Making money blogging, or making money with any other type website for that matter, relies heavily on the amount of other sites linking to it to give that site authority with the search engines. The whole process is at the same time simple and massively complicated and I must admit to being completely ignorant of this need when I first started writing online.
The simple fact is that in any given field, there are a large number of people competing for search engine (or any other type) traffic. They want search engine traffic because that often monetizes well - because so many people start their search for something to buy on the internet. So - whatever you are writing about or trying to sell, there are other people doing the same thing and competing with you.
I cannot claim to know exactly how google and the other search engines decide how to rank you, but I can share some personal experiences as to what will work for you or against you and I can say that the amount of incoming links to your site from other web sites is very important. I am not going to get into specific websites, but here are a few simple rules to follow if you wish to make your site a success:
- Get a lot of high quality incoming links
- Get some more high quality incoming links
To an extent, if you write good content, people will organically link to your work and you will get search engine traffic. But - you are up against competitors for that traffic and much as I hate to say this - your competitors are cheating.
Yes, they are going out and buying backlinks and doing any number of other sneaky, nasty, underhanded things to get themselves ranked more highly in the search engines than you. There are all sorts of ways of doing this and as and when the search engines get their algorithms perfect (never) this will stop working and the best content will be highest ranked. If the google search engine was perfect, you would always get the best, most relevant result for whatever you are looking for. You know how many times that happens.
So - therefore you need to cheat as well. Simple. You are just not going to be able (unless you are extremely lucky) to dominate a search term that is in any way competitive without artificially creating lots and lots and lots of incoming links.
This is a pain in the ass. Nothing more and nothing less. As far as I am concerned this is the least pleasurable part of my job. The single solitary reason I need to spend a large part of my time creating incoming links is because some spammer or con man can make a fortune selling people a shitty piece of software that will not work to help them make money online.
How to create lots of incoming links with as little work as possible
Here are some do's and don'ts for generating links.
1. Do not sign up for a link exchange service that relies on your own site creating outgoing links in exchange. Once Mr. Google identifies that you will get penalized. I know - I tried one to see what happened - Using Neurolinker to increase backlinks - and all the sites I was using it on were penalized. One of them had a -3 PR applied to it.
Now - it may be that page rank is not as important to you as it is to me, but I have a reputation to maintain and seeing some of my sites stripped of their rank was not what I wanted. Also - and I have not tried this because it sounds like too much work and I already have alternatives in place - theoretically, you could use one site to link out with and set up another site on a different web host, using a different name etc to have links in to. Not a route I would choose.
2. Do not sign up for this service called 1waylinks or anything like it - these have all been abused and devalued. One way links
The way this works is - you create a wordpress blog and submit it to their network. They will automatically make posts to that blog which contain out going links to other members. At the same time, you write articles that contain links to your chosen site, using anchor text you are targeting and they will post those articles to the network. This creates incoming links to your site spread across a wide geographic region.
Their software allows you to "spin" the articles you submit so that the articles are not duplicated. This is no longer a viable approach.
3. Do not sign up for these services which have all had their sites devalued or deindexed
- Linkvana
- SEONitro
- SEOLinkVine
- Backlink Monster
- The High PR society
- Build My Rank
Most blog networks are now worthless as a link resource.
4. Do sign up for this service called CC Articles. CC Articles.
At some point, you are going to discover that there are not enough hours in the day to write all the content you need to adequately promote yourself. And you are probably going to come to the conclusion that you need to outsource that work. Let me tell you - that is another major pain in the ass. I have hired (and fired) numerous writers to do this job and I was shocked to discover from the other perspective as it were - just how many lousy, useless, crappy writer there are out there who will steal other people's work and try to pass it off as their own. If I wanted copied garbage, I would have copied it myself. They are cheap and consistent as advertised and I am extremely impressed with the quality. You only pay per article ordered, and can get a 500 word article for as little as $4.33 if you order 30 at a time. Well worth the money and will certainly save you from the aggravation of dealing with writers that mean you end up spending as much time editing and checking their work that you may as well have written them yourself in the first place.
That Linkvana is very tempting. Have you tried Traffic Kahuna?
.-= rob´s last blog ..AC DC Guitar Kit =-.
Linkvana is absolutely worth it – if you have more than one niche/topic. You will probably have to buy some content though. I am running about 200 articles a day through it – so there is no way I can write that many myself. I have not tried Traffic Kahuna – is that worth it?
I’d like to have more backlinks too.
.-= CheezMozo Gossips and Sexy Ladies´s last blog ..Pink and Lady Gaga are just scary =-.
Thanks for the information it’s great to hear from a guy who is making real money online and not just talking crap to get you to buy some “money making scheme”. I’ve been building and learning online now for over a year and so far I have made 9c with adsense. Onwards and upwards I’m getting the hang of this now! lol
9 c? lol – you need to fix that
I just started blogging about a month ago. I have built many a static site, but this is my first blog. I am getting lots of traffic and quick from two blog sites Entrecard and Adgitize. I am not sure if I will get penalized because of this, but know many of the blogs I deal with are PR2 to 5. And they are not spammers. Hopefully Google knows the difference.
Either way I enjoyed your article and will be looking into all three of the services for link building, Great site BTW, Glenn
.-= Man Over Board´s last blog ..MOB Interview: The Co-founders of TieOrDie.com =-.
Great stuff but I’m having trouble finding step by step instructions on how to implement many of the recommendations from people like you are are a million miles ahead of a beginner.
Fir instacne do you know where I can find instruction on how to create an internal link in my text blog postings? Most of hte people I have read recommend this, but none tells exactly how to do it.
Thanks for the valuable info in your article.
.-= Thejcrevelator2´s last blog ..Why Social Security is Un-Christian =-.
Read this:
http://markpknowles.com/how-to-make-money-blogging/
Follow the step by step instructions, sign up for the courses and you will know everything you need to know within 3 months.
Good luck
Out of curiosity has anyone ever had anything negative to say about any of your recommendations?
.-= Shawn Kent´s last blog ..Monty Phython – Copper =-.
If they have – they have not left a comment here. And I would happily publish it of they did.
Hi Mark,
I have read your hub and come from the link here. I am learning a lot from you.
Thanks,
Jyoti Kothari
hey matMarke, thanks for your seo article and its really worth to read it. I am looking forward to other articles on your blog. Thanks again
hi thanks for the article. very few people know this and willing to tell this
.-= savetimemarketing@´s last blog ..Increase You Tube Traffic With JumpStart =-.
I loved reading your site and your no BS approach. It’s about time someone told it like it is. I’ve been blogging and web designing for about 2 years and was getting nowhere with traffic even with great unique content. The only fruit has been: pennies from Adsense and lots of spam! I’ve gotten the writing satisfaction, but bellies need to be fed.
Thanks for helping to level the playing field.
Carlos
.-= Carlos´s last blog ..Welcome to "Inspiration for your day" =-.
My pleasure. Too much BS out there for my taste.
Hi Mark,
I’ve 2 questions:
1. How do you fix the bug on Blogger.com’s comment settings? Sometimes it allows the comments box, even after being properly set and sometimes: Nowhere to be found.
2. What template or wizard are you using for your pages and host?
I like the “skins” aspect of your pages.
This would really help.
Thanks
Carlos
.-= Carlos´s last blog ..Welcome to "Inspiration for your day" =-.
Hey Carlos,
Sorry – I have never noticed that issue with blogger. I just use them for promotional stuff and never really have any content of any substance.
I an using semiologic on this and all my other blogs. I love it. Especially the new ability to upgrade any wordpress blog with a simple plugin upload. There are dozens of skins and you can have skins written for you
http://www.semiologic.com/?aff=making_money_blogging
Thank you very much!
You sure reply fast. I like that
.-= Carlos´s last blog ..Welcome to "Inspiration for your day" =-.
Hi Mark,
I’d like to have domain management, web hosting, web design, SEO, back links and keyword analyzer and capture pages all in one site.
Can you recommend?
.-= Carlos´s last blog ..Welcome to "Inspiration for your day" =-.
Sorry – no idea.
yes but i think google have updated their algorithm now to stop back linking buying! which seems unfair to the majority and black hat to say the least!
Excellent news. Now my content will jump in the rankings as it is better than the garbage most peopel produce. Excuse me if I don’t take your word for it.
Hi Mark,
I just started to build my blogging site and was researching online, when happened to stumble upon your site from your hubpage link. I like your no BS approach as there are too many misguided sites and information out there. For the 1waylink service, is it possible to use my own personal wordpress themed blog site rather than creating one on wordpress.com?
You MUST use your own wordpress site – you cannot use a .com version.
Thank you for the insightful post on how to effectively build quality links for your blog. Another services that I have become aware of is seolinkvine.com. Do you know anything about them? I’m thinking about using them, but I want to make sure that they are legit.
Thanks, again!
IT Solutions Company
Great post and very informative. I hope to reach $1500 in income as well. I had couple of questions. 1) Are you running google and/or yahoo ads along with these? 2) The 1500 that income your receiving, is that from one site, using the process that you speak of? I know there are different variables that got you to 1500 per month, but I just wanted to get an idea of roughly how long it took you.
Thanks so much this informative post!
J-Inked.
My pleasure – that one took about 2 years to get to that level – yes – one site. It has since gone off the boil, so I suggest having several sites in different niches and go with the flow.
Very Nice article….Will try some techniques out of it
Abhishek Joshi
Hi Mark,
Im confused..is signing up for “one way links” okay…because if I read correctly in your other blog..How to make money blogging you write it is okay to sign up for those services but in this blog you say other wise…I m confused
Thank you.
They – along with most other blog networks have been penalized or deindexed. Do not sign up for them now.
Things change – this is the internet after all. I am editing out references to them as I find them. Which blog was that?
Drop me a line if you need an alternative.