Money in Blogging Part 1: SEO and SEM

I've been reading a lot lately about how you can earn through blogging with affiliate ads, blog reviews and search engine marketing but only a few I've read were quite solid and has proof of the said experience. My approach in my research didn't quite go well since none participated, I anticipated that anyways. It's a good thing I've already made my research from the past and I just want to confirm the latest approach or programs that may add to my research.

In my previous research, the best earning option for a user to earn online is the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Blogging on their sites or blogs.

SEO Blogging

Optimizing your site or blog to be more visible to search engines is the best way in earning income. If you are using Google's Adsense and you have executed the best pratices in optimizing your site which means best ad placements, best ad type (picture or text), best ad size and best keywords then you are on the right track already and of course quality content.

5 Steps I Did for My PR2!

Google just had a major update that was so unexpected. A blogger shouted at Facebook yesterday that is why I got aware of it. I remember the happiness I felt when XleonTips was ranked PR1 before and the sadness that I felt when it was taken away from me. BUT nevertheless, it was given back two-folds. It was really unexpected and I was a bit surprised to see the new ranking, probably if I was more active at promoting this blog I would have ranked higher (just thinking deeper).

So how did I make it to PR2?

After learning about the SEO / SEM and PR and how you can achieve it made this blog more meaningful. So when SEO Blogging, SEM Blogging or PR Blogging, what are the things you should do in order to achieve a higher PR? Check out my previous articles that helped me achieve this PR.

Google Cuts Down Content Farms for Quality SEO

Google has revelaed their new ranking algorithm which most probably hit lots of website's or blog's ranking. They promise to have a better search query result with their new algorithms  resulting a big hit on publisher's optimizations. Now, using your keyword as often as possible to gain higher SEO rank will most likely be useless. 

To put their equation in simple terms, here is a simple example:

Is your Blog Readable?

I always value how my readers find my blog, be it negative or positive that is why whenever I post an article, I make sure it is well understood by my readers. So the question is, how readable is your blog? Do people understand your blog? If you write your articles with very complex words then people who will most likely subscribe to your blog would be adults and most probably highly educated (eg. online newspapers) but if you make it very simple and quite clear then you'll have a much more wider audience. 

My Adsense and Adwords Adventure!

I remember when I received my free $100 Adwords credit. Since then, I realized the value of terms SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PR (PageRank), backlinks, etc... It was a very thrilling experience for me and I have Google to thank for that. Excitement fill my day everytime I visit my Adsense. One time, I got depressed over a click which costed about $16 (just one lousy click!) - that was for using their automatic setting. It was a price you have to pay in order to learn this stuffs especially Affiliate Marketing with Google Adsense.

The Adwords Adventure

At last I am using the Adwords and using the voucher I got from Google, I draw my first few keywords. It wasn't an easy task. The reason I have not started before is I wanted the landing page to my advertisements clear and presentable and as much as possible --very clear.

The Keyword is?

As I venture into the world of SEO blogging, another way of optimizing your blog/site for search engine visibility is to choose atleast 5 keywords that has a lot of traffic everyday. This 5 keywords should always be found in every article you have.

Okay, wait - how do I know if there is a lot of traffic for that keyword?

By using the Google Traffic Estimator Sandbox. When you use this tool, you will see how many people use that keyword everyday and how many people click on that very keyword. If you don't use Adwords then there won't be much use for the Estimated Cost / day item that you'll see there. I think, what's more useful to publishers would only be the Local Monthly Searches - I'll try to find a solid theory about this matter but roughly my theory for this is that the more people are looking for this keyword, and the more chances of you using those keywords - the more chances of your site to be on top of the search engines. Of course, you still have to compete with a lot of websites if you don't use Adwords (which will cost you).

So, that's it for now. A simple tip I learned today is - choose atleast 5 keywords and always use it in my articles. So if your blog is already up and running, choose the most useful keyword you can find in your articles and re-use those keywords. Who knows, the keyword you use may probably lead your blog/site at the top.