Residual Bacon » getting started http://residualbacon.com Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 17 May 2010 20:17:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Stupid Simple SEO – How I Made Page 1 of Google http://residualbacon.com/getting-started/stupid-simple-seo-how-i-made-page-1-of-google/ http://residualbacon.com/getting-started/stupid-simple-seo-how-i-made-page-1-of-google/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:13:44 +0000 residubalbacon.com http://residualbacon.com/?p=201 stupidsimpleseo

In 3 weeks I have accidentally made it to the first page of google search. Of course its only when you search for ‘residual income blog’ or ‘passive income blog’. The first time I searched for ResidualBacon on the list when searching for ‘Residual Income Blog’ I scavenged 20+ pages waiting to see it. Never did. 1 Week later I was on the 8th page. 2 weeks later I was on page 2. Now I sit on the first page, and #2 on the list. Here is a Stupid Simple SEO guide.

Crawl like GoogleBot

Googlebot, the robot that crawls the web reading your website, really only has three key functions. These 3 functions are rather simple and here is there definition according to google:

  • Crawling – Crawling is the when Googlebot discovers new and updated pages that will be added to Google index.
  • Indexing – compile a massive index of all the words it sees and their location on each page & process information included in key content tags and attributes, such as Title tags and ALT attributes
  • Serving – search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user

So what can we learn from this? Well that Google just looks at text, organizes it, then searches through it when someone searches for similar text. Simple enough, but how do i use this information to my advantage?

Understand Google Hierarchy

Title -> Description -> Keywords -> Content. I am sure you’ve read before how important your title is when doing SEO, and it is important because that is the first thing Google looks at for relevance. From there it looks at the description, then keywords and finally content. How does google know this information? Through META & ALT tags of course. META tags are placed between the <head> & </head> tags of your web document, and are specifically used to talk to robots like googlebot.

The META Big Hitters:

metapost

  • Title – This will be the title of your web page and is very important for SEO, try to use keywords in your title.
  • Description – This is a short description of your web page. Once again it doesn’t hurt to use a keyword or two in your description.
  • Keywords – Keywords are specific words that you are trying to bring users into your site with, if your could sum up your whole web page with one or two words those would be keywords. For instance, keywords for this post would be ‘Blog Tips’ and ‘SEO Tips’

As I said above these live in your web document between the <head> & </head> tags and are specially formated like this:

<title>Your Title Here</title>
<meta name="description" content="Fill This In Yourself" />
<meta name="keywords" content="keyword, more keywords, even more keywords" />

Feel free to copy and paste the code above into your own HTML docuement, if your on a blogging platform like Wordpress you can simply use the All-in-one-SEO-Pack.

My three not so secret, secrets:

1 – Use keywords in your description, and in your title if possible. Its easy to use a keyword or two in your description, but not always possible for your title. Use them sparingly though, you don’t need it repeated over and over or that may actually hurt your page rank.

2 – Use google’s keyword tool to research keywords. The google keyword tool will help you come up with keywords and will show how many queries google recieves for those queries. If your keywords are not getting searched, you may want to re-think those keywords.

3 – Update your website! Many people don’t know that if your page is updated constantly then Google will expect updates more and crawl your website more. (Comments count as updates since there is a change to your web page)

I’m no expert, I just use what works.

I am not pretending to be an SEO superstar. I know there are a handfuls of more information on SEO, like using ALT tags for each image, but to me that is a bit tedious. I have used only the information I have posted here to boost my own page rank and I know you can do the same. Just remember:

  • Crawl like a robot
  • Understand the Google hierarchy
  • Use those META tags
  • Research your keywords
  • Update your website

As usual I would love to hear your thoughts and comments. Have your own way to improve page rank? Did I miss a tip that can dramatically improve this article? I will update the bottom of this page with the best information from the comments as well as a link to the commentators website.

]]> http://residualbacon.com/getting-started/stupid-simple-seo-how-i-made-page-1-of-google/feed/ 4 How I ALMOST made $10,000 a year in passive income. http://residualbacon.com/blog/how-i-didnt-make-10000-a-year-in-passive-income/ http://residualbacon.com/blog/how-i-didnt-make-10000-a-year-in-passive-income/#comments Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:06:09 +0000 residubalbacon.com http://residualbacon.com/?p=101 dollabillMy first year of dibbling in passive income is near an end, even though I have only been publicly blabbing my mouth with this blog for a few weeks, I have had an actual monthly revenue of income trickling in for almost 12 months. I am about to let you all in on a little secret, my story starts back in February of 2008, the day I got my first drop of passive income.

It was a usual day of being a freelance hero. I was sitting at my desk reading some blogs much like you are doing right now, when I went to the old trusty browser and loaded up my email. ‘You have been invited to beta test our network’ the email read. Apparently I was chosen to be a part of the GraphicRiver.net pre-release. I was allowed to setup an account and get a jump-start before the site went public. This would allow me to build a portfolio and setup shop so when the curtains dropped I would be able to start making some money.

Fill your tank with the right gas.

I did some browsing of the site, and I saw one fatal mistake that 90% of the users were making. They were all uploading every little graphic they have ever made, nothing that could universally used throughout the design world. I went with the opposite, I sat down and created a Web 2.0 Background Designer, a simple, customizable web background maker. You could easily adjust the colors and pump out different backgrounds you would need. Out of the gate it was an instant success. People with 200 items weren’t getting sales, I had 1 dinky item and made 60+ sales the first month.

sales_month1

I had the right idea, that is where I was successful. I had an original file that could be used time and again, so naturally other designers wanted it.

Step on the gas!

So i thought I was going to begin my life on easy street. I thought to myself, make 3 files like my background maker a month and let the cash start pouring in. I mean one dinky file sold over 60 times resulting in $60+. If I could make an average of $54 dollars a month per file, and add 3 files a month I thought to myself:

  • 1 file x 54.00 = $54
  • 3 file x 54.00 = $162
  • 6 file x 54.00 = $324
  • 9 file x 54.00 = $486
  • 12 file x 54.00 = $648
  • 15 file x 54.00 = $810
  • 18 file x 54.00 = $972
  • 21 file x 54.00 = $1,134
  • 24 file x 54.00 = $1,296
  • 27 file x 54.00 = $1,308
  • 30 file x 54.00 = $1,620
  • 33 file x 54.00 = $1,782
  • 1 year = $10,594.00

All of this is great in theory, and I knew all things wouldn’t sale so well, but maybe some would be an even bigger hit. Lets not get ahead of ourselves though, for there is one more part of the equation, for this isn’t how I made $10,000 in one year, its how i DID NOT!

Total Engine Failure!

You want to know what that last part of the equation was? It was me. I never did another god damn thing to help build my portfolio on graphic river. Hell I barely even logged into the site for a few months. Call it procrastination, call it being dumb, call it what you want, but needless to say my sales dropped off. At the start since I was getting so many buys and portfolio views that my item was constantly at the top of the list. When you sorted by sales alone I was second to the top, but I neglected my shining star, and the result:

sales_outcome

Sales dropped dramatically. So as you can see this adds no where close to $10,000. In fact it adds up to a couple hundred dollars, but the potential was there.

Lesson: Know When to Capitalize

In retrospect it could have been so simple. Have a goal, make a goal-plan, follow that goal-plan, check the effectiveness of the goal plan and tweak it as necessary. All the puzzle pieces were in the right place but I failed to capitalize on the moment. I just had dreams in my head and never put them into action. That is half of the reason I started this blog, to give me an external source of motivation. To have a place to mark my accomplishments. So please, learn from my mistakes and take this advice:

  • Keep eyes open for oppurtunity, it is out there you just have to see it.
  • When oppurtunity is spotted do your homework and give it your best shot.
  • Make a goal and goal plan to achieve success.
  • When you see results, CAPITALIZE on them.

Like my story? Have a similar story? Maybe some advice so others do not make the same mistakes? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

*note – this blog post was written for a challenge from SimplyZesty, but is a very true story.

]]> http://residualbacon.com/blog/how-i-didnt-make-10000-a-year-in-passive-income/feed/ 6 5 Blog Starting Interviews You Should Read. http://residualbacon.com/blog/5-blog-starting-interviews-you-should-read/ http://residualbacon.com/blog/5-blog-starting-interviews-you-should-read/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:22:32 +0000 residubalbacon.com http://residualbacon.com/?p=40 buildblockSo I did some homework the past few days and I have been reading up on other bloggers who have had much success in the world of blogging. This may not be geared specifically towards residual income but for those who blog and use your sites to make money off of ads and some affiliate marketing you really need a solid blog to get a heavy following that you can then monetize and build income from. So here is a nice little list of interviews from some very successful bloggers that you can read and use the knowledge they give to help your own blog get rolling. Read the interviews and use the knowledge they give on your own blog.

Jacob Cass interview on IncomeDiary.com

Jacob Cass is one of the authority figures in the Logo & Branding world. He began his blog in 2007 which is Just Creative Design and uses his blog as a guide to help him obtain design work. With currently over 21,000 subscribers and counting Jacob has become quite the internet celebrity in the design world. His interview focuses on advice to new bloggers and how to get the ball rolling for your niche site. He explains not to give up:

What advice would you give to people just starting out with an online business?

Don’t give up. The first 3-4 months are the hardest but stick with it, it does pay off in the end. Remember the snowball effect (1 tells another, that person tells another, etc).

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what advice would you give yourself regarding making money online?

Do your research, learn more before going straight in, it will save you a lot of time. I recommend Problogger for blogging tips.

Alborz Fallah – A Million Dollar Blogger

Alborz FallahThis next interview comes in PDF form or MP3. Alborz Fallah created an automobile blog called CarAdvice.com.auand with adsense alone was making over $5,000 a month and then got some corporate ads which boosted his income to $20,000 a month. Its a rather lengthy interview (totaling 18 pages) but is a wealth of information on what he did to become a million dollar blogger. He talks about different keys to success and explains how his niche blog was able to make big money online:

Yaro: What’s that translating to in terms of revenue at the moment?

Alborz: It’s a bit of a different model. We started, obviously, with Adsense. It was always the best to start with and we got up to around $5000 a month U.S. dollars, but it wasn’t sufficient to pay for what we do. We have dedicated server hosting now, we have four full-time staff and two part-time staff. We managed to get ourselves signed up to an advertising agency which pretty much pays us 10 cents per unique browse that we deliver.

On an average day, we get about 16,000 unique browses. You can put that into dollars, I suppose. It’s not too bad. It generates a fair bit of income every month. It would average out about $20 grand a month, but that’s just for the advertising. We get other sponsors and things and other stuff like that. Google is still running on the site which gives us another couple of grand a month, but we are always improving advertising. The more visitors we do, the more money we get. That’s how it works.

Mr. Rajaie Alkorani new blogger interview

Rajaie Alkorani is a young (under 20) blogger who has a top blog in making money online niche. In his interview he talks about SEO work and a few effective and not so effective strategies of online blogging :

What tools can be used to select a profitable niche to blog about?

I don’t have much experience in this area, but from what I’ve read, keyword research is probably one of the most important steps you should keep in mind when starting a niche site. SEOBook.com have a lot of awesome search engine optimization tools that will definitely help anyone starting out make a good choice. I would also recommend reading sites that give valuable information regarding keyword research, one of the most notable being the Keyword Academy.

Any specific advice for New-web-business.com and our readers?

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci,Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

Expert Advice: Creating A Successful Blog

The 4th and final interview (wait you said 5!) is an interview that went down over at GraphicDesignTwist and they did an interview with 5 top blog owners: Collis Ta’eed of FreelanceSwitch, Walter Apai of Web Designer Deopt, Chris Coyier of CSS Tricks, Brian Hoff of Design Cubicle and Christ Spooner of Spoon Graphics. So total your getting 9 interviews including the 4 above! On this set of interviews Graphic Design Twist picks the brains of these top blog owners of how they got their blogs to the top levels of the blogging world:

Question #2 – How long did it take to start making a profit from advertising?

Chris Spooner – A good income wasn’t received until I decided to place direct advertising in the form of 125px ad spots in the sidebar of Blog.SpoonGraphics. Beforehand I received the odd few dollars from Google Adsense and a couple of affiliates programs. Now the advertising income has reached a level where it’s higher than my wage from my previous job, which has allowed me to spend more time crafting blog posts and work on developing the blog on a daily basis.

Chris Coyier – Maybe 9 months? I think in the really really early days I tried AdSense but I have come to despise AdSense (in a nutshell, it’s ugly, it doesn’t give enough control, and it doesn’t pay well enough). After I got rid of that, I just did nothing until eventually advertisers approached me. I sold it manually for a while, which was alright but became too much work. Now I sell through BuySellAds.

Walter – It took about a month or so.

Collis – Profitability took a long time, close to a year in fact. This was in large part however because we were constantly pushing new projects. In the first year we ran a survey of 3000 freelancers, subsites for calculating your rates, earning passive income and applying the 80/20 rule, launched a podcast and pursued a number of other ideas, some of which never made it out. All this was a bit expensive to do and was a constant drain on the finances. By early in 2008 we’d eased back and were focusing on just posting and the site hit profitability.

Brian – Although there is a few ads and sponsors throughout the Design Cubicle, the money gained through Google Adsense and my sponsors goes right back into TDC and my readers. With TDC being under 4 months old, I have only recently started accepting sponsorship and advertising on my site within the past month.

That is it for our list of interviews, be sure to read these if you are planning on starting a new blog to help make some residual income, these interviews will definitely start you off on the right foot!

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