For those of you involved in internet marketing and ranking terms organically in the search engines, its becoming crystal clear what their end goal really is with us? To create a bunch of zombies for their own little experiment to see how we react. Its like the Walking Dead TV series, where you have the zombies walking around aimlessly and not knowing why or what they are doing. Kinda of a scary thing – would you not agree?

How did they achieve this on such a massive scale?

Easy, they hit us all where it would hurt the most. In the pocket books because lets face it, most of us are small fish in a much bigger pond. You see by constantly attacking us on the SEO level and having the rankings in constant flux, they are achieving something on a world wide scale. Ever since Facebook entered the market and got most of the social traffic, Google has repeatedly tried (and failed miserably) to develop a social aspect to their business model. The problem with that angle, is they have always been a search engine and not a social portal.

I have to give them some credit, they hare persisted over the years and are now virtually shoving it down our digital throats without a say with Google Plus. Well, you really do have a say and a choice to let some corporate bully tell you what you should be doing. Thanks Larry and Sergey – I really hope it fails like so many other of your product launches.

In fact, one of their recent algo changes now penalize sites that have too many ads above the fold. Seriously, who the F–K are you Google to tell me what I can and can’t put on my site. Piss off already because that infringes on our basics and democratic rights of a free society. You never hear this kind of chatter on Bing and Yahoo.

Apparently, you must not have got the memo on that one living in your ivory Google Plex towers. Seriously, I now have to minimize the amounts of ads and pictures because somehow that might be a poor user experience. Have you seen the recent catastrophe in the organic search results since the latest update called the Penguin? By the way, how do they pick those stupid names? I’ll decide what to put on my site and how it looks – not you Matt and the clowns running the show.

What if you are running a photography business. Wouldn’t it make the most sense to have all kinds of pictures on your site to make the right first impressions, rather than a long winded article about your site. Sure, a small introduction is fine, but if photography is your niche, I would expect to see tons of pictures.

The main point of using social media should be because I want to and not feel like I have to. Some sites and niches work well with being social. Other sites, it really is not necessary. The bottom line, engaging in social media interactions should be one of choice, just like everything else we do in a free society.

What’s happening now by being forced to use social media, is that its not a natural thing. Its now like having a love – hate relationship with it, rather than free flowing and really enjoying the interaction. Again, we are to blame for that and letting them dictate what we do online. I for one have been switching out using Google services more and more. For instance, I am now using Bing more and have made it my default home page for search. I know they track my activities, but not like the predator called Google.

Google has become to Big

When Google announced their 1 privacy policy, it rang around the world and in many cases, people were shocked at the level of tracking going on. For instance, Google has become so arrogant and hubris, that when you are logged into your Gmail account and open a new tab to do searches, they will now know even more about your online activities. Just look at the top of the browser when looked into Gmail and open a new tab. You will notice the https. You have to log out to get generic results. When I’m logged into my Yahoo or Bing accounts, I don’t see that happening. Why is that? Probably because they understand it would be unacceptable to be stalking you and me like that. I equate what Google is now doing online to a cyber stalker.

Its so fricken creepy for them to be doing what they are doing that if baffles the mind on why they are infringing on our basic democratic rights. They blasted the government for wanting to increase control over the internet and rallied people around the globe to denounce such a strategy. So, why then are they doing it to us? Answer – you just need to follow the money. It always comes back to and its always about the money for them and most businesses.

Many businesses operate this way, however, most businesses don’t have the largest search engine. I was reading about a search engine called duckduckgo and they have an interesting privacy policy. Here is a quote from the privacy policy page: “DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell.” Plus, they have a simple to use search engine. Its like Google used to be.

How To Detox From Being a Social Zombie

The simplest and most effective strategy is to stop using Google and use the other search engines like Bing and Yahoo. In fact, I noticed Bing has become much more stable in the past year with results because they don’t keep tweaking and messing around so often like Google does at the sole expense of their customers.

Plus, I don’t have to log out of my Gmail account to look up generic results which is so frustrating to me. The only way that we can fight back against such tyranny is to hurt them where it hurts the most – in the pocket book. If more people stopped using them, over time they will gradually loose their importance and the balance of search engines will be more evenly distributed.

The other important part to detoxing from being a social zombie is to stop using Google Plus+, which is really poor in my opinion. If most people opted out of using it, then we win. Social interaction should always be a choice and not some corporation should be the driving force on what and how we interact.

You need to understand when you use a companies services, especially the free ones that nothing is really free because they always want something. I noticed this week that Google is now offering Google Drive. Good grief, another way for them to control us even more. Seriously, their privacy policy is scary on this one because they are essentially indicating that they own your information is placed on Google drive. I’m sure they will come out, if not already to revise that part. I mean how completely arrogant can one company be? If I wrote the information, its mine plan and simple.

I have checked out a few forums in the past week as well and it seems more people are now switching over to Bing and Yahoo. I used to have tremendous respect for Google, but they have clearly crossed the line with me and others. Even if you are not involved in any online business activities and just looking to do searches on various topics, check out Bing today. You might be pleasantly surprised.

The fact of the matter I am tired and fed up with trying to figure out various seo methods. The reason for this change is both some of my sites tanking and numerous friends getting their sites penalized. We are all in the same boat, but the fundamentals have absolutely never changed with Google for the past 10 years.

If you produce great content, you will ultimately win in the organic search results. Now, we’ve all heard this shit before and honestly I have wrote many long winded and hopefully insightful articles along the way. Did I also produce some so-so content along the way? Hell yes because I got lazy and that stops today. In fact, I have a number of new projects starting up this month that have zero to do with anything internet marketing related. I am chomping at the bit to get started because its writing about stuff that I have a huge interest in doing.

Man, this feels like deja vu doesn’t it? I mean, if you have been online for any period of time, you would have read this elsewhere in various forms. When I talk about producing great content, I mean content that is so bloody good it will make people want to give some link love and social love. That is what we should all fricken be aiming for over the long term. Do I still have a few niche markets that I am involved in? Of course, but its not something that I will continue to invest any significant time in either because I want a business online, or I should say I want a real business online and one that I would be proud to show my family and friends.

Now, if you want to really succeed and I hope you do, then you better develop a serious focused attitude of writing some bad ass content. I’m not talking about some cheesy 5 or 10 page thin affiliate site. The sites that I am talking about will have 500 pages of content alone this year, with a goal of having over 1500 pages of real meaningful content by the end of 2013. You see, whether I am in the good graces of Google or not, I want the majority of my traffic to be from other sources.

Imagine for a moment how you would feel if your organic search results only accounted for say, 10 percent of your overall stats? How would that make you feel everyday knowing people are coming to your site because they found out about your great site elsewhere. The added bonus, when you create a massive site like that, you can’t help but rank on page 1 over time. In fact, I would bet you right now, that if you built a site and forgot about any link building etc for the next year and simply focused on building out your site with extremely helpful content, you would find yourself ranking in time for hundreds or thousands of terms.

The Downside To Building a Real Online Business

You just knew at some point I would have something to say to bring it back to reality for most people. The fact of the matter, most people will never look at their online business as a real business. They will just flop around and jump from one opportunity online to another.

The fact is, wouldn’t it be better from a time management standpoint if you invested all of your time into 2 or 3 projects maximum? You see, with 2 of the next big projects in mind, I know that I have time on my side in terms of not needing money tomorrow from the websites. In fact, if I didn’t make any money for the next 1 to 2 years, I would still be OK because I have other money coming on each month.

I am just sick and tired of the algo changes and what its doing to my rankings. I am tired of reading all the latest updates from so called guru’s spouting out the next guideline to make you 50k a month. Please excuse my while I call it what it is – bullshit.

Checking My Crystal Ball

If you really study successful websites and I mean the truly great ones out there, you will notice something immediately between them and most of the other’s. Their content is stellar and I really can’t tell you how important this will be for your long term future. People that build up a huge following online and have thousands or tens of thousands of people on their email list really don’t give a shit whether their site is ranking or not. You think people like Steve Pavlina, who’s into personal development cares what Google does to any of his rankings? Not a chance and its because his site is getting over a 1 million unique visitors per month. He will continue to make money regardless.

That is the types of sites I am referring to. Build something so spectacular that people will give you all the social and link love, that in time you will automatically rank on page one and become a true authority website.

The fact of the matter, it will take an incredible amount of time and sacrifice to really develop a website in terms of what I am referring to.

Stop Dicking Around Online

The way you really get organized and productive is by sitting down on your ass and start writing stuff. I mean seriously, this is the way to actually go about building out your massive site, with 1 quality article at a time. Say for example, you can only do 1 massive quality article per week. Over the course of a year, you would have 52 articles and likely 50,000 plus words on your website. Think a little bigger and try to do 2 quality articles per week. I’m sure you are getting my point.

When it comes to actually being productive, some things to really keep in mind that will suck away your day is the following; checking your email throughout the day, reading various forums online for 2 or 3 hours per day, and then chatting on the phone or whatever else you feel you need to do, other than the most important part of the process – sitting down and writing some stuff.

Look, I’m not your mommy or daddy here watching over your shoulder to make sure you are doing the work you need to be doing. If you want real success online, then suck it up princess and get real busy. In other words, write some EPIC shit that people will find interesting and useful. That’s how you ultimately succeed because in the end, I really believe as Google and the other search engines get more advanced, great content will rise to the top and crap content on crappy sites will disappear.

Guidelines for Getting Traffic To Your Site

The one thing I would absolutely not do is to just start back linking any of your pages immediately. Rather, a better way to go about it is look to do guest posts on related sites. I mean guest posting on steroids. That means when you write a guest post, it will be great content designed for one main purpose – useful for the reader.

If you take this point seriously and follow my guidelines here on guest posting and do that 3 or 4 times per month, you will have some great automatic traffic from those other websites. The added bonus is a quality link back to your site. That way you are giving Google exactly what they want to see, quality content on the web.

The other part I would do is join some related forums and really add some meaningful comments to various discussions that help the community. Be a give and not a taker is my motto.

Like I mentioned briefly above, going this route is a very time consuming endeavor for sure. This is the type of project that you will likely see very little money over the next year or two. However, the biggest upside is that you will have built a real online business that will last for years.

The Internet is flooded with web hosts offering cheap storage on their servers to anyone who is willing to pay a few dollars a month. Many unsuspecting business owners take advantage of these offers, thinking they have scored a great deal on hosting space. While these cheap web hosts may be able to offer rock bottom prices, what they can’t provide is reliable service and dependable servers.

When a visitor attempts to access a web page, a query is made that the server must respond to by displaying the requested content. As a site becomes more popular, more queries are made to the server, meaning it must be capable of processing many requests in order to keep the website running properly. If the servers used by the hosting company are not capable of handling the onslaught of visitors, the website will not be displayed. This can translate to a huge loss in potential earnings. When multiplied again and again for new visitors, this downtime could effectively mean the company will suffer long term financial setbacks.

Content that incorporates SEO is dynamically crafted with the purpose of bringing new visitors to the website. As the site grows, it is imperative that the server behind it is capable of keeping up with both the growing number of visitors and the increasing number of pages present on the website. If at any point the server stumbles, the site will become inaccessible. While this may not seem like a major catastrophe, if the downtime is not resolved as quickly as possible, an innumerable group of visitors could be turned away from the site.

Choosing a reliable web host requires taking several different factors into consideration. Firstly, it is important to consider whether or not the hosting company has the server capacity to effectively keep the site afloat. Some hosts offer reliability guarantees, making them a great option to consider. It is also important to find a web hosting company with helpful customer service, in the event of an issue. If a website suddenly were to become inaccessible, waiting until the next business day to resolve the problem could theoretically result in massive financial losses. Customer service agents who are ready to help at a moment’s notice can mean the difference between lost business and great success.

Fortunately, finding a web host that offers all of those services and more at a decent price does not have to feel like mission impossible. In fact, some of the web’s premier web hosts offer the reliability demanded by successful SEO sites at an impressive bargain. Paying for web hosting does not have to be a compromise between quality and cost. Instead, many of the best web hosts offer packages that make finding the right fit for your business simple.

If you are solely relying upon SEO – search engine optimization and organic ranking of keyword terms, your days could be numbered. I have read so many people having horror stories, like all of a sudden loosing 5 to 10k or more a month. All because of a sudden algorithm change by Google. I too have lost rankings recently on 2 sites, including this one, out of the blue. However, I suspect the problem in my case was more of a error internally. You see, I just didn’t loose keyword positions on G, but, rather I lost them in all of the search engines. I still can’t pinpoint what the actual cause was.

However, I do believe I fixed the internal problem and it seems to be more of a technical thing, rather than anything stupid on my part. So, why am I telling you this story today? Its because if I had done a better job at branding myself and creating a huge opt in list, I would essentially care less about Google or any other search engine does. I would be immune to the fluctuations and their petty nuances in the search engines. Nope, this is also the last time, I rely upon those bots for any traffic. I will be generating most of my traffic by other means.

Now, does it mean I don’t want to rank for any keyword terms? Hell no! Of course I want to rank for as many terms as possible. However, it will be the icing on the cake for me. That is the best way to insulate yourself from any sudden changes or lost rankings.

The fact of the matter, its always been about branding. Its just during the past 5 years of being online, you go through various stages of your online life and some things just get pushed to the back burner. In my case, its something that I should have done from day one and in some ways I did do, but, I just didn’t do enough of it.

Lets look at some concrete examples to better illustrate what I mean. Take a look at companies like Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot. Do you think they rely upon ranking for keyword terms as there primary means to generate money? Well, in the case of Amazon, I am sure its a nice junk of change they generate for all the hundreds of thousands of keyword terms they rank on page 1 for. However, over the years, they have been keenly aware of the importance of branding and have done a spectacular job at branding their online name. When you think of buying something online, I would bet that 8 out of 10 people think Amazon first.

Just like Walmart and Home Depot, they don’t rely upon online sales as their majority of business. In fact, aside from Amazon, most large companies only really got into the online business in a serious way after 2000. For companies like Walmart and Home Depot, its all about branding and always has been. They don’t worry if they rank or not.

My point here, is organic rankings is just a bonus for them and nothing more. Because all of those companies are so well known or branded, they get business no matter what the search engines do or don’t do.

Another example, out of the blue, I lost my rankings on page 2 for the term, internet marketing tools about 3 weeks ago. I have no idea what I did to deserve it or warrant it. However, the fact of the matter, its gone. I do hope it comes back. However, my new site that I am setting up, will be much more basic and less reliant upon organic listings for traffic. Rather, it will be focused on building a proper opt in list and I will be focusing not on quantity, but always quality of information. Over time, people will get to know this site and traffic will start to trickle in from organic listings. But, my main way, will be by producing quality content and getting it out, to as many places as I can.

A couple of other things to keep in mind to avoid being penalized and this is not some grip with G or the other search engines this time around. Because, clearly something happened internally. I have also cleaned up this site for overlap articles. I used to have several articles about making money. Not any more, because I deleted all of them except 1 article now, that is solely focused on how to make money online and its already over 4000 words long. I have always wrote long ass articles anyways. But, to ensure that when I am in the good graces of the search engines again, I don’t want to give them any reason at all, to hit the big de-index button on their end. I want to them to see for any manual inspection, that my site has all original quality information.

In closing, the search engines have for some time been aiming for this day, to reward sites and branding is one of the key pieces of the puzzle and it ensures you get tons of traffic to your site each and everyday. One other example that comes to mind, is Frank Kern. Being online and having developed a large following, I am sure Frank could care less about what the search engines do today. You see, I would bet his list is in the hundreds of thousands. Plus, he really doesn’t need to sell anything, because his primary business is referral traffic anyways. Just some things to keep in mind, when building up your online empire and making sure, its there in 1, 3, and 5 years from now.

Until next time, make it a great day

Darrell Lischka

If you are conducting any business online, then you really need to be aware of internet censorship and the potential impact it can have on your business. For example, I recently learned about a situation that happened on YouTube, with a guy, by the name of Butch Hamilton, who lost all of his videos recently. The reason given, by some anonymous person at Google, is that, he violated their terms of service.

I will say this about Butch, he has always provided very high quality content, especially his videos. He provides real time information about a range of topics, like SEO, internet marketing, article writing etc. However, Butch did do a 3 part series on the topic – how to make money online. It wasn’t a sales pitch by him either. He was simply dispelling the myth, about how easy it was to make money, by all the so called guru’s. He was actually educating people, that to have success online, it takes a tremendous amount of daily and consistent effort and not to believe those guru’s.

This was the reason given, because he is not allowed to talk about making money type subjects on YouTube. Google simply dislikes affiliate marketers, but hey, its OK for them to make Billions every year. Here’s the problem with that, Google and anyone else reading this. Its called censorship and goes against any democratic society allowing free speech. Google had a fit when China told them what people could and could not access on their search engine. Google told the Chinese government – to take a hike. So, why then, would they censor, a how to make money online video? I get they are trying to clean things up, but, is this really what they want happening?

The same goes when you submit your content to so called professional press release sites and other places like, Ezine Articles. Any of these places have one thing in common. We the people – you, me and everyone else using those services, made them what they are today. If it were not for us promoting Google, they would be just another statistic in the search engine wars. Oh no, but they are high and mighty now and really don’t answer to anyone, other than their share holders. So, what happened with companies like Google and how did it all go so wrong?

My answer is simple – they got to big for their own good. No wonder, both the European Governments and now the United States government, are investigating their business practices. You see, they are too big for the average person to fight them. Just remember Google, someone will come along eventually and make a better mouse trap (search engine). When that day comes, look out and watch your market share plummet. Its an easy fix, treat people with a level of respect and you will get it back 10x.

Lets take a look at another example. Chris Knight who owns Ezine articles, has dramatically changed the rules, since they got nailed by Google and lost significant traffic for their site. Oh, but did they change the layout of all those ad blocks on the pages? Nope, not at all, however, they certainly made it more difficult to post content. Their argument, they heard Google loud and clear, and were going to clean up their act. Hey Chris, I got some advice, clean up all those ads on each page and that will dramatically make it, for a better user experience.

Interesting, that Google is OK to leave all the crap online, like adult content, but you can’t talk about making money? Do you see a problem here folks? Can you see the hypocrisy?

How To Avoid Internet Censorship

The easiest and best way to avoid being held hostage, as Butch would say, is to own all your own assets. You see, if you own your own websites and host them on your own servers, nobody, can tell you what you can and can’t talk about.

Instead of relying upon all those 3rd party places like, forums, Ezine articles, press release submission places etc., screw them too. Create your own video website, your own press release site, your own Ezine article directory.

By the way, all those places, that I just mentioned above, are just website blogs in reality. Don’t ever worry about your content being censored by another 3rd party ever again. Control your own assets instead.

Cheers

Darrell Lischka

However, lets first examine why you would consider using it. Google Adsense is basically a set it and forget it type of advertising. Once you make an application to Google and they approve you, then you will have access to your own code to track the clicks etc. You place that code into your website. The real work on your part is getting traffic. The best kind of traffic is organic SEO, because you will receive the highest amounts for click through rates.

What is Adsense?

Its a way for people to pay for advertising to appear on people’s websites for a certain amount per click. It makes Google billions of dollars a year. They share 68% of the revenue that’s generated by its partners. For many years, they simply refused to state

So, if you are the kind that, just wants to rank for organic keyword terms and put Adsense on it, go for it. I personally don’t like the pennies it pays out and people are becoming more and more blind to Adsense ads. Are there any pitfalls in placing Adsense on your site?

This is perhaps my biggest issue with Google about this whole program. If you design a site that’s made for Adsense – MFA as many people in internet marketing refer to it, you are likely at some point, to receive a manual review of your site. Generally, people have experienced a manual review when you top $100 per day. Some people don’t receive one till they hit $200 per day. I remember reading over at Linkvanareviews, Dan was up to $300/day and got nailed. He virtually lost his revenue over night. His account didn’t get banned, but most of those sites are useless.

How To Protect Your Site if Using Adsense

You can absolutely still use Adsense, but you just need to be smart about it. Many people believe that you will automatically get your site de-indexed. That simply is not true and just a myth. Google wants you to use this form of advertising because they make more money. However, they want the best information at the top of the search engines. Your site should always have quality information on it anyways, whether or not you use this method or not.

The other point to keep in mind for Adsense, is make sure you don’t over due where and how many blocks you use. Some authority sites got a major hit during the last major update, like Ezine articles. I would also ensure you have other forms of advertising, like affiliate offers.

What’s The Alternative To Google Adsense?

I would look for products or services in your niche. For instance, about internet marketing, I would look for and advertise affiliate products related to internet marketing. That’s just one example.

Here are some other ideas:

Clickbank
JV or Joint Ventures
Develop Your Own Products/Services
Lead Generation Companies (CPA – cost per click/CPL – cost per lead)- ex: NeverBlue
DigiResults
ShareaSale

Those will give you a few ideas. In addition, look at your competitors and see if they have affiliate programs. You can do a Google search for affiliate programs to see all the variety. There are literally thousands upon thousands of options, depending on the nich you are going for.

The most profitable of course, is when you develop your own products and/or services. Once you are starting to make money and have an established client base, you could even look at having your own membership site. Many people do this to generate residual income. Its a great way to have a certain amount of income coming every month.

Oh, and despite what some so called guru’s try to tell you, building a list is still a great option, in addition to everything else you do. It will Google proof your business, in case you ever loose your search rankings etc. I haven’t really focused on it for this site, although at some point, I will probably add something. For now, bookmark this site and if you would, please click on the like button below to show the love

Question: Have you ever seen the same News story on multiple websites? Of course you and they are not penalized.

I had a press release done for me with the following title: “Highly Acclaimed Online Expert Updates Internet Marketing Tools Recommendation.” This article appears in thousands of places all over the web. Did any of those sites get de-indexed because of that? Not at all. So, you can use the same article in multiple places and Google will index them. Will they show all of the results? Never and neither will any search engine because, they don’t want to give away how they rank. If they showed all of the results, in theory, a person could reverse engineer how they do it.

You see, when the spider bots crawl a particular page, they are looking at the entire content. So, when you have your article on 1 of their pages, its the entire page and not just looking at your content. So, in the context of your article, its unique at every website or article directory you are placing content.

Does that mean you should never change it? Heck no because, I still like to change things up abit sometimes. Not always, but sometimes I do.

So, when does duplicate content actually hurt you?

Its when you place the same article on 1 page of your site and put the same article elsewhere on another page of your site. That is when you can get into trouble with Google and the other search engines.

With the recent panda update, one thing is coming out that you should be aware. If you want your site to do well, you should always have unique and well written content on your site. The last thing you should have, is a large percentage of content that is used elsewhere. Does that make sense?

OK, lets look at it this way. If all you do is take news stories and place them on your site, you will not necessarily get penalized, but I highly doubt you will ever rank for any serious keyword term either. You could be eventually de-indexed. So, why take the chance.

Yes, many people in internet marketing still use this method and it still works for some. But the days are numbered as I believe, and many others. That if you want to do well in internet marketing, then the more quality and unique content, the better it will be for your site.

Don’t get scared off if you are just getting started. I will break down each area to its most basic component, so that you get it. When I first got started over 5 years ago, I didn’t know anything and I was green, as green could be at internet marketing. Can anyone learn this SEO stuff? Sure, if you are willing to apply yourself and invest the necessary time to become proficient at it.

There are a number of areas that you will need to understand as follows:

Keyword research
Optimizing your website
Meta descriptions
Tags – title, h1, h2, & h3
Internal link structure
Keyword density
Overall Site Structure and Navigation
Back linking
Original Quality Content

I am sure, I have not listed every single SEO item, but, the above list will more than cover what you need to know to get started and pointed in the right direction. SEO doesn’t boil down to only one way of doing things. There are many ways to achieve the same results.

One other area that I did want to mention before diving into the meat of this article today, is ensuring you understand and read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Many people, especially some SEO firms, will utilize black hat techniques that may allow your site to rank initially, but quickly become penalized, resulting in a loss of rankings, or worse, getting de-indexed and your site disappearing for good from G’s search results. For some detailed information, go here – Google’s Webmaster Tools

The main goal anytime you are trying to rank for a keyword term, is to ultimately be ranked number 1 on Google. Yes, I now people use Bing and Yahoo, but the majority of people still use G, when it comes to doing any research online. In fact, I read an article from Chitika, that did some in depth research on what a number 1, 2 and 3 position actually meant in terms of how many people visited your site. From the results, number 1 gets double the traffic as position number 2.

While, no company or person can guarantee a number 1 ranking in the search engines, there are many people out there that have enough technical knowledge, that they can at least achieve page 1 rankings, provided that the term is a winnable term. What do I mean by winnable? For my personal definition of that term, it means getting within the top 3 positions. The further down you are, the less traffic you get, resulting in likely, less revenue for your site.

In addition to ranking organically, there are other ways to use SEO to rank your site, such as, local search in the area you live, video’s, blogs and even image search. For example, my internet marketing toolbox, that you see on the sidebar will show up in Google if you go and click on image and do a search on internet marketing tools. That image is on page 1 for images, when you type in that term. When I was looking into the images area today, I noticed someone actually used my custom image for their own site, without asking permission first. Whenever that happens, don’t be afraid to send the webmaster an email to let them know the issue or problem. I sent them an email and they promptly removed it.

SEO and ranking comes down to your overall understanding of how everything interacts together. Each piece is akin to a giant gig saw puzzle. When you put them together properly, the puzzle is solved. Much like SEO, when you add just the right elements together, you create the best chance of ranking.

Keyword Research

Without a doubt, one of the absolute most important factors to doing well in the world of internet marketing and making extra money, is your ability to choose the right keywords to target. If you go after terms that are simply not winnable, you will never make money. There are a variety of ways to analyze keywords, including buying software programs like Micro Niche Finder, which I do actually use because it helps me with ideas on different combinations of words.

My approach to picking keywords includes factors like, which site is ranked 1 to 3, can I beat those sites, how many searches per day does that keyword actually get, how much CPC does it pay if using Adsense, is it seasonable or a year around keyword term, can I write about that particular subject matter easily or do I need to immerse myself into it first, interest in that particular niche, what are the current trends for that term, and is it a buying term.

Those are just some questions to keep in mind that you will need to decide upon, when doing keyword research. One other key area that most people want to know immediately, is how many searches per day does that term get. When using Google’s keyword tools or any other keyword software, remember that they are estimates and are not accurate. In fact, when looking for terms to go after, I would not go below 50 to 100 searches per day. The reason for that, is because that number that is spit out by whatever program you use, will be off. So, if its only 50% accurate, then by going after 100 daily searches, I might really be looking at 50 searches.

I am currently testing out a new keyword tool that is giving much more accurate results, because their program allows for their own spider bots to go out into the internet and find out what the search results are. They essential emulate what a normal search engine does, when it crawls the internet. However, at this time, using one of the other tools is fine as well. I want to see how those search results pan out before recommending it to my readers here.

In terms of CPC – Cost Per Click for Adsense purposes, I would not go after terms that are less than $1.00 per click. Its not worth my time or yours to consider anything less. Remember, even the best site that gets lots of traffic, will only get so many people actually clicking on an Adsense Ad. So, if you are strictly going this route for your website, then make it worth it.

For my own personal experience and opinion, I don’t bother with Adsense anymore. I have like 1 hub page that I am using it on right now, but its not getting any traffic right now, so I really could care less anyways. I prefer to monetize my websites with affiliate offers or creating my own products that pay much better. Besides, I have read to many horror stories with people using Adsense and getting their sites banned just cause.

When choosing the ideal niche to target, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was first, choosing something that you are interested in and have some knowledge in. If you don’t have a particular area of expertise in, that’s OK, because you can get lots of great ideas online from literally thousands of places.

For instance, say you don’t know where to start or what kinds of things to even go after. One great place to get ideas is Amazon. They have an affiliate program that pays out between 4 to 8%, depending on how many sales you make each month. The one caution, Amazon has eliminated some states now because they are getting taxed there. Instead of paying it, they just cancelled all the affiliates programs for those select States that passed the new tax law.

Honestly, there are literally tons of affiliate programs out there for your keyword terms. Even Walmart has an affiliate program, so you will always have some options with monetizing your internet site. Other places are Chitika Adsense, Clickbank etc. Just search out affiliate programs online and you will find thousands. You can go to places like the Warrior Forum for additional affiliate programs.

How To Optimize Your Website

From what I have seen over the years, there are many people that simply lack an understanding of the importance of optimizing their websites. The key to remember, the more properly your site is optimized, the less you need to do to rank it on page 1. When you add just the right tweaks, together they all add to give most sites a nice bump in rankings. Heck, even G comments about proper on site optimization. Hey, if you don’t want to make things easier for you, that’s fine, because people like myself and other’s that do “get it” will just wave as we pass you by on our way to page 1 and position 1.

So what should you include exactly to optimize your site correctly?

For starters, ensure you add your keyword in your title, so that the search engines know exactly what your page or post is supposed to be about. You also need to write as natural as you can, because you need to write for people, not search engines. It doesn’t mean you can’t naturally include your keyword term or terms you are going for on a page or post. Of course you can, but if you take time to create quality content, it will flow naturally for your readers without them even realizing what you are actually doing.

That’s the point of creating great content and its purpose. The more you can get people involved and interacting within your site, the better you will do long term in building a viable business. Remember, the longer people stay on your site, the less bounce rate you have, which helps to increase your overall rankings. The search engines want in a perfect online world, to give the end user the best content and best experience. The longer people stay on your site, it tells the search engines, that your site are what people are looking for. Why else would anyone stay for long periods of time, unless you had something worthwhile to discuss.

As well, when using WordPress for instance, the title that you have is actually an h1 tag. I would include some h2 tags within your keywords as well. The other nice thing about WordPress, if you use something like all in one seo plugin, you can actually create individual title and page meta descriptions for each page and post on your site. No longer, do you have to rely on the search engines giving you the first 2 lines on your page as a meta description. Matt Cutts has also stated that Google doesn’t use meta descriptions as ranking signals anymore. People used to many years ago, keyword stuff those, in essence cheating their way to the top.

I was looking over some info at G’s webmaster guidelines and they clearly state you should have a title tag for each page on your site, rather than a universal one. It helps to how distinct each page is on your site.

Internal Link Structure

Setting up your site properly, also includes setting up your internal linking structure correctly. There is nothing worse than having a poorly set up website or having dead links on your site that can affect your rankings. As well, when you have a proper internal link structure, the search engines bots can crawl your site more easily. They factor that in as a signal in their algorithms. Make sure you create a sitemap.

Some people will create what’s called a Silo Structure. An example of what I think is an ideal silo structure is the About.com site. If you study it carefully, look at each category and how they have an organized linking structure. Many people having differing view points as to whether this really helps your ranking structure. I am not so sure anymore they pass anymore link juice, versus optimizing a page or post properly. I might have read or heard somewhere in one of the forums, that Google has now changed their algorithms to give less importance to a silo structured site. Again, I am just not sure right now. I would focus more on optimizing your content and adding value for your readers, versus just this particular set up.

If using WordPress, you can get a free plugin called Google Sitemap Generator. It will allow you to create a functional sitemap for your entire site. This allows the bots to crawl your site properly. I see some sites with a lot of content, yet they don’t’ have a sitemap. I really don’t understand the reason behind that, as Google in their webmaster guidelines suggest you do include one.

You can also customize the URL’s or what’s known as permalinks of your individual posts and pages for your website. If using WordPress, you have several selections to choose from, including category, followed by the title of your post. The default settings are not very good for people copying and referring to your site. As well, its not in my opinion effective for search engine rankings. In fact, I would just select customize your permalink in the back office settings of your website and add the following code /%postname%

Here’s an example of what one of my url’s looks like using this customized perma link:

http://about-internetmarketing.com/internet-marketing

If you place your cursor over any of my pages, categories or posts, you will notice the difference and how structured my url’s are, versus someone using the default category. Notice how I don’t have any stupid numbers or odd characters after the dot com. That’s what I mean by using a customized perma link structure. I think it also looks more professional. But, the big reason is because the search engine spider bots will know what your page or post is all about.

The above covers the important areas for navigation and site structure for a website, now its time to talk about going about ranking your site. This can get really detailed, so I will cover the basics here.

Back Links – What are they!

Getting a back link means, when another site is using a contextual link and pointing it back to your site. In essence, its a vote for your site. Now, there are many types of back links and people from all parts of the internet community have differing viewpoints about what’s important and how to maximize getting back links. I will say, that with Google’s latest updates to their algorithm’s, the value of certain types of back links is diminishing. No matter what anyone tells you, a back link is not just a back link. Clearly, certain types of links give more value and weight than other types of links. For instance, a link from a forum, with no additional content, doesn’t seem to carry the same weight as say a year ago.

Keep in mind, back links are just one signal that the search engines use for ranking purposes. As the algorithms improve over time, you may see a day when getting back links won’t matter in the least. There are social signals that are becoming a bigger part to the overall ranking factor. This has been well documented by Google and others. This is the direction they seem to be heading.

What seems to be more favorable and something that looks more natural, is getting links related to your own field. Now, I have not done any personal extensive testing, but I have reviewed a number of case studies that seem to give some evidence to support this. Having said that, if you got a back link from say, a page rank 7 site, even if its unrelated to your niche, I would say it would matter in a big way because that is a site that has authority in the search engines eyes.

I have been having an on going discussion with a friend of mine over even needing back links to rank anymore. The reason, I mention this is because the site with the most back links, doesn’t seem to rank number 1. In fact, often times there are sites with 10% of what another site on page 1 might have, yet rank 1. Why? That’s a good question and something I have been racking my mind around in terms of trying to analyze why sites end up number 1. Heck, the entire SEO industry is focused on ranking number 1 and trying to figure how and why.

I will also say that, the more your site is optimized, the less back links you will need in the long run. I still value in having some back links, but certainly not the kind I would have got for some of my sites 2 years ago.

In addition, the more content you add to your site and the more often you do that, the more frequently the search engines will come and crawl your site. Sites that have a lot of crawl activity, typically seem to do better as well in the search results.

You can get back links for forum profiles (less effective today), related websites, comments, private networks, article directories like Ezine Articles etc. The list goes on and on. I tend to go with higher quality back links that are natural.

What do I mean when I say a natural back link? That means, someone reads your article, they like it and give you a contextual link back to your site. That is the highest form of a back link and it looks completely natural. Some people go to the dark side and do black hat techniques for getting links. Look, I will just tell you, that if you go down that route, you are a fool just asking for trouble down the road. Why invest time into a site, just to take a chance and get it de-indexed. It’s simply not worth it anymore.

Writing Quality Content – Your Best SEO strategy Overall

I have always had original content on my websites, especially the important sites that make extra money. The best way to kill your website is to scrape or use a high percentage of duplicate content. Several years ago, it didn’t seem to matter much, but, clearly this has changed with the times. The search engines have declared all out war on trying to reduce the internet plagued with duplicate and scraped content. Just look at what happened with the latest Google algorithm update called Panda. They wiped out many popular article directory sites like Ezine from ranking on page 1.

Your best strategy for the long term is creating kick ass quality content. Invest the time, like I have in this article for instance. I spent several hours writing this article and I will still tweak it in the coming weeks to come because I will add on more information for this particular subject. I will tell you this, that you can actually rank very well in time if people like your stuff. People will give you likes from Facebook button, add a back link naturally to your page or post. G and the other search engines have said from day one, they want the best and most relevant content to be ranked on page 1.

You don’t need to complicate it here. Yes, there is lots of stuff to learn about SEO, but you know when something is good or not. Don’t take short cuts because it will only bite you in the ass in the future. Some people like taking short cuts and creating small 5 page sites, putting Adsense on it and ranking the site. In the past, you could get away with it, however, not like you used to. The safer way and better way, create quality content that people will actually want to read.

They continue to amaze me at what they want this theme to actually become. It is in my opinion and I am biased, its leap frogging past itheme builder (ya Jim gotta say that to bug you a little …

The newest update is version v 1.1.2 and includes the ability to add more customization to the layout of individual pages and posts. You can read more about it here at this link – Cataylst Theme

With the new version, they have fixed a number of bugs, like any professional theme developer does.

This is a really short post here today, but check out the new features at the link above.

If you are looking to take your website to another level, but not sure where to start, then invest some time over at the Catalyst site. Just click on the big image on the sidebar to see what’s it about. There are many professional themes out there and I think many have great qualities, but I like this theme best so far. It gives me the ability to do things, minus all the coding or programming part.

Part of the problem is because most of the individuals think its easy to make money online, with very little work. I mean come on – are you seriously still believing that nonsense. If so, its time to wake up and smell the coffee. Making money online is tough like its in the off line world. If it were easy, then you would see more millionaires in this online game.

The fact is, internet marketing is getting harder in terms of the competition. Google and the other search engines are constantly making adjustments to their algorithm’s to counter all the people trying to cheat the system. Honestly, the people behind the search engines have reminded us repeatedly, that they want the best and most relevant content on the top results. There are no perfect system out there, but trying to game the system, just doesn’t make sense.

I mean, look at any pro athlete that is at the top of their profession. People like Wayne Gretzky, one of the greatest players of all time in hockey. Look at people like Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls Basket Ball team. What did these 2 players have in common. They practiced non stop to be the best they could be. They had great coaches along the way. Nobody gets to that level without someone or multiple people along the way, giving them advice.

Who’s your coach for internet marketing?

Do you even have a coach that can help you or at least a place that you visit frequently to get some sage advice.

What is your mental toughness check list?

Here are a few tips to keep in mind to staying the course and actually being one of the few who does make it in this online jungle.

1. Study and learn the basics of what SEO is, WordPress, FTP, posting content to your site, how to set up your website. I have listed just a few to give you some examples. My other page called, how to make money, goes into great detail on setting up a website probably to long term success. I have recently added the first several sections to that page and will be adding on a lot more, to give you all that you need to understand the various elements and how they interact together.

2. Find a couple of sites, like this one that gives you tons of free internet marketing advice, minus all the fluff.

3. Take action and be consistent. This can be one of the toughest parts, because for many months or even years, you may go without making any real money in this business, but the ones that succeed, are willing to keep going. Don’t just listen to what I say or others. Once you have a basic understanding of how it works, explore yourself and try different things. Set aside so many hours per week that you will work on your business.

4. The internet is changing so rapidly, that its hard to keep up with the main changes. Embrace change because its the only thing that is truly constant.

5. Never give up. This industry can be absolutely brute and cut throat. It takes nerves of steel to keep doing it day in and day out. The key to success is that you must be willing to do today, what other’s are simply not willing to do. By doing so, in time, you can have tomorrow, what other’s can only dream of.