It’s a rainy day here in southern California…go figure. I have a plan for today. Today I am going to spend my time learning how to do keyword research. I have been writing about the importance of keywords a lot lately. I am a total convert to the idea that in order to use your blog to make money, you absolutely have to learn what the internet marketing experts know. “Oh, the horror…he’s talking about that horrible money thing again. Why can’t he just be satisfied with being a pure blogger? He’s going to the dark side. He wants to become …wait for it…an Internet Marketer.” Is that what you were just thinking? If it is, then you are right…sort of. There is no need to choose. There is a third alternative. You can be a blogger concerned with writing great, well-written, quality content, and be an internet marketer who uses their blogging talent to provide for yourself or your family. I will admit to being a newbie at this, but I am learning quickly.
Just a sec…more coffee. Okay, that’s better. I plan to spend a lot of time visiting the sites of internet marketing wizards. I am going to read through older posts on several sites. There is a whole internet out there just full of free information. SO here’s a short list I have compiled of some of the sites I’ll be taking a look at today. There’s a reason the link is not the site name. For backlink purposes, I have learned (from Allyn Hane) that it’s better to link to anchor text. Not that Yaro needs much in the way of ranking assistance, but I think it’s good practice, and it’s the right thing to do. If you’re going to the trouble of making a link anyway, why not do it the way that will benefit the recipient of your link love the most, right?
The internet business blog, Yaro Starak’s Entrepeneur’s-Journey.
If you haven’t heard of Yaro Starak, then you are probably new to the idea of trying to make money from the internet. He has wonderful skills at marketing, and he wants to share them with you. He also would like to be paid for some of the more advanced information, but then who doesn’t? There is a ton of free information available from this site.
Where I first learned a bit about backlinks and anchor text. Blogger Illustrated.net
Allyn Hane hangs his blogging hat at this site. He likes to make instructional videos. You should watch them. As I mentioned above, Al’s is the site where I first became aware of using keywords properly. I still have barely scratched the surface, but You need to start somewhere, and this is a pretty good somewhere.
Blog tips to help you make money blogging. That’s the html title of probably the most sucessful blog about blogging in the whole internet. Problogger.net
I think everyone in the blogging world knows about problogger Darren Rowse. He is the man who taught us about the potential of blogging and marketing. You could spend days, weeks or maybe even months learning all that Darren has to offer at his site. It’s huge.
How to Make Money Online for Beginners
This is Grizzly’s blogspot blog that can teach you how to make a comfortable living online. It takes some work to go through the articles, but this is probably the ultimate free way to learn how to use keywords to make money online. This site also proves that it is possible to make money with a free blog. It’s a blogspot blog for crying out loud…No fancy Thesis theme…just a blogspot blog worked by an expert. This one is a goldmine for the prospectors that are willing to do the digging and benefit from the internet goldrush.
Those are just four of the sites I’ll visit today. Not so much to learn about keywords really, but more about HOW they are used on successful blogs. Except for Al’s Blogger Illustrated, that’s a good place to learn the about part. So that’s how I’m going to spend my day this rainy Saturday. I’d rather be playing golf, but the sun will be back in a day or two, and at least there’s no snow.
As always, comments are encouraged.
Blogging Lessons Learned
I have made great progress with this blog in the short time that it has been in existence. In 29 days, I have moved from an Alexa rank of over 17, 000,000 to being poised to go under 600,000. In all honesty I have not been doing the promotional tasks that I really should be. I have published 1 or 2 guest posts, commented here and there, but my efforts have been haphazard at best. I will try to do better in those areas in the coming months. I am also guilty of not posting as often as I did the first 3 weeks. That one I won’t apologize for though. I am developing some new sites, and that requires time. Having said that, I am compelled to point out that I am still averaging slightly more than 1 post per day.
I have learned some things that are a bit of a surprise in writing this blog. The most surprising fact is which articles have attracted the most comments. I had thought that posting articles about keywords and the things I am learning abut how to improve your ranking in the search engines would be of interest to the readers of this blog. I was wrong. The keyword articles were among the least commented on.
The single article that received the most comments was the article I wrote that was critical of Steve Pavlina. Following closely behind that one article were the articles I wrote about some of the tools I use in writing this blog. As tempting as it might be to write more posts that are critical of some of the well-known bloggers, that isn’t what I or this blog is about. That was a sort of a special case, and I gave credit where credit is due. Steve has written much that people have found helpful. Here’s a link for those who may be unfamiliar with said article. A Criticism of Steve Pavlina.
So where do I go from here? I shall continue to write articles on promotion, and the tools of blogging. Probably fewer SEO articles for now. Just in case…SEO is search engine optimization for those who may be new to all this blogging stuff. SEO is what gets your site ranked higher in the search engines (along with backlinks). I will start writing some articles on writing too. To sum up, fewer keyword articles, more articles on the tools of blogging, and some new articles on writing. And maybe some off the wall articles every now and then too. Thus endeth the lesson.
As always, comments are encouraged.