Monthly Online Income Status Update

I haven't made a post to this blog in over a week. I've been distributing my online income efforts elsewhere - sorry kids. That doesn't mean that I've given up or taken a break. In fact, it's been exactly one month since I started this money making blog capade, and last week was probably the most productive thus far.

On my first post, I mentioned that my goal for the first month was 50 articles, and $25. Before I elaborate with an army of justification and excuses as to why I didn't meet my goal, let me give you the breakdown of my first month results:

Income (goal $25.00)

Adsense: 450 cents
eHow: 263 cents
Total: 713 cents


Posts (goal 50)

This blog: 19
eHow: 4
EZine: 2
Niche sites: 10
Total: 37

If you go back and read the first few posts from this blog, you'll notice that I was planning on generating most of my online income from eHow articles. Well, I've definitely shifted focus, and with that change in direction, I've had to do a lot more research than I'd originally planned.

Initially, I wanted to devote most of my efforts to eHow because I was already familiar with the system, I'd had good luck with it, and though I couldn't expect to make a killing, it was money I could count on - if all 37 of the articles that I produced this month were published on my eHow account, I have no doubt that I would have crushed $25...maybe even $26.

But, I didn't make $25...I didn't even make $10. I shifted focus due to a series of events that six months from now, I'm condfident I'll be grateful for. In one early posting, eWho?, I discussed some major issues that eHow was having with their system (that they've since fixed). The problems ranged from the inability to add images to difficulty publishing articles. While waiting for them to iron their issues, I tried to adapt by looking for alternative ways to earn some online income.

Scott, a friendly commenter on this blog, suggested I take a look at some posts from a guy named Griz, a make money online expert. It was quickly made evident that Griz has a freakin' truckload of great information, a lot of which focuses on niche blogging (blogging on smaller, non-mainstream topics and industries) to bring in revenue with targeted traffic.

One of Griz's posts lead me to another blog, also jam-packed with making money with Adsense tips, 'Working On the Go'. This is a blog authored by a gentleman known as the Road Warrior, who is embarking on a similar trek as myself - making a living off of online income. The Road Warrior has a bit of a head start on me, pulling in around $200/month, but he's still close enough that I have a challenge to relate to.

Griz makes mention in several of his posts of a team of Adsense experts named Mark and Court, who run a paid membership site called The Keyword Academy (TKA). The Road Warrior is a member of this group, and most of the strategies that he has employed have been a result of Mark and Court's teachings. After reading about TKA nearly everyday, and having a few brief discussions with the Road Warrior, last week I decided to give it a shot - the first month is only $1, and you can cancel anytime.

TKA has quite a wealth of online income resources. They offer 10 core videos which teach the basics of niche blogging for money. They supplement the core videos with frequent webinars, a helpful message board, and a custom directory service. I've learned a freakin' crapload so far - I wish I'd found this site a year ago. Yes, I could have been writing content with the 10 hours it took to watch the core videos and a few webinars, but again, I think I'm going to be pleased with my decision in the long run.

I can't give you the details of what TKA teaches, as Mark and Court are trying to run a business, but I can tell you that it makes sense. It's basically everything and then some that I've learned so far, all rolled-up in a tightly packaged, easy to follow blue print. I have the tendency to bounce from one idea to the other without really accomplishing anything (see Duke Laserwood). Although I still have love for eHow and social media optimization, I'm going to put most of my time in effort into following the TKA SEO model. By the time I update you in November, my goal is to report the creation of five niche sites, $25 in revenue (builds exponentially), and at least 50 additional articles.

Furthering My Pursuit To Make Online Income

Considering the little time I've had to devote toward today's online income earning efforts, I've actually accomplished quite a bit. I posted two articles to eHow on Linux virtual machine configurations, and I wrote a 600 word EZine article on using virtualization to create a virus-free web browsing experience (I know you aren't interested in the subject - I'm just trying to make this text relevant to the link I just placed). Although it will likely take the Ezine post a couple weeks to get published, I linked the virtual machine article to the eHow guides with some wholesome anchor text - hopefully, in a couple weeks, I'll see a little spike in eHow's already potent Google juice.

I'm also currently adding to this blog for your viewing pleasure, and when I finish this post, I plan on working on my niche site. Speaking of that damn project, I'd like to briefly discuss my current strategy for creating content for the niche site. I've already mentioned that I'm using keyword optimization to focus on several niche topics in hopes of maxing my initial earning potential. Therefore, I've selected a few relevant topics that cater to my low competition, high search volume, and high CPC keywords, and have been tying them altogether.

I've been creating content for the site from the inside-out, essentially focusing on writing the more obscure articles first, and tackling the broader subjects last. So, hypothetically, if I were creating an additional site on how to make online income (so much for a niche...), I'd begin first by writing a batch of articles on topics like "addressing duplicate content issues in Google indexing", eventually broadening my articles to discuss more general subjects like offering basic Adsense tips. Using this method, I not only force myself to do the bulk of my research early on, but when it comes time to write on the broader topics, I can create logically placed internal links without much additional effort. As I'm learning more and more, external links are great, but you're not practicing good SEO without the use of internal links.

One last thing before I move on:

I want to give a quick shout out to a loyal reader, Crystal. Without any bribing or begging on my part, she gave a much appreciated holler to Cash Money Retards by posting a very flattering entry on her blog. On 'The Best 50 Years', Crystal manages to make light of a subject that most of us fear - getting old. Now, being a strapping young buck like myself, I can't quite yet cash in on her well-written aging advice, but my infant daughter is pushing me a little closer every day. We may not be writing on the same subject matter, but it's all about networking and learning from each other. Good lookin' out, Crystal!

Good Night Never Never Land!

Productivity Resolution: Kick My Adsense Addiction

Hi, my name is Dave Lopan, and I have an Adsense addiction. Since I started this blessed online cash campaign nearly three weeks ago, I've caught myself checking my Adsense "earnings" every five minutes...it's a nasty habit. It would be one thing if every time I viewed my account there was a bigger number, but it's the same depressing triple-ot digits almost every time (although I made $2.32 yesterday!). I'm like a crackhead for Adsense...I got these cheeseburgers, man...

This evening, I was reading RoadWarrior's recent post, a helpful Adsense Tutorial. A friendly commenter, Dave Starr, left some good advice. What he said, I couldn't say better myself, so I'm just going to quote him - "If you are reading these words over your morning coffee, as I am, click away on a new browser tab, go to your blog and Do Something before you read another blog, check your AdSesne stats, balance your checkbook or check the sports scores. Trust me, it’s the million dollar secret that doesn’t cost a dime."

Brilliant Dave! That's my new resolution. From now on, every time I get the urge to beg Google for another Adsense rock, I'm gonna do something productive to help my online earning efforts. Whether it be make a new post, write a new article, or build a backlink...I have a lot of work to do, and I can't waste my time staring at $0.00 all damn day.

Sorry for the short post - I also have this full-time job/husband/father gig on the side - I have to give it the occasional contribution. Sweet dreams!

Week Two of MMO Efforts

I guess technically it's been more like two weeks and some change since I started this blog, but whatever...here are the stats.

Adsense

Here are the MMO (make money online) Adsense stats.I've made a total of $1.96 from ad revenue on this blog. Considering my traffic, that puts me at the average CTR, so I'm cool with those numbers for the moment. I mentioned back in a previous post that I would research and find out if I can post my earnings on this blog. The answer is yes, I can, but it's a TOS violation if I post specifics regarding my eCPM (effective cost-per-thousand impressions) and my CTR (click-thru rate). You may not care, but it was worrying me - I'd hate for Google to strip me of this sweet dime-a-day operation I've have.

eHow

I'm still stuck at $.49, but in fairness to eHow, I've only posted two articles. In my previous post, eHow vs Squidoo How-tos, I mentioned that I would be monitoring the traffic and revenue, and comparing the two. I had the same article on Squidoo for three months and received 54 views and $0. It's been on eHow for eight days, and has already reached 60 views. Of course, it hasn't made any money on eHow either. I'll keep you updated down the road.

The other article I posted to eHow this month was one written by my wife on music therapy. I mentioned that a couple days later, she wrote a more comprehensive article on the same subject, which I posted to EZine, linking back to the eHow article. Unfortunately, EZine has been behind on their reviewing process this month, so nearly two weeks later, it's only half way through the review process.

So in regards to eHow, I'm still looking at $.49. That leaves me with a total of $2.45 from my monthly MMO efforts. That's only 10% of my first month goal...the month isn't over though.

Blog Traffic

I've had 141 unique visitors to the blog so far this month, with an average of two page views, and three minutes and 45 seconds on the site. I've received the majority of my traffic from Blogger referrals, Digital Point forums (link in my signature), and Facebook. The good news is, my search engine traffic has grown from 0% to 5%. I'm finally indexed! Granted some of the queries have been a little off-topic; "make money off a dumbass" and "ways to make money if you're retarded", but I've also received more relevant search results like, "online cash" and "how does facebook suggest a friend". I know these stats are weak, but they're moving in the right direction...I can work with this.

I regret to inform you that over the next few weeks, maybe even months, I won't be posting quite as often. Don't worry though - it's for a noble cause. As I mentioned in a previous post, Make Money Online by Optimizing Keywords, I'm currently working on another site addressing a particular niche topic. I've written a few articles for it already, but I plan on writing many more. In addition, I'm going to prepare a lengthy guide/experiment for this blog to help increase traffic and sharpen my SEO strategy. Considering the combined effort the aforementioned projects will require, I won't have enough time to be posting my usual jibberish to this blog. Please accept my apologies. I hope you still love me.

Even More Link Building and SEO Resources!

I was at a party over the weekend, and I serendipitously ran into an old buddy from high school. Cool story, right? Well, it gets better. I hadn't talked to the guy in years, but as it turns out, he has turned earning online revenue into a full time job. That mother is actually living my dream - that, or he's found a way to live comfortably off of $.10 a day - either way, it's pretty amazing.

Here's a tip, folks. If you see me at a party, and you have a cool job, stay the hell away from me. I'll bother you all night with every question I can think of. I, of course, didn't spare my old buddy any special treatment. Being a total d-bag, I don't regret it either - he gave me some terrific advice.

I spent a bit of time bitchin' about how I've been blogging for two whole weeks, and I still haven't seen my first million. He eventually put things into perspective for me with a rather profound comparison. He said, and I quote, "Look Dave, I'm going to put you in the right perspective with a rather profound comparison. It took me six months of busting my ass to start seeing any earnings, but once I did, it started getting easier. Look at restaurant owners, mom n' pops, and any brick and mortar business ever...not only do they have to sink thousands of dollars into a laundry list of start up costs, but they don't start seeing any profit for years. In our business, Dave, all guys like you and me need is time, patience, and determination. Dave, you've got the look of a winner and the eye of the tiger, and I know you're gonna make all of your wildest dreams come true. San Dimas high school football rules!!!".

That's what he said - verbatim. All joking aside (everyone knows it's Nib High football that rules), I needed to hear that. It's really nice to actually know someone who's making it happen. Before that fateful night, last Friday, I was beginning to think it was just a pipe dream. Well folks, my dreams are slowly getting wetter (from the pipes...nothing seminal).

If you read the title of this post, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with link building and SEO resources. Well, through a series of email correspondence over the past few days, my buddy ole pal has been kind enough to fix me up with some quality reading material, and I want to share it with you:

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity: This is one of those easy-to-read 101 lists where you've heard of a lot of the info, but some of it's new - makes great bathroom material, but this old notebook burns my naked lap. That said, it's very well broken down and categorized into sections covering several link building strategies; syndication, PPCs, press releases, and using communities like Google Groups, forums, and Yahoo Answers to name a few. Not to mention, the stuff that I said I'd heard before, I needed to hear again. Simply being aware of solid link building strategies means nothing if I'm not putting them into action. It's a great quick reference style guide for anyone who needs to improve their link building skills (everyone).

12 Different Types of Links and How To Get Them: If you've already read the 101 list, you'll see a lot of familiar discussions in this article. However, it goes into further detail on how to gain inbound links from places like authority sites, .gov and .edu sites, local media, and directories. Perhaps the most interesting feature of this article is that the author suggests ratios of how much of your inbound traffic should be a product of each link type. For instance, he recommends not exceeding 10% of your backlinks from directories. Definitely worth a look.

How To Write 1000 Pages of Content: Yep, 1000 pages. So far, I've posted 15 to this blog...just a few more. Randy, the author doesn't come out and say that you need to have 1000 pages of content to be successful, but he does explain the significance of having a plethora of rich material. He also takes a lot of time to break down how one might actually generate 1000 pages of legitimate, unique content, and he does it in a way that makes it seem possible. One more thing I'll note about Randy is that he was gracious enough to reply to one of my comments with a direct email. You could sell shoes at Nordstrom with that service - you're in the wrong business, Randy!

Take 15 minutes and read all three of these suckers, and I guarantee you'll be using them as a reference to help you make your online money making dreams a reality. I know I will...I know I will

Free Social Bookmarking Software and Directory Submissions

Sorry folks - this is gonna be a short one, as I'm totally zonked, and I still have to write a Toastmasters speech for tomorrow. I just wanted to inform you of two link building strategies I just employed this evening to bring a little more traffic to this here blog.


Free Social Bookmarking Tool

About two minutes ago, I wrapped up my final social bookmarking submission - 1 of the 20 that I just just banged out in 10 minutes. How did I submit my site to that many social bookmarking sites in less than 10 minutes? Why with the help of my dear friends over at SocialMarker. The folks over at SocialMarker provide a nice piece of free social bookmarking software that runs right in your Firefox browser.

Some people frown on using a tool like SocialMarker, as it may encourage spamming. Frankly, I don't see the argument with this tool in particular. I still have to manually create an account for every site on my list, I have to fill in most of the submission fields, and, of course, captcha verification is always required. I see it more as a guide - I just check the "DoFollow" box (I'm only concerned with dofollow at the moment, as including all the nofollows would require new account verification to 25 additional sites), and I'm off, submitting a fully keyword optimized title, description, and link to 20 different search engine-friendly (SEF) bookmark directories.

SEO Friendly Directory Submission

Additionally, I submitted this blog to dozens of high PR ranked, seo-friendly site directories by cruising down the list at DirectoryRoll.com. Submissions can often take months to get approved (or denied), so I figure I might as well get cookin' now. Though being linked to dozens of site directories won't necessarily boost you to top of the SERPS, most of them are totally free, the submission process is relatively painless, and when you're hurting for traffic, every little bit helps. Just a couple quick things to consider during directory submission:

• Almost every site directory on the web offers a pro version, where you pay to speed up the approval process, and get more prominent positioning. The general consensus with my friends at Digital Point is that although being featured in a well-established directory (like Yahoo or DMOZ) once gave your site super clout in the SERPs, the SEO juice is no longer as potent - spend your money at your own risk.

• Many site directories require reciprocity, where in order to be featured in their listings, you must post a link on your site to theirs. Although I'm not against link exchanges, there are literally thousands of site directories on the Internet, and linking to all of them can start to cause a leak in your SEO rapport. Most of the directories featured on DirectoryRoll don't require reciprocal linking.

• Lastly, here's you chance to promote your site for free. As nominal as the results may be, you might as well take advantage and do it right. Submit your URL to the category that most accurately fits your site's content. Not only will you increase your chances of getting the listing approved, but visitors who found your site from a directory just might stay for a while.

Keep bangin!

Make Money Online With Keyword Optimization

If you just read my recent earnings report, you probably feel bad for me - don't - $1.92 can score me 100 acres of rich farming land...if I could just fix this damn flux capacitor. 1.21 Gigawatts!

Ok, that was fun. Now let's get Back to The Business. No, but seriously, I have to tell you about the future plans for this site.

Yeh...I'm done.

Those of you who have been following my posts from the beginning (thanks by the way) know that for some reason, I have some sick love affair with eHow. Well, I think that all that trouble they've been having with their site for the past two weeks is a sign from above. The pay-per-article model that fuels eHow still intrigues me, and I plan on making further contributions, but I'm no longer convinced that it has to be a staple feature in my online earnings efforts. From now on, I plan on making eHow a source of supplemental income to my supplemental income.

As you know, I've been doing a lot of reading on SEO practices lately. I've also been consistently bringing down the intelligence level on the Digital Point message boards for the past week with my Noob Saibot questions. I think, however, that I've finally nailed down some core "blogging for money" principals. By doing so, I've not only decided on the niche market that I'll be blogging on for the next few months, but I've also realized that as I currently post to this blog on "making money online", I'm drowning in a pair of concrete clown shoes. Let me show you what I mean.

Throughout the remaining course of this post, I'll show you how I arrived at my new niche topic (I'll reveal it when I go live - hopefully by next month), and I'll explain using this blog's operating keyword, "make money online" as an example.

The following is an interpretation of my recent research - I'm not yet an expert, so please don't make this your only source for establishing an SEO strategy.

In order to really dominate the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) with your blog, you need to choose a keyword that meets a balance between high search volume and low competition, and once you find it, you need to weave it into the content of your site. Of course, if generating income is a priority, you'll need to find a keyword with a high CPC (cost per click) to yield higher revenue.

It's more or less accepted that having your keyword or phrase included in your URL (makemoneyonline.com) is very heavily weighted in the eyes of search engines like Google. If you can't make that happen, you at least have to work it into your page titles. For example, your posts may be titled, How To Make Money Online, Make Money Online While You Sleep, or Name Your Blog 'Cash Money Retards' If You Don't Want To Make Money Online. Finally, in your content, make sure that you mention the exact keyword or phrase several times, but without going overboard. Search engines tend to penalize keyword density surpassing 5-7%.

So how did I find the magical keyword that I've chosen to write on? I've struggled a bit here, but I think I've come pretty close to figuring out the basics:

First, I thought of a subject that interests me, but lacks the mainstream popularity of something like, "make money online" (smooth). After writing down a few subject ideas, I pay Mr. Google Adwords Keyword Tool a visit to figure out how to tastefully exploit the niche, while putting a little money in my pocket. I enter my subject of choice into "Descriptive words or phrases" field and hit the "Get keyword ideas" button.

In one or two seconds, I'm looking at a massive spreadsheet-style data report. Something like this:














All of this data is valuable in its own right, but for my immediate purposes, I'm gonna clean it up a little. First, under the "Match Type" drop-down menu, I'm going to select "Exact". Then, in "Show Columns to Display", I'm going to add "Show Estimated Avg. CPC". Finally, I'm going to sort by CPC from highest to lowest by clicking the CPC column title twice. Now let's take a look:
















Because I'm planning on incorporating Adsense ads into my blog, I want the keywords that are going to payout the fattest. Let's look at the top of the list - we have, the keyword phrase "marketing make money online" coming in at $5.06/click. I mentioned how much Google keeps from adsense clicks in a previous post - and 78.5% of $5.06 is a nice chunk of change! When you look over in the "Local Search Volume" column, however, you find that only 480 people went searching for that phrase last month. If I conned all 480 suckers to hit my site, that'd be super, but realistically, I should probably choose a phrase that more people are searching for.

Oh golly, why there's one! The phrase "make money online" pulled in 135,000 Google searches in the US last month...when I started this blog a week and a half ago, that's where I stopped... Let's go ahead and find out why I have a ton of work to do if I want to beat out the 'Cash Money Retards' competition.

I'm going to pull up a plain old Google.com page and do a search. In the search field, I'm going to type in "make money online" and hit enter. Geez - 17.1 million results. Now I want to see who the real competition is, so I'll search 'intitle:"makemoneyonline"'...cheese and crackers - 7.57 million results!

In Google, the "intitle" operator returns all indexed pages that include the search phrase in the title. Remember when I said that anyone who knows what they're doing includes their keyword in the title? Using the intitle operator helps isolate your true competition. In this case, I have a little bit.





Let's just pretend for a second that I had less than 2000 results, which according to my friends on Digital Point, may give me a fighting chance without requiring too much blood, sweat, and tears. Even with a low results count, we aren't out of the woods yet.

A huge red flag when trying to choose a profitable keyword with this method is seeing .gov or .edu sites crowned at the top of the SERP. Google, education, and government sites are all in bed together. I've been told to abandon ship if I see these suckers occupying the top spots.

Another red flag is if the sites at the top are considered authoritative (think IMDB). If you're unsure about their power, let me make a suggestion. Install an SEO reporting tool like the SEOTools Firefox extension, and examine the competition directly. Check out the screen shot below and pay extra special attention to the Google PR (Page Ranking - between 0 and 10) and the number of external links pointing to the site (often a direct result of the Google PR).





















Hmmm, 1,134 backlinks and a Google Page Ranking of 5. Again, I have some work to do to get this blog to the top of the SERP with a keyword like "make money online".

There's still hope for me though. The niche blog that I plan to start as soon as tomorrow focuses on a keyword that receives 5,000 monthly searches, a CPC of $5.50, returns only 580 "intitle" search results, of which the top spot has a Google PR of 0 and just 23 backlinks (which I think I can duplicate or better with enough effort).

This keyword, which again, I plan to reveal once I've completed a decent foundation of keyword-rich articles, should take me one step closer to successfully blogging for money (I hope anyway).