is how you can take a single themed site and turn it into a multi niche site without losing your main focus. (If you are using Adsense this is key to maximizing your profits.)

KS also wades into the niche marketing arena with the following post The Science of Niche Internet Marketing

If you are a beginner just starting out online those posts should be required reading - take my advice and study what they say. Btw - they didn't ask for links but they deserve them.

On a lighter note Terry wrote a post mocking the make money online niche which just happens to show you folks how to get yourself a number 1 ranking keyword in short order. Now his keyword may not get much traffic from the MMO crowd but it might lead to some decent traffic from the Spanish food connoisseurs. Lol Make Paella Online

And Carl wades in on the ever popular "The Secret" with "The Super Rich use The Secret to Dupe The Masses"

And finally Lissie is on another mission to save beginners from wasting money on yet another A-List "noobs can be sold anything" program. This time she has set her sights on CopyBlogger's regurgitated Teaching Sells membership program. I could tell you why Brian Clark is just as much a waste of time as his buddy Yaro Starak but Lissie really enjoys putting the boots to the A-List so I'll let her have her fun. (Check out the comments - Clark shows up but doesn't have the class Darren Rowse showed on Al's Interview with Darren Rowse.)

Related Post; Dirk adds his thoughts regarding Teaching Sells on his make money online blog.

Or check out Agrande's post covering the "Teaching Sells" topic. "Will Teaching Sells give you an Online Business?"

Btw - I have been spying on the forum over at the Keyword Academy. For the handful of you that haven't joined yet I suggest you make your way over there. The forum is a busy place and no - no one is selling anything. Just a bunch of people helping each other out and making good progress as budding Internet Marketers. Spend a buck and find out yourself - it's the best place a beginner could start online.

And yes I have a tee off shortly...

Cheers

Griz

Update: Some people just have the kind of personality that shines - even online and one such sparkplug has taken up the challenge and produced a post about "How to Make Money Planning a Wedding". Alexis is a lovely young lady living in the Swedish outback and I urged her to take action in the comments below - and she did. In record time! Ya' gotta admire her "get up and go-ness" so please take a moment and read her post.

Another Update: Remember Agloco? Well another version of the same old same old has reared it's ugly head called SQIP and before you get lured in check out Simonne's post. (Thanks Simonne!)

Video Blogger - Allyn Hane takes on Problogger

2009-08-19T21:28:00.014-05:00

Just had to post this Video series done by the Master of His own Domain - Allyn Hane who just got back from a little Cancun vacation and managed to tape some interviews with some notable internet marketers. In the first of a series (all this week) Allyn interviews Mr. Problogger himself Darren Rowse. Apparently Allyn, who runs the video blog Blogger Illustrated, was also able to interview Gary Vaynerchuk, Courtney Tuttle, Griz (me - really?) and of course, his mentor, Vic Franqui who all just happened to be staying in the same hotel in Mexico.

It should be an interesting (and humorous week - international spelling).

Be sure to drop in on Al and leave a comment or two - and bring your own beer... To leave a comment visit Al's Interview with Darren Rowse

Part 2 - Al's Interview with Gary Vaynerchuk

Part 3 - Al get's Courtney Tuttle to reveal his next big project... How to Pick Up 100 Chicks in 30 Days

Part 4 - Al Interviews Griz ... or tries to...

Part 5 - Al Interviews Blogger Unleashed's Vic Franqui. (Language warning - put your parents to bed first)

Cheers,

Griz

Stats you can Take to the Bank

2009-08-17T05:50:00.015-05:00

Alright - time to play a little catch up here.

If you are trying to make money online then ya' might want to pay attention. This is especially true if you are one of the thousands out there dabbling in the MMO niche itself or affiliate marketing in general.

First off - the Make Money Online niche.

As many of you know this plain old Blogger blog pretty much owns the niche at this particular point in time. The vast majority of my traffic stems from Google and let me share some stats.

Search visitors per month - approximately 150,000
How many keywords do I receive traffic for? Between 5000 and 6000 different terms.
The top 5 keywords account for 95% of all traffic.
The term "make money online" is not the top drawing keyword... surprise! It comes in second. I am not going to tell you what the other 4 are cuz that would just be stupid but next time you are using a keyword analysis tool - including Google's - just keep in mind that none of them are really all that accurate. Not by a long shot. I get a lot of emails from people targeting keywords that are "supposed" to have 200 or so searches a day and when they rank number 1 for the term they find out that they get next to no traffic or none at all. The reason is simple - the estimates are wrong.

If you want to find the keywords that have traffic then write agonizingly loooooong posts full of terms related to your chosen topic. Then rustle up backlinks for all the terms you think are the main keywords and point them at the post. Rinse and repeat for every post you write. Google will eventually show you what keywords are really being searched for in the form of search visitors. Track those terms and rustle up more backlinks anchored appropriately and soon you will not only have a list of what people really search for but you should be ranking on top for them as well.

Now - what's the point of having a top ranking site in the Money Making niche if I don't know what kind of money it can make selling affiliate products?

Apparently my readers don't want to know how much money can be made or what kind of conversions a top ranking site has in this niche. I base this on the reaction I got from my dear "readers" when I decided to find out...

Sorry folks - I DID want to know and unfortunately the only way I could find out is by slapping up some affiliate courses (Court's) and affiliate products (Vic's Niche Devil). I didn't spend 3 years targeting this niche just to NOT make money or Not learn what kind of conversions could be made with a highly targeted SEARCH audience. So for those of you who were upset and feel that I shouldn't have bothered to find out please skip the following bit of info... (BTW - I have said countless times - if in doubt ask me about something you see on my site. I always give an honest answer. If I had said this on the posts it would have kinda killed the results???)

So - without further ado...

Adsense - after 2.5 years worth of results - maxed out at about $120.00 per day. Some spikes upwards of $200 per day but not an average.

All other CPC that I tried - maybe $20 - $30 a day. I can't get an MSN or Yahoo account so they haven't been tested but every other network like Bidvertiser, Chitika etc don't come close to Adsense.

Alright - Court's Keyword Crash Course.

I picked this course for a number of reason's; it is hand's down the best investment a beginner can make online if they want to learn how to make money online. Court teaches what I do - simple as that. I do SEO and if you don't know what that is just ask yourself how you found my site in the first place? I had no problem sleeping at night sending people to Court - he is as legitimate as they come online and I have yet to hear otherwise.

I added a link to his site above the fold with a short blurb. I still had Adsense up there as well. The results? Dismal at best. Hmmmm... what to do. Maybe pull the Adsense off. I did. The results improved immediately - from a few people a day to a few dozen a day clicking through to Court.

An aside... my first day without Adsense I did $350.00 (approx) in affiliate sales on the site. This has tailed off to between $250 - $300 per day on average ever since and why Adsense is no longer here. I have always said to focus on one form of monetization. It turns out that the 300 - 400 people who would click ads daily are also the ones who buy affiliate products. Adsense, in effect was sending all my potential buyers elsewhere...

(BTW - I have given both Terry of The Honest Way and RT of Untwisted Vortex access to one of my biggest affiliate earners and if you ask them they can verify the leap in earnings after I removed Adsense. I'm telling you this as some people still have doubts that money can be made doing what I do. I have made over 40K on this site from just one source - ask them.)

Back to Court.

To really see what kind of boost I could give him I decided to do a full blown post about the Keyword Academy and the crash course in particular - see original post Keyword Crash Course The results were immediate and pretty decent. I left the post up for 2 full months - roughly 300,000 visitors saw it. How many clicked through to Court's site? Just over 10,000. Yup - just 3%. How many of the 10,000 signed up? Just under 400 or 3.84% to be exact.

Many of you may find the totals shockingly low but let me tell you a little secret - 3% is a pretty standard conversion rate in the affiliate marketing world. I have seen this over and over again in many niches for many different products. And this rate is what I come to expect from products that convert well. What isn't a secret and what I have told many of you over the years - you need traffic, a lot of traffic actually to turn a decent profit and the reason many of you can't make money selling online is that you 1) don't have targeted traffic and 2) you don't have a niche that can produce the kind of volume necessary to make a consistent income. The answer of course is to just build more niche sites and make money through sheer volume.

Vic's Niche Devil

I have mentioned over the years that I have made some pretty decent income using short term strategies. The basic gist is to get in early, cash in and move on. I have done this with blackhat programs like Voodoo Blogger way back when you could slap up hundreds of sites and rank them all for a short time using various linking techniques that worked at the time. Invariably G shut the door on every trick that the black hats could come up with but - and this is the important part - I made a lot of cash while they worked and not once did I say - gee... maybe I shouldn't have done that because it didn't last. Never once did I say oh man - I only made $15,000 gaming technorati but now they don't let me anymore so it was a waste of time...

Folks - I'm not telling you to do or not do anything. I'm just presenting things that have worked for me and what you do with the info is up to you. I knew Niche Devil was going to cause a stir but I couldn't really get into details on who should use it or how it should be used - unfortunately this site is to widely known now for me to elaborate. I had hoped that my regulars would just simply leave the post alone and those who are inclined to the dark arts would find a use for Vic's site builder but it wasn't to be. The comments basically killed the post and once I got Splorked it was dead. I can't give you any meaningful stats regarding sales, conversions etc but I can confirm that my sight is read by people who don't want programs like Niche Devil used - I'll let you figure out who that might be. Needless to say I will stick to Terry's Secret Society for any future discussions regarding the dark side.

Backlink Solutions

I have talked about this program at length over the years and the post was for one reason only - to pass on info to those who have read my detailed instructions on how to use link networks. (On the private forum) The 32 spots sold out within the day and if you are one of the members don't be noobs - use it correctly and you will see results. nuff said.

Now let's talk about Problogger.

It seems many of my readers think I'm a blogger. From the bitchin' and whining I've seen in my comments and emails and on Ben's post Make Money Online with Work and Lissie's post Making Money with an Online Goldrush or Allyn's post Niche Devil (although he doesn't spell it that way - lol - btw - watch Allyn's Video's if you want to see how entertaining a video blogger can be!) I seem to have picked up a lot of readers who think this site is built for readers. It ain't! I built this site for search visitors first and foremost and guess what? I also built this site to "gulp" Make Money. I love my readers - don't get me wrong - but you guys don't pay the bills. By all means follow along and you will learn how I make money online but will you please keep in mind that I am using this site to test and experiment different forms of monetization. I have thousands of search visitors rolling through here each day and some of you seem to think I should ignore them and post fluff like Darren Rowse does? Really? Would you? I didn't think so...

When you are wondering what I'm up too why not look at what I'm doing and learn from that as I can't come out and tell you or it will kind of destroy my results. You will see a lot of strange things on here in the future so please let it go. I am always targeting search terms. Or funneling traffic. Or testing monetization. Or reinforcing previous posts for double indexing or keyword authority. (Like this post) Or helping friends with links and traffic - yes even sales if I can. (I know - how terrible!) If you want to learn things from me you have to let me do stuff to learn it myself. It is my intention to use the Make Money Online with Griz blog to answer your questions and provide results while I use this site to run my tests and make money. That said - can we please call a truce on the whining and complaining - if you don't like something just let it be or maybe stop and use your noodle and figure out what I am up to. Please just keep in mind that readers make up a small portion of my traffic. I know you tend to think I am writing for you exclusively but I'm not. I try and include you but my target is the search traffic. As for Problogger - keep something in mind; yes he seems like a nice guy and probably is but he tells you to just write good content as a blogger and the money will come. This is untrue and he knows it. He will never tell people that backlinks are the true source of making money online because he may fall out of favor with G. Yet - check out his main sponsors - the people who pay his bills. Yup - text link ads... people who sell backlinks.

Oh - one more aside. Every time I write a long post like the Problogger article (or this one) and engage readers my affiliate sales crap out big time. Less than a third of normal sales. Straight affiliate marketing posts like Niche Devil don't effect my sales at all. Why? Posts that are more Reader friendly send people hither and yon due to links etc and are time consuming to read. They (the search visitors) just don't end up on my money links. Short posts flogging something are either read quickly or ignored by search visitors and they either click out on the product's money link or one of the convenient links up top should they ignore the post. Keep this in mind if you are trying to sell something and using a typical blog post to do it. The more you engage your readers and the more links you have splashed about your post the less likely you will see results as far as sales go. This assumes that your readers are from the search engines. If they are just social bloggers then you'll fail regardless of what you try.

Let's wrap this up with a short message regarding my comments. This site produces a startling amount of email and comments - upwards of 5000 some weeks. Yes you read that correctly. Insane. Most of it is spam. I get 20 - 30 comments every hour from anonymous posters trying to get a link on my site for some product they are promoting. Not the usual Viagra and sex spam most of you are familiar with but from other MMO bloggers who hour after hour send the same crap. They find my site on top of their niche and assume I'm stupid I guess. Needless to say I delete them all but I tend to delete some real comments by accident from those of you who use the anonymous option while leaving your name in the actual comment. I try and skim all the comments quickly to find the real ones but at times there is just too many so my apologies if you get axed by mistake.

Okey Dokey... I have been busy with several projects but I think I'll get into them on the Griz blog in due course. Right now I have to work on my Golf game since it appears Tiger Woods is beatable after all. Y.E. Yang just handed Tiger his biggest upset at the PGA Championship at Hazeltine and millions of us hackers are smiling this morning knowing that Tiger is human after all!

Cheers

Griz

Be a Better Blogger? WTF??

2009-08-14T08:15:00.009-05:00

Okay this has been brewing for a while and against all my powers of restraint I just have to ask - what exactly is a better blogger?

Really.

I'm one of Darren Rowse's 121,000 RSS readers and hate to admit it. Did I say "reader" - I should have said I get his daily Post Title sent to my inbox and then two seconds later I delete it. Today I actually clicked through to his blog just to read the 121,000 comments he must get from his "riveting" posts or in this case his "guest" poster; some fella called Seth Waite who must have stayed up all night in the throws of ecstasy, just waiting for Darren to publish his eye opening work entitled "Forget the Fatal Flaws of Blogging". Thank GAWD I read it - now I know that I have to overcome the two things that have been holding me back - WISDOM and Effort!

CheeeeeRiiiiiist - Darren must want to put a gun to his head. Imagine starting a blog about blogging, somehow attaining an audience for such an inane topic and then having to barf out a fluff post everyday to keep the masses happy. Turns out I'm not the only one who deletes his daily updates unread - apparently 120,995 or so other twits like me also keep the subscription but never read a word. All the posts I checked managed to draw 50 comments or so which sucks given the vast army of subscribers. Those who do comment are nothing more than the usual ass lickers and bone heads you'll find spewing crap on other A list sites.

I don't blame Rowse of course - he's just trying to make a buck and why not, by cashing in on the advertisers who think they are going to make money from his readers. The thing is - every post is as mind numbing as the last - "Some arbitrary number of days to be a better blogger" which consist of lists of horseshit items like the following;

(Keep in mind that Rowse claims his blogging tips are to help you make money online - check his byline "Blog Tips to help you make money blogging")

I present Darren Rowse's Problogger's tips (with full link credit) with my own version in bold.

1. Giving up too early - blogs take time to take off. DOH

2. Putting off starting a blog - waiting until everything is just right before launching can mean you never do it. Uh Doh again

3. Echoing what everyone else is talking about - say something unique and share your opinion. Haven't I heard this a thousand times already!

4. Not blogging on your own domain - I know some swear by using hosted blogs but if you want ultimate control of your blog it is best to do it on your own domain and hosting. Hehe - Yup - no one could possibly be successful using a free host...

5. Irregular Posting - you don’t have to post every day but try to establish a regular rhythm of posting. Oops really - regular posting matters huh? Shit...

6. Being too apologetic - ’sorry I haven’t written for a while’ can end up being the most common type of post on a blog - yes apologize if you’ve messed up but don’t be too hard on yourself - keep investing your time into building your blog up rather than highlighting it’s problems. Gee sorry I haven't been posting for a while... Why did I gain 1800 subscribers over the last 3 months with only 3 posts?

7. Focusing more upon Quick Traffic than Loyal Readers - there’s nothing wrong with a big rush of traffic from social media or another blog - but just as important as that is building reader loyalty. Sometimes growing one reader at a time is more fruitful than getting spikes of traffic that never returns. Yah - or maybe it's better to just get search engine traffic and make money instead...

8. Clutter - too many buttons, widgets, navigation elements. What difference does it make if no one ever clicks through from their email or feedreader?

9. Great Posts but Terrible Titles - don’t short change yourself by investing hours into writing great content only to slap a mediocre headline/title onto it. Yah, Careful or you may never get a reader because your post titles only attract targeted search traffic...

10. Not Defining a Topic - the most successful blogs have a well defined topic/niche (or they target a certain demographic) Holy Crap - he actually got one right but not sure how he defines a topic using "Snappy Post Titles"

11. Choosing a Topic you have no Interest in - for your blog to be successful you’ll need to blog regularly on your topic for years - if you want to sustain it choose something you have an interest in or love for or you’ll run out of steam. So why are all my 10 post sites targeting acne and weightloss still making money years after I lost interest in them? Wait - I never had an interest in them.

12. Too many Ads - I don’t have a problem with ads on a blog from Day #1 but when they overpower the content and push it down the page too far they hurt your chances of building a loyal readership. Yah - readers hate it but they make money from the search visitors. I hate it when people don't read my crap and just click ads...

13. Being too Insular/Expecting Readers to come to You - many bloggers starting out fail to realize that the more you put yourself out there and interact with other bloggers the more chance you have of being read. So get out and spam Darren's comments and make yourself known or write a fluff post on his blog telling people they need "Wisdom and Effort" - I bet Seth is rolling in cash today.

14. Blogging about Making Money Blogging (as a first blog) - I’ve lost count of how many bloggers I’ve seen start blogs on the topic of blogging for money when they’ve never made money blogging. Start with something you know. True I guess unless you plan on outranking everyone in the niche... hehe.

15. Not Being Useful - blogs that meet needs and solve problems are blogs that people will keep coming back to and which they’ll spread news of to their network. Like this post is useful for beginners to stop wasting time reading Problogger.

16. Writing for Search Engines Before Humans - you can always tell when a blogger discovers Search Engine Optimization for the first time. Suddenly titles don’t make sense, keywords appear in posts for no real reason, links to other pages on the blog that are irrelevant to the post keep being used. Learn SEO - but keep your readers as your #1 priority. Hahaha - or just dominate the serps and learn that readers don't click ads or buy crap.

17. Becoming a Stats-a-holic - the lure of checking your stats is understandable and common to new (and older) bloggers - but it can become an unhealthy obsession that leads to distraction and depression. I can't imagine how depressing it is to see a stat like 121k of RSS subscribers and only 35 comments on your post...

18. Link Baiting with Personal Attack - taking pot shots at other bloggers might get you some quick traffic - but hate breeds hate and the type of readers you attract and the culture it’ll breed on your blog could come back to bite you. Plus you’ll get a reputation that you might not want to live with. I can live with it...

19. Not Knowing Why You’re Blogging - while most of us don’t really know what we’re doing at the start - the faster you can work out what the purpose of your blog is the sooner you’ll start moving toward achieving that purpose. The sooner you realize that all your posts are inane fluff the better - just get those RSS subscribers and the advertisers will line up. Or quit being a blogger and become an internet marketer.

20. Not Selling Yourself - one thing I don’t think many bloggers get is the power of blogs to sell yourself as a blogger. There’s nothing wrong with monetizing a blog with ads - but maybe a better long term strategy is to use a blog to advertise who you are and what you can offer readers. You could offer your readers a list like this while telling people you don't like to publicize yourself like Darren's post publicizing himself... "Since launching 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook there have been many reviews written by other bloggers of the resource. I’ve not really linked up to too many of them as I’m naturally a little shy about promoting my own work - but today was challenged by another blogger to step out of my comfort zone a little and share some of the testimonies"

21. Thinking You Have to Know it All - one of the best things about blogs is that they’re a great medium for involving your readers in the process of learning. Leave space for others to interact, share what they know and contribute. Apparently I do everything you shouldn't do according to Darren Rowse which means I definitely don't know it all - whew at least I got that one right...

Now while I am having a little fun at Darren's expense I don't blame him for all the crap he spews - he has to come up with something everyday and the fact is there is only one thing you need to be a better blogger - be interesting. If people find you interesting you will develop readers just by word of mouth. It may take a while but it will happen. Vic developed an audience in a heart beat because he was fun to read while he was posting on Blogger Unleashed. Ben is interesting and has become a favorite in a short time on his site Make Money Online with SEO. My real point however, and it has always been the same, is that if you are a beginner trying to make money online you will be wasting your time reading any advice given out by the A-List bloggers. They are bloggers and while they make money due to their popularity they do not give advice on how to make money online if you are not a popular blogger. Telling people to become a popular blogger is not a recipe for success. Spend your time learning SEO, Internet marketing and how to build sites that can convert search traffic into buyers and you will be miles ahead of the Bloggers. I started this blog long after Rowse was a popular blogger and while I don't have his fame I can assure you I make more money than he does. From free hosted blogs no less and the reason is simple - I get search traffic by the ton looking for what I have to offer.

My readers have heard this before but this post is really for the 5000 or so people who dropped in from the search engines today. There are three camps in the "Make Money Online" racket and the sooner you get them straight the better.

Camp 1 - the Bloggers. Also known as the A-list. This is Darren Rowse's camp and if you find any site with links pointing to him or John Chow, Shoemoney, Copy Blogger, Yaro etc then do yourself a favor and run. You will piss away your time trying to be another A-Lister and fail. Read Costa's take on this; Are you Still Dreaming of Being a Famous Blogger

Camp 2 - the Product Pimps. Also known as the list marketers. I won't bother with the many names suffice to say these people make money selling crap using email lists and I'm sure your inbox is already full of them. They hang out on forums like Warrior and Digital Point and exist to make money off of you. They have never produced anything that will enable you to make money yourself. Do not waste your time on those forums - nothing but useless advice from people who have never made a dime online.

Camp 3 - the Internet Marketers. This is the far end of the pool and to date very few of them have come forward as they really do make money online and don't for obvious reasons spend time telling others how they do it. Aside from myself and Vic and Ben as mentioned above, there is Courtney Tuttle who gives no nonsense advice on his blogs and offers the best paid course online with the Keyword Academy Coaching program. Over the years I have urged a lot of otherwise quiet Internet Marketers to come forward and you can find a number of them in my sidebar. The common denominator is that we understand SEO and make money from the search engines and not from readers. All the info you need to make a living online is freely given by us as we are not competing with each other selling the latest crap ebook to bloggers. We don't target bloggers - we target civilians and provide targeted info to the people actively searching for it online. Our methods worked 5 years ago and still work today and you don't have to waste time with dumb ass things like Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon or any of the other time sucking social network sites.

I get a dozen emails a day asking "how to make money online?" - the answer is to start reading this blog, or Vic's, or Ben's or spend a dollar and sign up with Court. If you really want to make money then get off your ass, read the right stuff and run like hell if someone tries to tell you how to be a better blogger!

I tee off in an hour...

Cheers

Griz

See Problogger.com

Great Grandmother Needs Help

2009-08-09T09:54:00.008-05:00

I get a lot of emails from readers asking for some help with their sites. Unfortunately I don`t have the time to give everyone the attention they need. One lovely lady has been corresponding with me lately regarding her Gourmet Recipe blog. Her name is Vicki and she is brand new to this business but isn`t short on gumption. I`ve given her a few pointers but she is getting bogged down on a lot of technical issues like adding photos, a statcounter etc. She`s using Blogger and if I wasn`t in a Golf Tournament this weekend I would deal with it myself but since I can`t I thought I`d throw this out to you folks and ask if anyone has a few minutes to give Vicki a hand.

Oh she also asked if I knew of anyway to help her get some free traffic...

This should help. Lol.

So if any of you have a few moments on a Sunday please pay it forward and give Vicki a hand. You can contact her in her comments on her blog - The Recession Proof Gourmet

Thanks and just think how good you will feel afterward!

Cheers,

Griz

Update: Monday Morning You guys are too cool - thanks for all the help you`ve shown to Vicki and I just thought I`d add a link to Joomla Bear`s site so you can check out the post he wrote for her. (Thanks Lachlan)

Fresh Niche Marketing Tips

and for those who asked in the emails - I didn`t win, I shot a net 66 (I`m a 7 Handicap) but the winner shot a net 58. (Sandbagger!) You non-Golf types won`t have a clue what that means... lol.

Oh and what about that Tiger fella`... 70 wins and counting!

Thanks again everyone.

Btw - recipe sites are a good way of getting your feet wet online if you like to cook or like to eat - which just about covers everyone. :-)

see Potato Patch Recipes from the Potato Chef

see Southern Cooking: Easy Recipes from the Past from the Left Handed Guitar Player; a fella that's been a good friend to both me and this little community, Ben Willis

If you`d like to show off your Recipe site please send me an email or leave a comment and I`ll add it to the list.

Backlink Solutions is Open Again - Briefly

2009-08-06T09:41:00.005-05:00

Hey folks,

Just a quickie to alert those who have been waiting for Backlink Solutions to re-open their site to new subscribers. The owners Chad and Colin have given me a backdoor link for you to use. My long time readers are aware that this program is one of my "secret" weapons that I have been using for a few years now. They have made a number of changes since inception in order to eliminate the usual noob dumb ass users who always destroy programs of this nature. If you are not familiar with Backlink Solutions I won't be explaining what it does here. I have discussed it's usefulness many times over the past few years and to my detriment in Terry's Bike Shed. I don't want beginners involved (sorry) - this is strictly meant for those of you who have been waiting for an opening. As of yesterday they were accepting 32 new users. That's not the usual sales crap either - like Vic they recognize the importance of keeping membership limited in order to preserve the effectiveness of the program. If you are thinking of using the program as a spammer or to promote spam sites - don't bother, you will get tossed. If you are serious about IM and need a leg up then proceed.

Here is the link Backlink Solutions (This isn't open to affiliates so don't peel off that link - won't work)

Hint - this may prove very useful for the new BING/Yahoo engine and those of you working on ND.

Canadian Internet Marketers - Pay your Taxes

Just a warning for all my Canadian readers. Revenue Canada has been given a list of over 5000 Ebay marketers and will be conducting an Audit shortly on all those names who have not reported their earnings. The Government is providing a short amnesty (approximately 1 month) for people to come forward and pay their taxes. If you fail to do so then there will be additional fines and penalties when they catch up to you. If you think you are safe because you don't use Ebay then beware that it won't be long before they compel Google, PayPal etc to release data as well. I suggest you avoid an ugly fight, bite the bullet and come forward now with your earnings while the amnesty is in place.

Cheers

Griz

Niche Devil

2009-07-29T06:27:00.007-05:00

Update - Please note that as of August 2nd Niche Devil is sold out.

I received an email from my old buddy Vic Franqui yesterday alerting me to a new software script he has developed for building Niche sites called Niche Devil. It is available for the next 14 days and I'm not going to hype it or explain why you should be interested in it aside from mentioning a few things;

If you found my site chances are you typed in "how to make money online" or a similar term in Google and found this site sitting on top. The reason is simple - I make money online by building sites, optimizing them for the search engines and then passively watching my income increase as traffic drops in courtesy of the search engines. I spend more time golfing than building sites. This wasn't always the case as I spent several years building a network that now allows me to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

You can do the same thing as I have - I'm not a programmer, web designer or list marketer. I pretty much use free blogger blogs (a no-no according to all the geniuses I outrank and out-profit online) and my success is limited to how fast I can produce new sites. (I'm pretty fast though)

If you want to do what I do then you can sit down and read this blog back to front and find out how it's done. Or you can join Court and Mark's Keyword Academy and have them teach you what I do. Either method will give you the tools for creating an online income that works as well today as it did 5 years ago and when you are finished you will only be limited by how fast you can build your own sites.

Enter Niche Devil - just what the doctor ordered. A fast way to build sites for technically challenged people like me.

If this had existed 5 years ago it would have saved me a great deal of work and it will save you a great deal of work. Don't be confused though - this has nothing to do with being a blogger. Vic, Court and I are not bloggers - we are Internet Marketers and we focus on methods that create online wealth - not how to become popular online. If that is your goal then go read Darren Rowse of Problogger or any of the other Blogging gurus.

When you check out the product page you may recognize a long list of names endorsing Niche Devil. They are the same people that have been commenting on this blog for the past three years and many of them are listed in my sidebar and on my Friendz of Griz page. I mention this as they are all extremely approachable and if you have questions/need help etc then please take the time to ask. We have developed a large community of like minded marketers over the past several years and we are not exclusionary - if you need help then you have found the right people to learn from.

Nuff' said... If you want to start producing passive income then start building.

Cheers,

Griz

The Keyword Crash Course

2009-05-25T07:18:00.012-05:00

My regular readers are familiar with Courtney Tuttle and Mark Butler who run a teaching blog for Internet Marketing called the Keyword Academy. If you are new here or are one of the hundreds who have emailed me asking "where to start" or, more to the point, have asked me if I would be willing to tutor you directly on "how to make money online" then I strongly suggest you take a look at Court and Mark's Keyword Crash Course.

Both men are professional marketers, they teach the same basics as I do and offer one on one mentoring in this business. The Crash Course is designed for beginners just starting out and you can get your feet wet for a buck - a token introductory price for a month just to keep the tire kickers and time wasters away. If you are looking for real instruction on making a living online then join Court and Mark. If you are just looking for another "get rich quick" ebook or gimmick then they aren't for you.

If you found my site chances are you found it ranking high in Google for the term you searched for. This wasn't an accident - it is what I do and it is the keystone for making money online. How can you learn to dominate Google and the other search engines? You can start at the beginning of this blog and read or take the more focused approach offered by Court and Mark. Unfortunately I just don't have the time to offer personal guidance so please don't ask. I wouldn't recommend the Keyword Academy if I didn't endorse the fellows fully.

I would love to get some feedback from those of you who have already joined Court/Mark - good, bad or otherwise let us know.

For those of you interested in Court's affiliate program you can get more info here;

Webmasters Earn Money Here!

A Teaser...

To the regular gang of MMO'ers - Thanks for the concerned emails and comments. Everything is fine, better than fine actually and I will be posting an update on the Griz blog (soon) explaining what I've been doing etc. Sorry for the absence but all is well and I should be back shortly...

Cheers,

Griz

Privacy Policy Update

2009-04-02T10:29:00.009-05:00

You can see my Privacy Policy Update by following the link.

(note - this site (MMOFB) is not associated with Google.com or Google Adsense and you are encouraged to visit Google directly for more information.)

If you are using Adsense on your site then you must update your privacy policy by April 8, 2009. This update is in relation to the new changes enacted on Adsense in March of 2009. The new changes effect how Google collects information on your surfing habits using third party advertising vendors who leave cookies on your browsers - notably the Doubleclick DART Cookie.

The basic changes to Adsense revolve around the addition of Interest Based Advertising as opposed to the previous Placement Targeted Advertising. You can visit Google for a description of what Interest Based Advertising entails.

Your updated Privacy Policy should inform your users about the use of third party cookies on your sites and provide them with information regarding their opt out options should they wish to not have cookies placed on their browsers. See Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising

As an Adsense publisher you also have the option not to use Internet Based Advertising and may Opt out by following the instructions posted in Google Adsense Help. I do not recommend that you opt out but the choice is yours. These changes should help increase your CTR and CPC in the long run as you will become less susceptable to being smart priced. (ie. Conversions should increase as users are presented more advertisements based on their interests)

Update: I have discussed why I think Interest Based Ads should be tested before opting out in the following post on my other blog; Google's Interest Based Advertising.

It is still too early to give any conclusive feedback on how successful Internet Based Ads are but early results seem to be positive. Unfortunately March was a bit rocky for publishers as all the new changes to Adsense caused a number of glitches - several days saw CTR under-reported which Google admitted was an error on their part as they were not showing relevant ads. They maintained that it was only for a few hours but it lasted several days. You may have also experienced higher than normal pageviews for a few days.

Personally I have seen and am still experiencing strange CPC highs and lows as recently as yesterday. I'm not too concerned as I think it will take a little while to iron out all the bugs and caution everyone to just wait things out for the month of April before making any major changes to your Adsense sites. (ie. Don't concern yourself with smart price tweaking for the time being)

If anyone has seen definitive results either good or bad regarding Internet Based Ads please feel free to leave a comment.

FYI - I am on holidays with the kids at the moment (spring break here) so have been neglecting my comments but should be back to work next monday.

Cheers

Griz

Site Build It - Lessons Learned

2009-03-27T09:35:00.024-05:00

Site Build It Aftermath

One of the more humourous (international spelling) things I see online are people that use link baiting. And the people who think others are link baiting. Link baiting is simply writing contentious posts and titles designed to attract attention. A useless endeavor for making money as the visitors don't click ads or buy things. Link baiting attracts social traffic. The only good that can be said for it is that they may leave you gobs of comments full of rich keywords to feed the Google bot. Keywords that will bring you targeted long tail traffic in future.

Lissie was accused of link baiting with her recent posts concerning SBI or Site Build It. She wasn't, she was simply using a tried and true technique known as Keyword Targeting her post in order to rank well in the search engines. The point was to obtain targeted search visitors who do click ads and buy things. She wrote a second follow up post in order to link to the first post. The reason? That is how you can obtain double indexing in Google. (You have to use the exact same keywords anchored in both posts though) I wrote a post about Site Build It as well and have now linked to it and will link that post to this one.

If you use keyword targeting and people link to you then they are likely to use your post title in the anchored link pointing at you. If that happens then you will rank better for that keyword.

How did Lissie make out? (click images to enlarge)

- and that's how you make money with Adsense. Let the people flogging a program pay you to flog it for them. They do all the work - you collect the money. When one batch of affiliates have lost enough money using PPC another batch will replace them. You will still be making money with a program like SBI long after the current crop of users have quit blogging on SBI. Just be sure to target a program like Lissie did - it has been around a long time and probably will be for some time to come. To find the right programs just look for fanatical cheerleaders, and lots of fake review sites. Simply post a contrary review and the fanatics will get your post noticed. Once noticed many people who have been scammed or are simply not happy with the program in question will link to you. Google will also give your post a nice position even without the links. See Justin's SEO blog for a technical explanation of why this is so.

Lissie's post is done, ranked and she will never have to do another thing and the search traffic will show up every day and make her money should she add Adsense to the post. (assuming there is search traffic for the term - if not use the post to send authority for a term that does get search traffic - ie. Site Build IT, Site Build It Review etc) Ideally you want to rank number 1 for all the terms. I have discussed how this is done previously.

Oh... and how well does social traffic convert?

Some of the folks on Digital Point Forum seemed to think my Niche Blogging with Hot Topics post was designed as link bait. Let's see why I don't bother with forums or chase social traffic.

This past week my 5th highest source of traffic came from a thread in Digital point.

Source: Google Analytics

And let's see how well my traffic sources converted into Adsense Earnings.

Source: Google Analytics

Some of you may think $12 bucks is worth spending your time chasing 1100 social visitors but it will take a lot of work to keep that traffic coming daily. Do what Lissie did and you won't have to chase anything - Google will send them to you.

So? Does SEO work?

Lesson completed. (insert smilie dude)

Cheers

Griz

Related Posts

Site Build It Review Update

Honest Reviews Online

Site Build it - Don't Buy It

2009-03-20T11:03:00.052-05:00

This is not a fake review with a sales pitch for Site Build It - I am simply telling you not to buy it.

Lissie wrote an article entitled Site Build It Scam Review. If you read her post and I encourage all my readers to do so you will see a prime example of how many online systems work. Develop a canned project, target beginners looking to make money online, set up a sweet affiliate program to entice people to sell your product and then send out your core cheerleaders to attack and bash anyone who so much as criticizes your product. Read her post and see if you would like to be associated with the cheerleaders pimping this product.

In my experience every time I see a swarm of cheerleaders like Site Build It has, you are looking at a program that makes money by selling the program and not by using it. MLM is notorious for using this method. Is Site Build It MLM? I have no idea - doesn't matter. What matters is that the only reason you get cheerleaders to swarm en masse is to protect their source of money - ie selling "the program" - not "using it" to make money online.

If the program developed successful internet marketers then no one would give a damn if someone like Lissie writes a negative review about the program. They would know it works and are making money using it. If others dissent so what - their loss. You wouldn't care because it worked for you. On the other hand if your only means of income is selling "the program" to unwitting noobs then you can bet you will be out in full force defending "the Program". If people start reading negative opinions then your source of income is gone.

I make money doing what I do and could give a rats ass if someone doesn't agree with me, or like me or bashes me and I would never ask my readers to defend me or my system. In fact I wish you would all stop mentioning me on the noob forums like Digital Point and Warrior. Please.

If you do a search for Site Build It on Google all you see is fake affiliate reviews simply gushing over how wonderful it is. Such bullshit. There isn't a real review on it which simply tells me that real internet marketers have nothing to do with it (I wouldn't use it) - just noobs doing the noob affiliate review trick that is as old as the hills. Is that what Site build it teaches?

Thanks to Lissie's post a number of cheerleaders left their URL's. It took less than 10 minutes to review their sites and guess what? They don't know SEO, they don't make money, they don't know how to find profitable niches and they don't know how to monetize. They just have the usual generic sites like all the other millions online, neither good or bad. Nothing worth spending $300 to learn. You can learn far more reading my blogs for free. I could outrank every one of the niches I looked at in a heart beat using a free blogger blog.

I have a favor to ask all my readers who have a site - please write your own review about Site Build It. You will save future beginners from wasting their money. The serp's are full of affiliate reviews pimping this product and could use a few real reviews so that people have a better idea of what this product is really about.

Our good friend Vic has surfaced long enough to post Site Build It Noobs are Funny on Blogger Unleashed.

Steve spreads the message on his blog Is Site Build It a Scam?

Video Presentation Is Site Build It a Scam?: No It's Just Bullsh*t - by Allyn Hane (This Video is excellent and not just the content - you have to see Allyn - some serious talent)

I am sick of scum bag cheerleaders trying to bully people online especially as they are doing it simply to make money by sucking noobs into programs they don't need.

Read Justin's post if you are interested in understanding the SEO aspect of all this.

Related Posts - These are real reviews and not affiliates of SBI.

Site Build It Scam? by Jeremy

How Not to Make Money with Site Build It - by Terry Didcott

Dr Ken Evoy SiteSell.com Scam? - by April

Site Build It is a Waste of Money - by Splork (My friend Splork has wasted more money on more crap than anyone I know. If you are a beginner then listen to him - he has been there - done that!)

Site Build It Review for Beginners - by Medic

Site Build It Scam? - by Wayne

Site Build It Scam Controversy - by Archie

Site Build It Scam Review - by Ad Tracker. (Quite humorous)

Site Build It Scam Trolls - by Fiar (Excellent commentary that covers the real point of this exercise)

Make Money Online for Free - Not with Site Build It - by Denise

Is Site Build It a Scam? by Christy

Site Build it Review or SBI Review or Whatever by Vic (lol - for your entertainment pleasure folks!)

What Constitutes a Scam? - by Bruce

How to Earn Cash Online with Site Build it - by Frank Carr (A considered opinion by one of the fairest reviewers online - well worth the read if you are considering Site Build it.)

Site Build It: The Scam - by Nick

Can I Make Fast Money with SBI? - by Matt

The Blog War - by Costa

Site Build It Action Guide - by Andy

The Soap Opera of SBI Scam Review - by Simonne

Fake Scam Product Reviews - by Tracey Edwards

How to Avoid Site Build It Scam - by Jeff Lopes

Site Build It Websites without the $300 - by Hijinks

Ken Evoy Defends Site Build It - by Dennis Jr.

Review of Site Build It - The Bashing - By Nick

SBI - The Evoy Empire - by Vic W

Is SBI Site Build It a Scam? - by Derrick

Site Build It Review - Positive or Negative? - by Neena

Is Site Build It a Scam? - SBI Review - by Zania

Site Build It is Unlikely to Make you Much Money - by Lorecee

Site Build It Vs Steve Pavlina: Which is the Scarier Cult - by Personal Development for Dummies (Funny and quite perceptive)

The Great Site Build It Scam - by Max Wolfe

Site Build It - Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Lin Burress

Site Build It Scam - The SBI Cult VS Lis - by Xel

Fake Site Build It Affiliate Reviews - by Carla

When 'Site Build It' Zombies Attack - by RT Cunningham

Site Build It is Not Worth It - by Damien

SEO for Small Business - Buyer Beware - by Larry G

Lissie's Site Build It Scam Review - by Cliff Edge Consulting

Site Build It Scam - by Scooter

WTF Is it with Site Flipping - by Bill The Blog Entrepreneur

Site Build It Review: Is SBI a Scam - by Ditto

Don't Buy Site Build It! - by Niche Writer

Site Build It Scam: No Need for SEO Web Design by Norman Sheppard Web Design

Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Janetra Antigua Web Solutions

Site Build It Scam Review - By Adam

Site Build It SEO Video from Vic - By Online Stock Trading

Site Build It Review - by Bastilar

Make Money Online The Real Deal - by Lissie

The Site Build It Controversy - Carla

Site Build It - No Naysayers Allowed - by Chanya

What is the Site Build It! Stink About - by Elliot

Site Build It? Forget It! - by Thai

How to Make Money Online for Beginners for Free - by The Chetty Bear

"Site Build It" - by BK

Site Build It Scam Reviews - Reviews Collection - by Joe

Watching the Fireworks - When MMO Implodes - by MJ

Are Site Build It Reviews a Scam? - by Michael Erickson

Site Build It Blog Reviews - by Online Stock Trading

Site Build It Review Site - by Grey Brother

A Negative Review of Site Build It! - by Toban

5 Things that won't Make Beginners Money Online - by Jordan Pierreza

The Dirty Little Secret Behind the Law of Attraction - by KuleKat (Kat adeptly discusses the Western world's penchant for self help, Steve Pavlina and SBI)

Get Your Green on

How to Pinch a Penny

Billiga Bilforsakringar

Cheers,

Griz

1.5 Million Visitors in 8 Days - Niche Marketing

2009-03-15T09:21:00.021-05:00

Make Money Niche Blogging with Hot Topics

The early bird gets the worm when there is no competition.

1,512,246 visitors in 8 days.

Click images to enlarge

Translates to $9,268.05 in earnings.

I told you how last post... it's money season folks.

Most of you ignored me. Hot topics are not glamorous - they are not long term - and they won't make you famous.

But I don't really care... they make money.

Sorry I haven't had time to get to the comments... been a tad busy.

Cheers,

Griz

(before you all ask - there were 3 celebrity centered events this past week and I'll say no more)

Update:

For two days I have been getting a constant stream of "experts" from Digital Point filling my inbox with troll crap - the usual "nobody will tell you how to make money online for free", "he must be selling something", "it's a fake" and so on. It is ironic that DP and Warrior are full of people flogging crap and noobs looking for answers and yet when someone mentions that you can learn everything you need to make money online for free just by reading a blog the trolls come out in force. It says a lot about the mentality online and why people don't succeed - a smart cookie might wonder how a PR0 free Blogger blog ranks on top of the make money online niche and do a little reading. The losers will never figure it out but it doesn't stop them from voicing their noob opinions.

For your entertainment folks... Digital Point Drivel

March 18 - Update. There is a new post on the Adsense blog for those who have been waiting - the feed update won't go out until the morning.

Today.com Pays You for Usless Traffic

2009-03-08T10:56:00.011-05:00

As many of you know I signed up for a free sub-domain on Today.com. In my short time on the site I have used the domain's juice to rank a number of keywords in decent position in the serp's. Next up - "How to make money with Adsense". This wasn't hard thanks to my friends who graciously supplied me with anchored backlinks. Thanks guys and I'm repaying my debts using the SEO and Adsense page. If you have sent me a link and I have missed you please let me know. (If there is a keyword you would rather have me use then let me know that as well.)

Lissie from How to Make Passive Income Online alerted me to the fact that the blogger's on Today.com were a bit green - and she was correct. If you have been following my advice for any lenght of time - say a week - then you are already an expert compared to the folks plodding about on Today.com. This isn't to demean them - they are truly nice people but they are completely new to the ways and means of internet marketing or even just blogging in general. Moreover the moderators are just as green. Even more astonishing is the fact that the powers that be behind the domain don't seem to have a great deal of knowledge either. And this brings me to the topic at hand.

Today.com encourages people to use social networks to attract traffic. The screenshot below is from the forum and one of the "Administrators" actively encourages people to use Entrecard.

Click image to enlarge

For those of you who don't know - Entrecard is easily the most useless traffic producer online. It consists of wasting an hour or two or your day loading 300 URL's in your browser and then clicking on them in order to visit 300 websites. You never actually look at the websites you visit - you just open it in a tab and by the time it loads you are already 4 tabs away loading another url. By the time you have loaded all the sites you simply close the browser window and wait for 300 other entrecard users to load your url in their browser - none of whom bother to read your posts either. When it is all done you pat yourself on the back because you had 300 unique visitors to your site. None stayed more than 2 seconds but what the heck it makes you feel like you are popular. Oh and gee - look at that - Alexa gives you a ranking.

Most of you learned long ago that you sure don't make any money from entrecard users. This also applies to the stumblers and diggers and redditers and sphinners and twitterers etc. Useless traffic that sucks your bandwidth and leaves without so much as a comment. Traffic that you waste hours trying to garner. One huge time sink if you are trying to make money.

However - and this is the point of this post - a lot of my readers still spend their days courting social traffic. You do it because your site isn't really set up to make money - you still hold onto the fact that maybe you will get famous because of your writing. Maybe targeting the search engines is a bit too much work. Maybe you will get around to doing what Griz says... one day but for now you're just gonna go with what you started with. If that is the case then Today.com is for you.

Why?

Because they will pay you for all that useless traffic. $2 for every 1000 useless unique visitors. It ain't much but I bet it is better than what most of you make right now with your social blogs.

Now some of you are thinking that getting 1000 visitors a day is hard - even useless visitors. Nope - not really. (I can't believe I am going to tell my readers how to get social traffic - lol)

Target Celebrities, Gossip, Tech/Gadgets/Gaming, Politics, humour and hot stories (ie - American Idol is back again)

Use images - lots of properly alt tagged images.

Post photos - tag em', keyword the photo with a short blurb

Post ten times a day - 10 posts per page.

Use Linkvana, Backlink Solutions, RT's ConnectContent, and buy anchored backlinks for all the targeted keywords.

Use my niche support page - it is free.

Use all the social sites to stumble, digg etc but if you use the link networks mentioned Google images will send you a ton of visitors all by itself.

Because you are using a free sub domain you need not worry about G. Just don't link it to any of your real sites.

This is the kind of stuff I did plenty of in the old days and I still have a couple of tropical fish sites that receive in excess of 10,000 visitors a day each - most from Google images. The sites make me nothing - the odd ebook sale but if I was getting $2 for every 1000 visitors I would build more.

If Today.com wants to pay for traffic then give them traffic. You can also set up affiliate links provided by Today.com and if approved by them they will also pay you $1 a post as long as you don't do self promotion posts.

The best thing about this is that you don't need to write much content. Just small keyword optimized blurbs about the photos. This is exactly how I used to use Technorati to drive thousands of people to my hot topic sites before Technorati canned the "what's hot" page. I posted photos with scandalous post titles and short keyword optimized blurbs. Social traffic loves crap and will bounce all over the net looking for it.

Here is the most visited site on Today.com http://whybenormal.today.com/ - 7000 daily visitors. Take a look at it. How much work do you think it takes to do that? (I mean no offense to the owner - good on her I say) $300 a month for posting humorous photos. Nice.

Unfortunately Today.com doesn't accept people worldwide. They don't publicize what countries are acceptable but it appears that N. America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia (Tiawan, Japan) are ok. I'll update this post if people leave comments regarding their own country - pass or fail. If any of my readers that specialize in sneaky tactics have some ideas on circumnavigating the home IP blocking then feel free to leave your ideas below.

If any of you sign up or have an account already send me an email with "Today member" in the subject and I will let you know of another way to drive traffic - a very simple system. I won't respond back until I have everyone included so be patient. Let me know your today.com url in the email.

Today won't make you rich but I suspect a lot of you wouldn't mind a few extra bucks in your pocket given the current recession. Those of you who want to work a little harder can probably make some decent money using the affiliate ads provided if you target your sites to the right traffic.

I know a lot of you aren't making anything with your social sites - you may as well do the same thing you are doing now on a site that will pay you for the visitors.

Note: To all my "I'M In" participants. I haven't forgot you. Just ironing out a few things and will send you all an email shortly. Frank and RT - haven't heard from you but would like to...

Cheers,

Griz

Make Money with Adsense - February Income Report

2009-03-02T06:48:00.009-06:00

Hi Folks. As you have all noticed I have not posted in a few weeks as I have been concentrating on my new Adsense for Beginners blog. Actually - the previous post was simply a funnel to send traffic to the new site. Over the past couple of months my social traffic has increased considerably on this site and I am attempting to send the beginners elsewhere in order to reduce my social traffic/search traffic ratio on this site. I have said this often - if you want to make optimal returns with Adsense then you need to increase your search traffic (targeted) and reduce the amount of social traffic (un-targeted) that are clicking your ads. This will drastically improve your CPC and CTR.

A secondary concern I have is the amount of questions I get regarding Adsense. I thought it best to start over from scratch so that beginners can find all their answers in one place and not have to try and navigate this site for them - an impossible task and the result is that new comers tend to ask the same questions over and over on every post. Hopefully the new site will be easier to navigate and it contains current info - this site has a lot of info but much of it is out of date spanning the last two years. There have been a lot of changes in two years and I am far to lazy to go back and update old posts. It will be much easier in future to just point people to the new blog rather than answer the same questions over and over on this blog.

That's the official story - now the unofficial story.

I have talked a lot about dominating niches. Many of you have taken that to mean build a site, optimize your posts and then work your targeted anchored backlinks until you rank number 1 on the serp's for your term or keyword. If you have been following this path then you are doing things correctly and will see results. However - this isn't how you dominate a niche - you are simply dominating a keyword or phrase.

The next step is to dominate ALL the keywords and phrases associated with your niche. This will greatly increase your overall volume of targeted traffic. If you have followed my system - long winded posts using lots of long tails then you will have noticed that you can start driving traffic to your sites in short order. When starting a new site the traffic may not find you using your main keywords but they will find you for all the long tails. Ranking well for your long tails will help you rank for your main keywords if you choose your long tails properly. I have re-demonstrated this technique and urge you to read the following post if you are still not clear on how to choose and use keywords effectively in your posts and in your backlinks. Keywords and How to use them for Backlinks and for Post Content

There is still one step left in dominating a Niche. The final phase is to use your authority on your main site to support several other sites and vice-versa. There are 10 spots on page 1 of the serp's for every keyword. You don't have to stop at just one.

I have four sites now (that you know of) working their way up the MMO niche. You know about them because I am demonstrating what I do. I don't recommend you do the same - keep yours anonymous. You can build any number of legit sites anonymously and use them to support each other. Can you build a network without fallout from G or your competition? I don't know - I don't advertise them elsewhere. This blog as usual pushes the bounds of what you can or can not do. My sites are legit and shouldn't run afoul however my content tends to discuss things that may get me into trouble at some point.

February Adsense Income For Make Money Online for Beginners

A slight dip from January's numbers - 3 less days accounts for approximately $300 but this still leaves a drop of about $500 compared to last month. Not a concern as February is back on par with earnings posted throughout the fall. November and December had dropped enough to make me wonder if the economy was beginning to affect earnings. The January/February earnings have alleviated those fears. Perhaps Adsense is recession proof - time will tell.

Click Image to Enlarge

On a side note and something my Canadian readers have benefited from - the drop in the value of the Canadian Dollar has actually helped me earn more money. Last months income of $4k USD converted into an extra $1000 in Canadian currency. Very Nice...

Helping Others

I have benefited greatly from the help given to me by my friends. Your friends can be your greatest asset and one of the things that I have been attempting to do is build a community of people who will help each other out. While this has greatly benefited me I would like to take a more active role in helping others get immediate results. Several of you have reached a point in the serp's where you could use an extra push to get to the top of your niche. I will say no more in public but ask all of you who would like a little hand to contact me directly with the subject line "I'm In".

I know who my long time readers are and this is available only to you. I don't like excluding anyone but if I am not familiar with you I ask you to be patient and get yourself known in the community before asking to be included. For now I want to do a trial run with my regulars. The basic jist is I am going to ask you all to do something for someone else and ask others to do something for you. What we do won't be publicized. Nuff' said.

Cheers

Griz

Introducing Adsense for Beginners

2009-02-17T09:30:00.003-06:00

Hey folks. I have started a new site dedicated to explaining the fine art of making money online using Adsense. You can find the new blog here; Make Money with Adsense

Due to the overwhelming amount of emails I get requesting help with or needing answers pertaining to Adsense I have decided to start from scratch and lay out the framework for my Adsense system on a site of its own. The posts are targeted to those who have no knowledge whatsoever about this business so keep that in mind if you have been a long time reader. You will have read much of it before - at least the initial posts which cover the basics. While discussing what I do I will also be demonstrating my techniques using the new site as an example of how to tweak it, SEO it and rank it in the serp's. In future I hope to send the new readers to the site for all the info they will need to earn a living with Adsense. This should reduce my emails and solve the problem of finding all the pertinent info on this blog - yes - my navigation here sucks and even I can't find what I'm looking for most of the time. Sorry about that.

The site is built as a sub-domain on Today.com and I am using it in order to demonstrate to my experienced readers my process of building a network. Like always I run the risk of showing to much but the "farm" questions that my last post aroused has led me to realize that many of you need help in establishing your own networks. This site will give you a good idea of how I go about it.

You don't always need to start a new self hosted blog. You don't really need to spend money - there are many free platforms that you can use and the more you use the better. The idea is to spread your sites out across as many C Class IP's as you can. Some sites will be anonymous or use fictitious names. Others will be flagships proudly using your name. A network consists of a variety of blogs, websites, one page sales pages or whatever you can think of. The point is to create a network that you have access to and can control the juice on. It's easy finding backlinks if you have hundreds of sites to choose from...

In any event I won't be discussing "farming" here. I am in the process of helping a "friend" set up a site dedicated to this topic though - I shall let you all know when it is ready.

Until then - go to the new site and leave a couple of hundred comments just to see if we can break Today.com's comment program... lol.

Cheers,

Griz