Google Basics for Business

Google dominates the search engine world, despite the fact that the conversion-to-buyer rate at MSN is much higher. This forces most ecommerce businesses to try and dance Google’s waltz, without fully comprehending the ins and outs of how Google works.

Navigating Google is difficult. Most SEO optimizing specialists and SEO Internet marketers do not understand what they are doing. In fact, most of them are so far behind the times that their information is useless. Summer 2007 saw the latest change in Google’s algorithm leaving many ecommerce businesses with sharp decreases in traffic.

What is a Google Algorithm

The Google Algorithms are basically the math formulas used to determine which web pages rank high in the searches, and which ones rank low, or are banned. Google changes the rules every 18 - 24 months to help them sweep away websites that are not optimized and MFA (Made For AdSense) static sites.

Google also makes changes to meet the needs of the webmasters. When Google brought in their inbound link ranking system, it gave many webmasters an opportunity to build link farms, gaining an unfair advantage. In response Google now looks for content around a link. If there is no content, then the link has no value.

When Google started to focus on content, webmasters and programmers created Content Management Systems. Unfortunately, until recently, Google could not read database pages. Now, the programmers have created a static page method of page creation, and search engines learned how to read content off databases.

Search Engine Optimization

Many webmasters do not understand what this means. And, many SEO optimizers do not understand what this means. To many, it still means coding a page so that the keywords are highlighted, and under .05% of the content (including link bars). They believe it is a method of web design.

Ecommerce businesses are still scrambling to pay SEO optimizers big bucks to make their pages rank high, when meta tags and SEO tricks have very little importance. Now, the search engines are looking for good content, with heading titles, and a site full of similar content, with articles linked together using the same ‘keyword anchors.’

Google’s new algorithms have made it possible for many small ecommerce businesses to build their page rank, and search engine rank, without ever paying a dime to a SEO specialist.

The Google Sandbox and Supplemental Index

Both of these cause chills to run up most webmasters spines, but only because they are not understood, Google does not have a Sandbox. Yes, it may take a few months to get your website listed and showing up, inbound links may not appear for a long time, and a website may not show up when searched - but that is not a sandbox. It is just a backlog. One way to overcome it is to take part in Google’s PayPerClick program. Even if you only invest $20 a month, being a part of that program immediately links your site, so you do not need to wait.

The supplemental index is as easy to get out of. First, take a look at the meta information - is it too generic? If so, then do not use keywords but use keyword phrases. The keyword ‘ecommerce’, is too generic, so is ‘ecommerce business.’ However, ‘learn how to start an ecommerce business’ will help that page target.

Next, make sure the page is linked to a high ranking page. This can be done by putting links inside the page - or by adding it to the website’s navigation system. Within a short time, that page will no longer be in the supplemental index.

New Paid Blogging Site

I've been reviewing sites that have paid blogging. I am trying to find ones that do not have a lot of rules, take newer blogs, pay more than $5 for each post, and let bloggers pick and chose the advertisers they want to post on their site.

I found that in smorty. click the link below. It gets a 5/5 review from us.

Is Paid Blogging For Your Blog?

I Started five blogs this summer, to help the students of my course 'make $1000 a month blogging wat writersonlinecourses.com' learn the ropes and actually see that the claims in the course are true.

Paid Blog Posts and Page Rank

This blog now has a PR2. That is good enough to get started, but it does bring up some good questions. Will blogging for pay lower the site's PR. The simple answer is no.

One reason it does not lower the page rank is because paid blog links almost always lead to a page with a higher PR than the blog post. So, in fact, the opportunity to increase the PR of the blog is real.

Communati mentioned that I helped increase the Page Rank of this site. In a real way, I did, by linking back and forth from this site to web pages and blogs with PR3 and PR4. This increased the value of the communati page.

Understanding Page Rank

Now, if the blogger were using heading titles, and were 'breaking' their posts every 150 words. If the blogger were building 'keyword anchored' links to a specific post, then yes. There may be an argument that the blog is being degraded by the paid ads. But, as there are few blogs in a site like communati that meet the criteria:

-No more than 10 keywords which are repeated through the entire blog
-Staying on topic
-Using proper coding and H1/H2/H3 titles

Then the effect of paid blog posts is minimal and on the 'plus' side of the scale, as apposed to the minus side.

Not everyone is intrested in writing for pay. This is totally acceptable. For others, the concept is a natural progression from hobby writer to professional blogger status. Will it offend your readers? I will talk more on this later, but the answer is basically - no, not if done right.

The Question of Ethics

It is difficult to decide whether you write about a post - or not. While you can make $1000 a month, easily, especially with 10 blogs at PR3 or higher, it is important to remember to read the fine print.

Blogitive and blogvertise expect bloggers to post every post. Now, you can let the posts laps, but over time, this will have a dramatic effect on the number of offers in the dash board. But then, accepting every one requires balance.

It is okay to talk 'on topic' for most posts, while still including the link. You'll notice that I do it. What is not allowed is including the word sponsored, or indicating that the post is paid for. I get around this by writing a lot of my own content, and leaving tags off the paid posts. This way, they just disappear into the background.

Still, it is a good way to get paid to write. It took me 3 years to start making money from Google. This year I received 3 checks in 10 months, with less time between each check. I have a friend who makes more, but she works hard to please Google.

This also raises a question. The only way to make Google money is to build a site that people will leave. Most bloggers want to keep their blog readers. So, optimizing for Google is not an option.

I Started This Blog to Prove a Point

I started this blog to prove to my students at www.writersonlinecourses.com in the 'make $1000 a month blogging' that it is possible to make good money writing blogs, in less than five months.

I reached the mark this month. This blog has a few dozen posts. I have not purchased any directory submissions - yet. But, it is active. I checked the ranking yesterday, and had a PR3. So, I submitted it to a couple of directory ad sites.

The first one to bite is smorty. Smorty is a service that connects advertisers with bloggers. the advertisers pay bloggers to write opinion posts, much like this one. The purpose is not to promote the service, but to build links back to the advertisers site.

This is how bloggers get paid to blog. They are paid for their blog advertising, from about $5 - $100 per ad. The ad does not need to endorse the product although I find that smorty pays my above norm to advertise on blogs.

This is all there is to the program. You will notice over the next few posts that some are reviews of products, some are just links. I use my discretion whether I feel a product is worth promoting. If not, I will just skim over the advertiser's blog and write 'on topic' and include the link, but not actually promote.

If your blog has PR2, and you want to get started in blog advertising then visit smorty.

Changes at Blogitive

Blogitive is making changes again. Now they only want bloggers who are using a wordpress blog on their own domain name.

There have been some changes with Wordpress that has made it very 'search engine' friendly,and I can understand that. But, is it worth it to run out and make the new blog?

Blogitive wants 10 000 bloggers on their site. Yet, I have gone for many weeks without a single job posting. At one time, I made about $100 a week from them. Now - nada.

If you are a paid post blogger, then you want to be listed at every site. However, I am not sure that it is good business to start making blogs, paying to host them, buying domains, and embarking on a search engine and directory submission program - just for a company that hasn't proven they are able to keep bloggers working.

I know that there are still some bloggers who are making good money. And, I know that blogger is favoring bloggers with their own domain and wordpress like Sharon Hurley Hall's www.getpaidtowriteonline.com. But, I wonder how much it is worth it.

I believe that one reason they are making this change is because Wordpress accepts their directories. This is all good for them, but what about 'my' readers on 'my' blog. I know that a lot of bloggers are building blogs to get clicks and money from Google and other venues - but what about those of us who want to keep our visitors right here, on our blogs?

I will probably start an experiment soon - but I just wondered if anyone has current positive results.

PageRank: Link Words

In the last article I linked you to a website that talked about pagerank. Part 2 of that article also talked about internal linkes. A lot of bloggers and web owners never think of putting links inside their website to their home page (to increase its web rank). You may also want to make 'promo blogs' These are blog posts that you actively build inbound links to - from inside your site - and from other articles/posts.

You never know which page will reach a PR5 and pull the rest of the pages up with it.

But - not all links are created equal. A link exchange from a page with nothing on it but a big lists of links is useless, and if that page has nothing to do with your topic, then you can actually damage your page rank.

However, if the first page uses Heading titles every 100 - 150 words, with a keword in them ...say MAKE ME MONEY... and the keyword in the article that is being linked is MAKE ME MONEY...we want to link this to a page with a URL, title, sub titles (as many as possible) called MAKE ME MONEY. And better, we want that page to link to other pages called MAKE ME MONEY on your site and off your site.

Now - I heard several of you scream 'how do I control links off my site' - I can't make people create pages for me.

Why not? In Diva networking, we are going to do just that. We are going to get everyone who wants to participate to pick a keyword. Let's say that five of us write an article on MAKE MONEY BLOGGING. Each of us can title the URLS - MAKE MONEY BLOGGING. Each of us can have a H1 title with MAKE MONEY BLOGGING. Each of us can link to our friend's articles called MAKE MONEY BLOGGING.

Now - we have one article in our blog with the title MAKE MONEY BLOGGING, and it has 5 outbound links in it. And, 5 people have articles with links to our site.

Only 5 links? Does that really matter? YES. Because these are 5 links that google will pay attention to.

Now, here is where you can get creative. You can write another 5 posts an spread them through your network, each with MAKE MONEY BLOGGING, and each linking back to that one page. You can even put 2 or 3 links in each of those posts.

Now, you have the original 5 inbound links.... you have 10 blogs x 5 posts x 3 links = another 150 inbound links to that page. So, after a few weeks (months) that page has a PR4.

To expand this, you can write free articles on MAKE MONEY BLOGGING, and say 'if you want to read another article on this go to my article MAKE MONEY BLOGGING - this can generate 20 - 20 000 more inbound links (but don't count on them all being from pages called MAKE MONEY BLOGGING)

Now - you put a link in that article to your home page - and the PR of that page pulls up the PR on your home page.

Page Rank and Inbound Links

One of the problems with people who are in the business of blogging is that they do not understand page rank. They have a vague idea that Google wants lots of inbound links. At first they generate dozens, then realize that Google counts very few of these - and stop.

Unfortunately, they do not realize that it may take several weeks - to months for Google to actually apply the pagerank to their site. If you use the Google page rank tool to test www.inspiredauthor.com's back links, you'll see about 20. If you use yahoo, you'll see 175. If you use an actual web software program that tracks, you'll see 280 for Google and 3000 for yahoo. This doesn't mean that the sites do not count them. It means that it will take time for Google to apply the page rank to my site.

One the other hand - WHERE the links come from is important. For example, if you have 2 or 3 inbound links from a PR8 site, then you'll have a PR 4 or PR5 site. But, it may take thousands of links from a PR1 - PR3 site to bring up your rank.

Why do you want to do all this work?

One - so Google AdSense will pay you more. When you check your AdSense earnings, you'll notice that at PR1 - PR2, you may only earn a few cents, even if the CPC (Cost Per Click) is $20 - $200.

Two - so your site's pageranks higher, and Google will include you in more searches. The higher you rank in searches, the more traffic your site receives. And, of course, the more traffic you receive, the more hits you get.

Inbound links are not the only aspect that effects Google page rank, but it is a good place to start.

Blog Writing: Getting Started

The life of a writer appears to have many perks. The uninitiated envisions us working in our pajamas while writing fluff about far away places, beautiful people, and spectacular adventures. After chuckling, we patiently explain how many hours it can take to research an article, or the number of times an article is submitted before it sells.

We possess an intangible element, which prevents us from taking the well-worn route. A regular paycheck with benefits is attractive. I even tried it once, and almost died inside. Face it, we are not free to enjoy an easy life while others toil, writers must write.

The life of a freelance writer is burdened with unpaid bills, deadlines, and rejection letters. But, there are a few blessings outweigh the heaviest burdens, like the joy of being published in a national magazine, studying a truly fascinating topic for a client, or enjoying the spiritual journey only a writer can understand.

Still, it is nice to be paid.

The initial lack of income is where most new writers give up. They soon believe the desire to write is a prank their muse is playing on them. It doesn’t have to be this way.

View the world of freelance writing as a forest. On one side is the writer; on the other is a client willing to pay to have something written. All a writer needs to do is climb through the scrub and deadwood to find the elusive client. It isn’t hard, it just takes a different method of thinking, and a little caution.

The number of companies intent on ripping writers off is daunting. There is no way to avoid every scam. Writers sign with organizations that promise to locate work, only to find they must pay and bid against other writers. We all signed up for at least one newsletter that promised to help us earn a living, only to learn it is only a clever marketing tool to sell products.

Making a living shouldn’t be this frustrating. There are paying jobs out there. There are clients willing, even eager, to pay a professional writer. It just takes a little skill to find them.

Make a Client

This can be fun. There is only one rule, never confess what you write. Many small businesses are more than willing to pay a writer for a good press release, especially if the writer submits it to the newspaper too, but only if the business is named as author.

They will also pay you to promote on your blog. However, you need statistics. It is vital that you keep good stats, and can prove they are real. Click through rates, are an important statistic to track. This will increase the amount of money people will pay.

However, saying that you have 10 blogs, can put 3 links in a blog, and will post 5 blogs each, equaling 150 links to a main website - for $25, will attract many local businesses. Remember, as a blogger you will only write 5 posts and 'cross post' them to different blogs.

Building Revenue Generating Blogs

All bloggers will have a few core blogs, but then they will have several that are for advertising and generating revenue. Making money from a blog is not difficult, but you can branch out farther than using the online blog companies.

Look at it this way. Making 40 blogs increases the inbound links to 500. You spend more time pasting your original 5 posts, but you can earn $100 - $200. All you need is 5 - 10 clients a month, and work 20 - 50 hours in the month to make $1000.