Creating a circle of links

One of the things that search engines look for when evaulating a site are links into the site. Outgoing links count something also. Search engines are about links. Keywords also, but in particular keywords that link to relevant sites are top of the line.

You can create relevant links among your own sites even if they aren't on related topics by creating intermediate sites that are related to each of the others.

For example, I have a blog on veterans benefits. I have another blog on domestic travel. So to create some links I've built a small web page listing veterans museums around the country and linking it to both the veterans blog and the travel blog. It's far from finished, and I probably won't get it finished for a couple of months.

I'll probably spend 5 minutes a day for the next couple of months finishing the page, and it will then just sit there for a couple of years collecting a few pennies of adsense revenue. But, that's not really the point. The point is that with very little effort I've created related links between two unrelated blogs that I will be investing some effort in.

Search engines are important. Search engine visitors tend to be looking for information, not entertainment, and they're more likely to click on ads than your regular blog readers.

Telling Them About Me

I have a few websits and a bunch of blogs. Probably way too many blogs. But it doesn't cost anything to start a blog and it's so easy to throw some Adsense ads up that I just can't resist. Whenever I think I have something to say about some potential niche topic that I think might have broad interest (veterans benfits, diabetes, etc) I just through up a blog at blogspot.com

But this post on writing an About Me page reminded me of something I'm doing wrong.

My first blog was about poker. I've written a couple of books on poker and my blogspot.com About Me page tells about my poker background. That's not really relevant when I'm blogging about mortgage loans. My experience as a banking officer and my master's in business is relevant to that topic however.

So I need to stop using a generic About Me page and start putting together unique bios for each blog that puts an emphasis on hiw my background relateds to that particular topic.

I'll get right on that tomorrow.

The importance of having a voice and sticking to it

BloggingTips has a post on Top 10 mistakes new bloggers make.

Four of the ten mistakes he lists are variations of the general theme of the importance of having a unique and consistent voice. That should indicate to you how important that is.

It's a mistake to
Repeat what other bloggers are saying It's good to talk about the same topics other bloggers are talking about. It's not good to just parrot the thoughts of others. If you don't have something unique to add to the conversation then don't bother.
It's a mistake to
Be afraid to rock the boat. It's okay to voice unpopular opinions if you can back them up. In fact it's not just okay, it's one of the best ways to get your voice heard.
It's a mistake to
Spam other blogs with comments. Make yourself noticed with a few comments on other blogs. But don't call attention to yourself as a bore with nothing to say.
It's a mistake to
Blog on too many subjects. Stick to a focuses subject that you have a consistent point-of-view on. You want your readers to know what to expect and to get what they expect.

Read the whole post for the other common mistakes.

Five ways for your blog to attract attention

A blog is more than a webpage and it's more than a collection of webpages. Blogs have a social content, a successful blog doesn't just attract search engine traffic, it also attracts readers. In fact, the way to attract search engine traffic to your blog is to attract readers first. If you attract the readers, if you give the readers what they want, then the search engines will find you.

There are millions of blogs, probably hundreds of blogs just in your small niche. You have to call attention to yourself to be noticed in that wilderness. Here's a few ways to do that.

1. Have a voice. Have a clear, discernible bias. A voice will attract readers who share your bias. They'll tend to agree with your positions and will spread the word about your brilliant thoughts.

2. Read your competitors. Link to them from your site. Leave comments on their posts on their sites. Don't pimp your own site when you leave comments, readers will find you.

3. Encourage comments. Reader comments are free content for you and they are strong indications to other readers that your blog is popular. Don't engage in heavy-handed moderation of your comments. Keep the spam out, but let the critics in.

4. Use titles and tags. Search engines like descriptive titles, they like descriptive keywords in anchor tags in references to other sites, and they like tags based on common terms used by other blogs. Cooperate and pay attention to your titles and tags.

5. Use analysis tools. Use analytics to track which pages or posts attract attention. Replicate those topics. Use keyword services to identify search keywords relevant to your topics that are in common use by users of search engines. Target those keywords.


Related link:
The Bloggers Guide to SEO
The basics of SEO

Adult pay per click

I'm trying out a couple of adult related (porn) sites but adsense won't generate ads for them. It's just generating public service ads, I guess they check for explicit language. So that's not working out well at all although I'm getting good traffic.

So, I'm trying Exoclick. It's a pay-for-click ad service that does service adult site publishers. Their adult advertisors are mostly of the "meet a girl in your town" type, not really porn, and they don't pay much at all. A penny or two per click. But that's more than I'm getting from Adsense with those sites. I'll see how it goes.

Tips for finding good adsense topics/keywords

This is a good article on finding good keywords or topics for blogging as adsense bait.

Are there Any Ads? - This is a good first question. Despite the many thousands of advertisers using Adsense there are some topics where the answer to this question is no. A simple way to check is to head to Google and do a search for the key words you’re wanting to blog about. The results page will bring up not only a list of other sites writing about that key word (they are you competitors) but on the right hand side there will be a list of ads - these are the same sorts of ads you’ll get on your site if you write on the topic. If there are ads there, it is a good sign. If there are not - maybe its worth finding another topic to write on if you’re hoping to attract ads.

Adsense words

Nobody really knows what the best paying adsense words are.

It appears that legal related terms are good payers. Things like DWI, sexual harrassment, personal injury, asbestos injury, etc.

But really making money on the internet is not that much different from making money in general. You really just need to start with doing good work. Good work isn't going to be enough, and you can make money without actually doing good work. But just doing a good job at whatever you enjoy doing is really the best start. Pick a topic you like and focus on it, do a good job at it.

My best money maker is a blog on math and poker. I know something about both topics, the intersection of the topics interests me, and it's a nice little niche for me. It's probably not a niche that would work for you becuase it's probably not something that interests you. Find what works for you.

Poker and Golf

Poker and Golf are the top two search terms on this weeks Lycos Top 50.

I used the adwords keyword tools resource to generate 200 related keywords and phrases based on poker and golf.

Then I put those 200 phrases through the traffic estimator at Adwords.

Based on estimated CPC the top ten are

las vegas golf
poker party
poker stars
online poker
internet poker
free online poker
putting greens
online casino
online texas holdem

Based on estimated clicks per day the top ten are

games
real estate
vacation
golf
cards
las vegas
money
baseball
fishing
poker

Based on estimated cost per day (the traffic estimator looks at things from the viewpoint of the advertisor buying clicks)

real estate
vacation
cards
las vegas
games
money
golf
poker
casino
fishing

Adsense and porn

One of my blogging buddies is Ten-Mile Thane. He links to me, which makes him a lifelong friend. He usually blogs about poker stuff, this post he had some interesting observations about Adsense.

I have always had the ads keyed to subject matter, mostly because I enjoy trying to run the spider crazy finding ads to fit the writings. Indeed, I do that. A cheap form of entertainment.

I have gotten that spider to put up ads for everything from porn sites to humming birds - come to think of it, those two aren’t that far apart in terms of quickness are they? The porn ads came two days after writing about the reproductive organs of flowers. The humming birds after including a link to such a site.

I didn't know adsense did porn sites. I'll have to work on how to get those ads.

Finding valuable keywords

I have a few paid advertisors, who pay for ad placement by the month. That's the bulk of my ad income but I also get some from Google Adsense ads. I'm trying to increase the ad revenue from Adsense.

Keywords attract ad revenue by attracting visitors from the search engines and by attracting ads relevant to those keywords. Then we let nature take it's course and let the visitors match themselves up with the ads that interest them. Traffic from search engines tends to be good traffic becuase they are people actually looking for something specific and they follow the ad clicks if the ads are on topic for whatever the visitors interest might be.

Adwords is the advertisor side of the Google ad business, where Adsense is the publisher side. By opening an Adwords account you get access to some tools for searching out keywords of value.

The Keyword tool will suggest a couple hundred permutations or related phrases for a given word or phrase.

The Traffic tool will estimate cost (cost on the advertisor side of the equation is revenue on the publisher side) and traffic for a list of words and phrases.