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Ah, yes, the discussion of the value of Google Pagerank is here. So, Google Pagerank, Google’s way of rating a website from a value of 1-10 which is based on a site’s power to garner links. The quality of the links matters when trying to increase Pagerank. 100 websites with a pagerank of 1 gives less “power” than 1 website with a Pagerank of 4 or 5. So, quality does mater.

Of course, some may call these numbers a bunch of gibberish when trying to rank high in Google or any other search engines. Why? Well, it’s because Pagerank is only an analysis of the links that a website has. Sure, a website needs a lot of pages to link to it in order to become higher up in the search engine ranks, but the quality of the link matters more.

For example, useless links from directories only serve one purpose, to increase the pagerank. They really do not help you that much in getting a higher rank in search engines. First of all, the directories’ content is so random, most good search engines will just be like, “Well, this website is getting a link from a directory that talks about dogs and bicycles, so it must not be worth that much. Trash.” But, you will get rewarded pagerank-wise. Pagerank only depends on the links, not the quality of the links.

I’ve seen websites on the front page of search engines that don’t even have a pagerank, but they are beating websites with pageranks of 5-6. They have quality links and content that bring the search engine spiders to a crawl, salivating over their precious content.

But, I’m not saying Google Pagerank isn’t completely worthless. Many affiliates use pagerank as a factor to determine your website’s worth. For example, Text Link Ads, uses Pagerank to estimate how much a link on your website is worth. Therefore, Pagerank can be very useful if you are trying to make money off of text links. One of my websites has a pagerank of 4, and it is making around $80 a month from text links. Many of the paid post programs also use pagerank as a determinant for how much a post on a blog is worth. So, the final verdict on Google Pagerank: don’t worry about having a low pagerank because it won’t affect your search engine rankings, but having a high pagerank can make you money on the side.

Tags: google pagerank

Photo courtesy to kleintjes

What should you make your blog about? When I was starting out, I remember I would spend days stacked on days trying to think about a topic that I could easily rank high for. I researched keywords I wanted to target, and I planned my website layout to fit SEO standards where my topic could include as many keywords as I could fit. I used tags and categories with my keywords of choice as well.

All the work for SEO was baloney. It just wasn’t worth it. I should have used my time more wisely and posted articles rather than worrying so much about people coming in from search engines.

A few years ago, I used to be all in to researching keywords and finding a good ratio between niche competition and amount of money generated from each click. I remember I registered 5-6 domains about finance, health, and medication that I had no idea about. I was still basically a child when I was doing this. I wasted a month of my life trying to get this shit up in search engines. Completely useless. If I focused on one website, and I wrote one article per day for that month I wasted, I bet I could get that site over 500 visitors a day. I was practically writing about investing and asbestos as a child. Who the hell cares about that crap as a child. I certainly didn’t. I only did it for the potential riches it would bring. I would pay $15/site for someone to submit websites to multiple directories (by the way, submitting to directories is stupid). I wrote the crappiest articles. It would take me forever to churn out an article because I had no idea what the hell I was talking about. A sentence would take me forever to write. Basically, it was a terrible idea; don’t do it.

Pick your niche. Study your life to see what you do regularly. Hell, you don’t even have to be an expert on it. Write about your experiences, and you will attract an audience. Your audience will learn as you learn. It will be an amazing experience. Have you ever seen a website with a title like “Making $30,000 in Three Months”? These websites attract a huge audience. If you like skiing, you could share your experiences with newbie skiers. Perhaps add some gear reviews. I am going to make a few more blogs about my hobbies in the future. I have created a category called “Experiements” where I will show you each step I take with my new blogs to make money and get visitors.

Tags: content ideas, picking a niche

Photo credit to Vangral

Use Your Own Voice. Everybody should develop their own writing style that works for them. You might have to experiment in order to find your perfect writing style. My writing has been extremely passive in previous articles. I am going to change my writing style because I don’t think it reveals who I really am. Why have I decided to write this article? I’ve visited so many make money blogs that just reek of dullness. The author contributes to the dullness of their blogs by using the exact same boring-ass writing style as everybody else.

You need to stop copying other peoples’ styles. Your titles and words need to be directed at your reader, and be consistent about it. I immediately scroll through blogs that display a weak writing style resembling a manual. Forget that. I love blogs where you are immediately hooked by the first title you see. And then you read on, and the first sentence just pulls you to read the rest of the article. Yeah. That’s my style of writing. Visitors love to read about personal experiences and interpretations about how to optimize your Wordpress for search engine optimization. Not a copy-and-pasted guide that every other freaking blog in the whole universe has in their arsenal. I say arsenal, but it’s more like a collection of sticks.

You need to pull on each corner of the pathos, ethos, and logos triangle. Use your emotions(pathos), create your own persona(ethos), while still balancing your pleas out with intelligence(logos). You will be able to mold your own writing style that will tear apart other bloggers.

Tags: content ideas, voice

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Become Regular Visitors of Small Blogs. Not every established blog is willing to give a link to a new blog with a practically new start. In their favor, it’s fair. What benefits will they receive from linking to a weak blog? Even if you link back, they will not get much help from the search engines. Stop trying to pursue the bigger bait. Sure, it’ll lead to great rewards if you’re successful, but the chance is so low. Even if you do receive a link or a post, the end result is usually dim. It’s better to network with smaller blogs in your same niche that have the same status as you.

Smaller blogs are more willing to communicate with you and hold discussions with you as equals. Owners of smaller blogs will share same mentality as you; their thirst for visitors is greater than the thirst of visitors for established blog owners. They know what it’s like to be in your position because they reside in the same place as well, so they are more willing to extend their friendship to you. Big blog owners have already been satisfied by their share of blood, and they only want some dessert (advertisers) to end their meal.

Create a new folder in your favorites called “Daily Blogs”. Add at least five small blogs in the same niche to the folder in your favorites. What kind of blogs should you add? Well, here’s my criteria for good candidates:

• Regular posts. If the last post is from a month ago, there’s no use because the owner has probably already lost their passion for the subject.
• Comments. Comments are a sign that there are regular visitors that think the posts are insightful.
• RSS Readers. A good number of RSS readers shows that the posts are interesting, and visitors will be attracted in the future.

Now, it’s your turn. Once you find five blogs and have added them to your favorites, visit them everyday. Leave a comment on every new post. Subscribe as an RSS reader. Drop an Entrecard. This is a surefire way to develop a relationship with the owner. Even if you aren’t successful at that, you will still come away with visitors that see your comments So, make sure your comments are informative; visitors will see that you post interesting stuff, so your website must be interesting as well. There, a permanent visitor.

Tags: get visitors

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Stop Procrastinating. I’m sure you all have experienced this problem multiple times in your blogging career. You know you have to work on your blog, but as soon as you open up Microsoft Word, your blog stops becoming appealing to you, and you want to venture into new activities. Perhaps surfing the web, watching videos on Youtube, checking e-mail. Then you look at the time, and you realize it’s been an hour since you started, and you haven’t gotten anything done. This basically sums up how I’ve felt the past few days (note: the most recent post was posted days ago). Today, I’ve been on a sort of nostalgia ride, watching music videos of old bands for a straight hour.

Well, I’m in high school, and it’s the most opportune time for me to make use of free time to earn money, but unfortunately, I haven’t been maximizing my time to its fullest potential, and I’m highly regretting it. For example, I know this whole weekend, I had nothing to do, but I just “didn’t feel like working on my websites.” Honestly, I had one hour of homework in a span of 48 hours. Guess what I did this whole weekend, not including my homework? Spend less than two hours with friends, and I played Call of Duty 4 for maybe 6 hours the whole weekend. I don’t even know how I could waste so much time doing nothing. Honestly, I would surf the internet endlessly and watch TV and the cycle would continue the whole weekend.

I forgot about our little friend, SlimTimer. I stopped using it because I just stopped remembering to turn it on everyday. Boy, if I had set up my SlimTimer over the weekend, I know it’d be a massive disappointment to me. All of the hours I’ve wasted as a teenager could be put to use to help me grow my funds, and invest those funds, and watch my investments grow. So, how did I finally get up the grit to write this post?

I just decided to sit down, relax, and go on Word and start writing. My key is: do not open Firefox or IE, not even when you are trying to get inspiration, just start writing. I don’t even want you to think about anything else. Once you start writing, you will get on a streak like I am now. It feels so good, by the way, to write endlessly into the distance, typing at the speed of light. Sorry if I’m boring you with my life journal for today, but it’s just a realization I discovered to get me in the mood to write. In fact, you shouldn’t even be reading this. Now, it’s your turn to go and write!

Wow, I still have to add some more words. This post is giving me ideas for writing five new posts. I’m probably going to write a couple of them tonight.

Tags: procrastinating