On 21 January 2011, Matt Cutts – head of Google’s Webspam team – announced on Google’s official blog about the search engine’s approach towards improving search quality by tackling search engine spam. That was actually in response to a chorus of critics against Google for indexing spammy content which has made the users’ search experience really sucky. It seems like the world’s biggest search engine has been slacking on the job and has done nothing much to fulfill its promise of serving quality content to users when they perform a search online.

I can clearly feel the passion behind Matt’s post as he reassured everyone that Google will never condone webspam. In fact, he pointed out that over the past decade or so, Google’s search quality is way better than it has ever been in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness. “Today, English-language spam in Google’s results is less than half what it was five years ago, and spam in most other languages is even lower than in English.”

Truly, a week later, Google made an algorithmic change to its SERPS and this time, its attention was said to have shifted towards tackling “content farms” which are sites with shallow or low quality content. Actually, Matt did give a hint in his post that Google was “evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”

So Is Google’s Latest Algorithmic Change Towards Webspam Working?

Apparently, they have missed out on at least one company called Demand Media. Most people who have read Matt’s post naturally assume that he was talking about websites like eHow.com of Demand Media which launched an IPO recently valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Well, it is not that Demand Media is the only “content farm” (if that is how we understand it from Matt’s definition) in town but usually, when an article is written about “content farms”, Demand Media is popularly cited as it has basically become the notorious poster child for this phrase.

For the sake of the potential shareholders of Demand Media, I really hope Google – or specifically Matt – can shed us some light on whether content from eHow.com and similar sites of Demand Media is considered to be of “poor quality”.

Well, you guys might not know … Demand Media has a huge team of SEO gurus and complex scientific algorithms designed to create content that will rank high in the search engines. Even more surprising, they pay a mere couple of bucks per article or video and these content actually shows up in the SERPS for medical results right next to WebMD and Mayo Clinic. A content library consisting of 3 million articles and around 200,000 videos as of 15 December 2010. A business “model that they think is scalable and readily transferrable to international markets”. All these just support a plain fact that Demand Media is going to keep cranking out content on an increasing scale. If Demand Media is not considered a content farm, then who is? The writers working for Demand Media certainly aren’t doctors or medical consultants who are capable of giving expert advice.

When asked to sum up Demand Media’s relationship with Google, CEO Richard Rosenblatt pointed out one point that struck me instantly: “We help them [Google] fill the gaps in their index, where they don’t have quality content”. Well, it seems that they are going way further than merely filling in the gaps … even to the point of saturation but who can blame them? If it works, then why not? The ball is really in Google’s court as far as how well they are going to let it continue to work.

Not convinced that the search engine has totally wiped out content farms, I did a little test on Google. I got my hands dirty and did a search for the search phrase “level 4 brain cancer”. eHow.com. eHow.com. And more results from eHow.com. Shouldn’t Google be showing results from a more medical-related authority website and ranking them higher than eHow.com? As you scroll down the page, you will see websites like Yahoo Answers or Associated Content. You get the idea. Google, are you really providing us with quality content? I doubt.

And what about SeekingAlpha.com? Hmm, I visit this website quite often and I like the content on it. This website aggregates content from TechCrunch and many other blogs. So far, so good. I have nothing against SeekingAlpha.com as long as I get good material to read every day but why is this website still a partner of Google’s Adsense program and deriving revenue from it? Why is it still ranking high in the SERPS? Google, aren’t you against duplicate content? I seriously do not understand.

If Demand Media, SeekingAlpha and other similar websites – that are generally labeled as content farms – want to continue to reap the Google love and benefits, they really ought to step up on the quality. It really dampens the search experience, if all I see are results from websites providing spammy contents.

Google, have you heard enough? Matt, it is time to gather your Webspam team together for a good talk about it. High time.

As CEO of Affiliate Home Business, Jack Harold is an experienced Internet marketer and has helped thousands of his students to apply Internet marketing strategies to succeed online. If you will like to know how to make money online, you can grab a free copy of his exclusive “The Rags To Riches Blueprint” at his website, Affiliate Home Business.

A “click”, is a beautiful sound to any publisher or advertiser’s ear. Those valuable “clicks” are people clicking online ads; which are truly the bread and butter of bloggers and website owners. It’s what empowers them to continue publishing online. There is much speculation about online advertising concerning what factors impact monetization. In this study we ask: Which days of the week online ads get the most clicks?

Infolinks opened up their database of over 40,000 websites and analyzed data spanning all of 2010 to find the answer to this question. After compiling and averaging all of the information, the daily mean was easily extracted. The results of the study are interesting and equally as valuable.

Tuesday received the most clicks out of any other day of the week. So for the purpose of this study, Tuesday is the benchmark and has a value of 100*. Tuesday and Wednesday are clearly the best days in terms of engagement, both performing in the top 10%. Sunday received almost half (45% less) of the amount of clicks as our benchmark (Tuesday) and is the apparently the least effective day to engage response to online advertisements.

The entire weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, received the least amount of clicks. Perhaps on these days, most hibernate from the virtual world and consequently click less on ads online. Website owners can surmise that on holidays and other important occasions there will be less traffic and less revenue because people generally unplug on these days, and it seems that the weekend is no exception.

The favorable results for midweek days are possibly connected with the “midweek slump” many experience. Maybe this phenomenon actually attracts people to take time out to read blogs, which in turn result in a response to online ads? Nevertheless, we can be sure that there is a sure spike in activity during these days.

The results may not be shocking to those in tune with the behavior of ads – but the results further solidify the truth. Advertisers and publishers can utilize this “click” data for smarter investments and also higher payouts. By concentrating advertising efforts on Tuesday, Wednesday and even Monday, higher engagement can be accomplished and in turn higher revenue earned.

* In the interest of Infolinks’ privacy, the exact results will not be published.

The Infolinks Metrics Center provides top notch Internet studies and industry insight. Our research team analyzes data from the Infolinks network, bringing you the scoop on the latest trends in the online world.

Recently, I was sent the worst guest post ever. I mean it was really bad. So this guest post by Melvin on the five ways to ruin your guest post came at a perfect time. Before you submit your guest post, read this post first. – John Chow

Guest posting is the modern way of getting easy traffic and readers to your blog. Not only that, doing guest posts also increases brand awareness as well as indirectly boost search rankings. I’m very sure that you have already done it or if not, you may want to do it now before it completely becomes saturated.

So for those who have done guest posting already, let me ask you question. Did your guest post convert you new readers? Did it bring you a substantial amount of traffic? Did you gain more subscribers? If all your answers are no, then you may want to read this article on why so many bloggers ruin their guest post. Here we go:

1. They don’t write their best post

So when we talk about guest posting, we are aware that it should be your best shot. Yes, I know that it wouldn’t even get accepted if its not a quality post but believe it or not, a lot of bloggers are taking advantage of this fact that most blog owners don’t really spend that much time in checking the quality of their articles.

If you just give 80% of effort in writing that guest article and it was accepted by the owner, then expect the blog readers to criticize your article. The truth about guest posting is that it works two ways. It could either give you some boost in a good way or in a bad way. If you’re writing a bad guest article, then pray for the blog owner not to accept it. You don’t want to get known for being a sloppy guest blogger.

Post note: And I’m not hoping to become a sloppy blogger too that’s why I took time with this guest post. LOL.

2. They make bad use of signature line.

So whenever we make guest posts we get this small byline either at the top of the article or at the bottom to describe briefly who we are and what our blog is all about. And most of the times, I notice that most people just put it waste.

Even in that aspect, there is a conversion that happens. They read your article, but are they going to be interested in commenting? And more importantly, is your signature byline compelling enough to make them click it?

Be sure to keep your signature line short and simple but deliver your message direct to the point. Don’t try to make them do a lot of things.

3. They leave crappy posts on their blog

We’re all guilty that at some point in time we tend to publish crappy rubbish posts. We sometimes talk about our lovelife and crushes, we tend to mention our cat, our stupid neighbor, brag how busy we are and etc. And believe me its fine.

However, when we make guest posts on other blogs, readers of that blog who will visit our blog are expecting to see something meaningful. In short, try to strategize your posts and get them to see the best ones when they click your link. For example, if you’re looking to guest post on a bunch of sites for a certain month, then try to ensure that you have some good stuff on your blog as well for that period.

4. They don’t get people to opt-in

In one of my blog posts about clever ways to drive traffic to your blog, I mentioned that even today, 70%+ of bloggers still don’t have a list which is really surprising. But then that’s the best advantage that we can get. If you have a list, utilize it. Make sure that you try to capture leads each and every time someone visits your page.

In my blog, I set up Aweber to show a lightbox form everytime for first time visitors. Critical people will always say its annoying but stats will always tell you things differently.

That way I can maximize the potential of them getting subscribed into my newsletter.

5. They don’t interact with the readers

There’s nothing more disappointing as a reader than to find out a great article, ask questions by leaving comments, only to be ignored. I’m seeing that most bloggers who make guest posts to other people’s blogs don’t really interact as they should and as a result, it creates a perceived impression that the guest blogger doesn’t really care about anything other than the traffic.

I mentioned this a lot here in this blog and in some of my guest posts. The traffic that you get totally depends on the readers that convert (quality of readers). You can make a guest post on lets say Techcrunch and get 5000 hits in one day and 2 hits for the next 5 days. However, you can create a good guest post and get 150 hits in one day but add 80 new subscribers or opt-ins. Again, its all about the quality.

Conclusion

Guest Posting is really a powerful way to quickly grow your readership and increase your traffic. In fact, there are blogs out there that actually utilizes it very well. The reason for that is simply because guest posting is a spontaneous way of sharing good information without sounding like advertising yet, could yield advertising-like results.

Because of this, too many bloggers simply just jump out into it without really understanding things. Just like with anything, the goal in guest posting is not really to get lots of hits but rather try to convert people into something else. What say you?

Melvin is a cool damn blogger from MelvinBlog.com who loves to write some stuff about internet marketing and blogging. If you feel this post is superb, then he’s encouraging you to check out some of his best posts.

Although I have only been blogging for three months and consider myself a newbie to this game, I’ve noticed some key signature moves successful bloggers use. You may not have invented the move or do it as well as others; if you practice and employ them in some form, I strongly believe you will obtain some blogging success. With the NBA All Star Game coming around the corner, this reminds me of NBA signature moves and being a successful basketball player. The player may not have invented it or be as very skilful as others; if they use it in some form or other, they will increase their odds of scoring and having a successful career. Who would have thought there is a parallel between basketball and blogging?

Bold Critical Points: Finger Roll

George “The Iceman” Gervin added some flair and style on his way to the hoop. Rather than go in for a basic layup, he would gracefully swoop in and at the last moment flick the ball up over the defender for the bucket. In blogging, you could just make your point by basically typing out your words, but why not add some pizazz? Make it pop and stand out of your page by bolding your critical points. This will wake your reader up, hit the message home, and make a stronger impression!

Refer Previous Posts: No Look Pass

Magic Johnson, the leader of Showtime, mesmerized defenses and the crowd with his signature no look passes. Now you see it, now you don’t! He was literally a magician with a basketball. While you write-up your current post, make a no look pass to previous posts to back up your point. You showcase another article to your reader, you get an extra link, and you’ll leave your audience gasping for more!

Make Poignant Comments: Ally Oop

You see this all the time. The point guard leads the break and before the defense can settle in, the ball is lobbed toward the rim where a soaring teammate ignites the crowd with a thunderous SLAM DUNK! Pure teamwork and chemistry, this also translates to the blogosphere. Add your thoughts, opinions, and stories to your fellow blogger’s post, but make sure there’s some substance to it. Not only do you enhance the post, you also get to show your skills as a writer. If you’re lucky, you’ll attract new readers as well!

End With Questions: Skyhook

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is the reigning scoring champion with his patented skyhook. Virtually unstoppable as he sets up his defender one way and then hooks the ball over his head and over his overmatched opponent’s block attempt. After you are done so eloquently making your points, hook a few thought-provoking questions at the end to get your readers thinking, engaged, and commenting. Make sure to follow-up and if all goes well you will have multiple conversations and more traffic flocking to your site!

Topic Twist: Dream Shake

Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon left many opposing centers in the popcorn machine with his dream shake. Catching the ball deep in the low post, he would fluidly fake one way and then make a little chip shot the other way.
Just search for his abuse of David Robinson and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I don’t see it all the time, but when a blogger does a topic twist, it makes a huge impact. I came across an article where the blogger listed all the reasons why you shouldn’t open a Roth IRA. At the end of it all, you’re amazed and get his point of why you should. I also refer to this as the M Night Shyamalan special. When done correctly, it’s a highly effective and a lethal way to grab more traffic, get people talking about your topic, and your twist!

Guest Post: Killer Crossover

Finally, Tim Hardaway left defenders looking silly as he faked one way and crossed over his dribble in the opposite direction. Turning on the jets, he coasted relatively free to an easy basket. When you crossover and guest post on other blogs, you introduce yourself to a new audience. Hopefully your killer style makes an impression, thus attracting new readers back to your site!

Like I said before, if you practice these moves regularly and use them in your own blog, your posts will be more effective and entertaining to read. It will be like watching an NBA game. With practice and hard work, success will be right around the corner because your blogging will be FANTASTIC!

What are your favorite blogging signature moves?

This post comes from Buck Inspire who tries to live a fulfilled life within his means, delves into personal finance, and adds a splash of dining, entertainment, pop culture, and travel.

It’s inevitable. The very moment you start to write a blog post, your self-confidence and assurance will go out the window. It can’t be truer than that. All that influence you have? Your years of experience? It won’t matter. That was how I felt years back when I just started blogging online, be it on a personal basis or for business purposes. There is something magical in how something published on the internet gets heard immediately from another side of the globe. There is also something about those awful and plain-looking blogs that have the ability to turn people into mumbling zombies. the possibilities definitely lie within!

So where are you? You need to find yourself and your voice in the blogosphere. You need to be heard if you want to connect with your blog community. And yes, you shall do it and you can do it! I’ll hold your hand.

Gone Were The Days When YOU SUCK!

The #1 challenge that most bloggers face is that they find it hard to standout from the rest of the crop with a unique voice. I believe that if you are still reading this post, most probably you are a blogger yourself and to you, that challenge seems ever so familiar. If you aren’t, probably you have read something on the Internet and thought to yourself, “Hmmm … This looks familiar … Didn’t X mention about this before? This blog is so unoriginal!” Well, this is quite common among most bloggers but it is certainly something which we can overcome. Here are five tips that have always helped me find myself, my voice and, in the end, a paying audience.

Be Bold. Be Brave!

Many bloggers generally think that the first rule of blogging is not to be boring; awesome content on your blog will make sure that you will have a crowd of loyal followers. While that is true, I will like to take this to another level; I am going to tell you to be brave in your blogging. Well, what do I mean? Bloggers, who are brave, take risk in their language; they try new things out and write about controversial content. People live and breathe controversy and when they can comment or put up their own opinion, it makes the controversial topic even more popular.

Be Simple

You do not have to sound like Mr President when you blog; be conversational. Use the same voice that you will use to talk to your friends, your colleagues or your family. It sounds so easy but most people simply cannot write like they speak. People start using bombastic words and jargons to sound learned and sophisticated … well, if that makes you feel good, carry on doing it but give your blog readers a break! While I believe that you are full of knowledge and you like to display that part of you, the core of you is simple. It’s the YOU that exists when you’re not trying too hard to impress. That’s what people want.

What Do Your Readers Want To Know?

If you like birds and you love to blog about rearing birds, that’s fine! But please, move to the side now. Well, the fact is that everybody else is blogging for MONEY! Therefore, you will need to blend that whole authenticity thing with the ability to sell to your blog audience. Take a look at your niche market and find the missing gaps. Blog about it; give your opinions on how you will like to see the gaps addressed or better still, propose solutions to solve the problems. From time to time when solutions are made available in your market, let your blog audience know about it!

Do You Know How Your Blog Audience Perceives About You?

Dr Stephen R Convey once said: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. If you want to be heard, maybe you should hear about what your blog audience thinks about you first. You might think that you and your blog are doing great but is that what your blog readers think? Provide a dedicated feedback communication channel where your blog readers can voice their opinions.

Reach Out Beyond Your Blog Walls

Most bloggers communicate with their blog audience via the comments at the end of the blog posts. That’s great and please continue to do so. However, there may be a part of your blog audience who prefers a more personal touch; they need to feel that you are authentic and that you are real. Well, offer alternative communication channels where your blog audience can hear you. I know of some bloggers who feel more comfortable talking to their community via Skype because it allows people to see them and it is much easier to gather their thoughts that way than to sit in front of a blinking cursor. There are also some bloggers who use podcasts so that they can simply talk and their audience can download the content and take it for the road.

These are five of the most important things that have allowed me to find myself in blogging to attract an audience. What has worked for you?

Jack Harold is an experienced Internet marketer and has helped thousands of his students to apply Internet marketing strategies to succeed online. If you would like to know how to make money online, you can grab a free copy of his exclusive “The Rags To Riches Blueprint” at his website, Affiliate Home Business.

For everyone who is reading this article today, what do we all have in common? What do I have in common with John Chow? What do you have in common with John Chow? Why are we here reading John’s blog? Whether you are looking to retire at 30, quit your day job, or spend more time with your kids, we are all here to become successful Internet Marketers.

My name is Taylor Thomson, and like yourself, I am striving to become a successful Internet Marketer. Like you, I have had many questions regarding my previous failures running through my head:

“What I am doing wrong?”

“Why am I stuck?”

“How come I am not making more money?”

As we sit here and ponder over questions like these for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years, we eventually hope that a light bulb will go off above our heads, finally giving us an answer to the questions that have plagued us for so long. For many, this light bulb will never go off. For those who work hard, it eventually will, and when it does, you will have a road map to your pending success.

On June 18th, 2010, my light bulb went off, and after 3 years of blogging at $1,000 a month (most recently), I have finally acquired my road map to success. My goal of this article is to show you how to create your own road map, so you can also become a successful Internet Marketer.

Remember, once you have acquired your road map, whether that be my road map, which I will share with you at then end of this article, or that of your own, you must follow it to become successful. A map is only as useful as the one who uses it. If you let your map sit in the dust, your business will undoubtedly perish.

How to Create Your Own Road Map to Success.

This section of my post is going to teach you how to create your own road map to success. If you have already tried creating your own road map, but can’t seem to get a grip on it, the following steps will help you along the way.

Step 1. What do you need to do daily to become successful?

John Chow, Darren Rowse, Shoe Money, Brian Clark, (to name a few) and every blogger who has ever been successful is not so by accident. Each of these well respected individuals are successful because they prioritize their work.

All successful business people have an answer to the question, “What do you need to do daily to become successful?” Do you have an answer?

Take the time to create an outline of what you need to do daily to become successful.

Step 2. Narrow down your daily tasks to those that are most important.

For your business, what tasks are going to make you the most money, and what tasks can be labeled as a waste of time? If your daily tasks include content creation, guest posts, Twitter updates, answering emails, and making friends on Facebook, for example, which of these tasks can you do without?

Essentially, you’re trying to make the most of your time by performing only the daily tasks that will benefit your business. This is often known as, “setting your priorities straight.” I have also heard another Blogger say something like, “Do only the 5% of tasks that really matter.” Everyone who has ever been successful has their priorities organized correctly.

Step 3. Eliminate impossible expectations.

People who are successful are so because they eliminate impossible expectations. Don’t take a bite bigger than you can chew. If you want to be successful, set reasonable expectations to what you can do every day to get there. For example: It’s probably not in your best interest to say that you’re going to publish 10 300-word articles a day, if you only have 2 hours a day to work.

When you take a look at your daily tasks, really think about how long it will take you to complete each task. If you think you’re taking a bite bigger than you can chew, cut your bite down to something that’s more reasonable. This way, you can really focus on the quality and not the quantity of your work.

Step 4. Create a checklist.

You finally know exactly what to do daily to be successful. What better way to stay organized and complete your tasks than with a checklist? Checklists will keep you on track by allowing you to really see and focus on the tasks at hand.

Step 5. Don’t let distractions get in your way.

Without a checklist, many people are distracted by tasks that will not make their business money. For example: You spend the day changing your banner, when you should be writing articles. Of course your web banner is important, but not as important as the top 5% of tasks that are actually going to make you money.

Whenever a side task appears, you can add it to the, “less important things that need to be done” checklist. Many people get so distracted with side tasks, that they forget to complete the tasks that make them money.

Step 6. Perform and make adjustments where necessary.

Congratulations. You have finally gone through the hardships of creating your road map to success. What do you do next?

In order to be successful, you need to follow the road map that you have created.

Furthermore, you need to make adjustments where necessary. There may be many road blocks that appear along the way, and this is where adjustments will be required. If something was previously making you money for example, and is no longer doing so, make the proper adjustments to bypass this roadblock, and continue on with your journey to success.

My Road Map to Success.

Road maps are never fancy, but they do help you get to where you need to be. On my road map, which I have been working on for over 3 years, and will finally begin following on the 24th of this month, I have only a small handful of tasks that I need to do daily to become successful.

My road map tells me that I need to work Monday through Friday to bring success my way. I want to now take the time to share my road map with you, and why each of my tasks are important to my success.

Step 1. Write 2 articles on my site.

This isn’t anything fancy, but it’s the only way to succeed as a professional blogger. I will have myself writing 2 quality articles every day, for my website.

This may not seem like much, but I am no longer focusing on the number of articles that I write. This time around, I truly want to write full, quality articles.

Step 2. Contact 3 professional bloggers about guest post opportunities.***

This is my true secret to success. On January 18th, 2010, this is the light bulb that went off in my head, and hopefully, I can get it to also go off in yours. After reading Erica.biz, I new that I needed to add one thing to my road map that I didn’t have in each of my previous versions: friends. More importantly, friends that are professional bloggers.

Since my light bulb went off, I have submitted a guest post to Smart Bloggerz (approved) and Erica.biz (awaiting approval). Since you’re reading this article, you will know that I have also submitted a guest post to JohnChow.com.

Meeting other professional bloggers is extremely important for your ultimate success. With professional blogging buddies, you can bring a website that is literally brand new, thousands of new visitors or even hundreds of thousands of new visitors overnight.

Please don’t misunderstand me, folks. Our goal isn’t to try to “use” professional bloggers to make ourselves successful. Instead, our goal is to submit quality content to websites owned by professional bloggers. In return, the pro blogger does us a favor by allowing us to include an author box in our article.

For the above reasons, I need to contact 3 professional bloggers every day, to ask them if they would allow me to do a guest post on their site. To take things one step further, I have created a document of all of the bloggers that I am friends with. This way, I can keep in touch with my blogging buddies.

Step 3. Write 1 guest post a day.***

This goes with my above secret. After contacting 3 professional bloggers for guest post opportunities, some will approve, and some will decline. For the bloggers that have given me a chance to write a guest post on their site, it’s time to begin writing.

The goal for me is not to spam the blogger. Again, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity. It’s not every day that you’re going to get an opportunity to post on a site like JohnChow.com, so you better make your article the best article that it can be.

Don’t submit useless junk that everybody else is already familiar with. Submit something truly unique. Submit something that will truly benefit others.

Also, it’s important to take a good amount of time writing your guest posts. I’ve been working on this article for about 5 hours now, and counting.

Step 4. Build backlinks.

I’m not as worried about this as I used to be, simply because I am now getting backlinks through quality guest posts. Still, it’s a good idea to get backlinks from other sources. This could mean doing a quality forum post or blog comment with your link attached, or submitting your articles to social bookmarking websites.

Recently, I read a post called, “The Backlinking Strategy that Works.” I highly recommend reading it, if you don’t know where else to look.

Final Thoughts.

Although my road map to success may be different from your road map, we all followed the same 6 steps to creating our road map. Every blogger who has ever been successful has followed each of the 6 steps, whether they realize it or not, and now it’s our turn.

My name is Taylor Thompson, and I teach people how to build muscle and get in shape at Do Strong dot com (My newest blog). I have been blogging since January 3rd, 2008, and have finally developed a strategy that if followed correctly, will bring me success.

I would truly like to thank John for allowing me to guest post on his blog. I have been following John since I started blogging back in 2008. My favorite post here at John Chow would have to be on how to really make money with Clickbank. Although I don’t actually use the strategies presented in this article, if I ever decided to truly promote Clickbank products, I would definitely follow the strategies that John presents.

How John Chow Helped Me Build A Thriving Business

Hello fellow John Chow readers! My name is Brian and I wanted to share my story about how after reading a post on John Chow’s blog, within 3 weeks I was able to make more money in my spare time then I was at my day job. I am less than 1 month into it and have already made over $1000 “working” only a couple hours a week. This is not from some guru crap ebook either.

Its a very simple process that anyone can do.

I am not making any money from this post. I just wanted to pay it forward for all the great advice I have gotten from John Chow.

It all started when I read this post on John Chow dot Com about this new free service called free SEO report.

I know very little about SEO but I do have my own website. I ran the free report and was really impressed with how well it worked. Like I said above I was barely getting by so I don’t have any money for SEO services for my website. The report told me exactly what I needed to do so I downloaded the PDF, printed it out, and followed the step by step instructions. Within 1 hour I had my website completely SEO’d out for my keywords.

A really neat feature Free SEO Report offers is that it allows you to totally custom brand your reports with your own logo and urls. You can also save your design for future use. It occurred to me that I could basically open my own SEO service and resell the reports. So I played around and made a simple header for my SEO company.

With Free SEO Report you get 1 free report, but then the reports are $10 apiece, or you can pay $19.95 per month for unlimited reports. BUT the great thing is for each person you refer to get a free report you get a credit for 1 free report. So I posted on my Facebook about how great the service was and when I logged in the next day I was excited to see I had 3 credits for free SEO reports.

Placing Ads

Still with no budget I wanted to advertise my service of providing SEO reports. So I posted in Craigslist in the services section. A simple ad that read:

Title: Want to increase your website traffic?

Body: I will run a in-depth report on your website that will give you step by step instructions on what you need to do to improve your ranking in search engines. *No Money Paid Until You Get Your Report*. Only $50.

I threw the no money down in there because:

1. It was free for me to run these reports. So no risk to lose money.
2. The reports are fantastic and I can’t imagine someone wanting their money back.
3. The people who would pay for these reports are pretty high quality and I doubt they would want their money back.

But sadly after posting every day for a week I didn’t get one taker. I guess small business owners don’t go to Craigslist to look for SEO services (or any services for that matter).

So I started thinking where could I reach local businesses who were of quality. I could always take out an ad in a trade journal or newspaper but those cost money. Money that I did not have.

Then while on Facebook it hit me. I could use the Facebook Marketplace to post my listing and also look for local fan pages for businesses or business owners and hit them up.

So I placed the same ad on the Facebook Marketplace that I placed on Craigslist and the first day I had one local business. I was ecstatic! I did their report and went to their location the next day and asked for the gentleman who hit me up on Facebook. He was blown away by the report and wrote me a check for $50.

Long story short within one week I had three other local businesses and two website owners. Yup I made $300 the first week trying this. I had blown through my free credits, and I purchased the $19.95 subscription to run unlimited reports for my new company.

I took that money and parlayed it into buying advertising in the newspaper classifieds and in the local business journal while at the same time I kept posting every Monday in the Facebook marketplace.

The newspaper classified posted right away but I was going to have to wait 7 days until the business trade journal.

I was pretty bummed about the lack of response from the Newspaper but I was still getting 2-3 new customers a week from the FaceBook Marketplace.

The Upsell??

One day I got a call from one of my clients.

“Hey Brian-

This report you gave me is really great and I am excited to get the stuff implemented but I am so busy running my business I just have not had time to implement it. What would you charge me to do this for me on my website?”

Now this was a interesting twist. I don’t even know how to price something like this. So I looked at his report and then at his site. I figured it would take me at most 1 hour to make the changes. What the hell I told him that I normally don’t do it but I would for $100. He responded 5 minutes later and said “Deal!!”.

I realized I should have charged more. But whatever maybe next time. So I got his web hosting information and made the changes.

But then I wondered how many other businesses are having the same problem. Seemed like a no brainer. So I called to “check up” on each person who had purchased a free report from me and asked how they were doing and if they needed any help. Almost all of them said they had not had time to implement the changes so I told them, “Well if you need help I also can do the work for you”. Only this time I quoted $250.00. I think this is a good price. Out of the 7 people I contacted 3 of them hired me to do it. The $250 might seem like its too much but if you do the math if all 7 would have said yes at $100 then it would have been twice the work for less money. This way I only have 3 sites to SEO following exactly what Free SEO Report tells me to do and I make $750.

The business trade journal turned out to be a great investment. The ad was $250 per month and I got 5 people who purchased reports and 2 that had me implement the changes at $250.00.

Fast forward a little bit. I am three weeks into it. I have done 15 reports at $50 apiece and 5 jobs at $250 apiece. I have invested about 800$ into advertising which I refer to as R&D.

As of this morning I quit my “day job” and I finally feel like I am doing something with my business degree.

Things I am thinking about for the future:

Lower point of entry?

Lowering the initial price of the report because the money seems to be in the followup implementing the SEO changes. Thinking about dropping it to $29.95.

Higher point of entry?

On a reverse approach I might raise the initial report to $99.95. It’s possible people who would pay $50 would also pay $99.95 or maybe I will even attract better clients because the perceived value is higher.

Market Penetration

I am going to continue to invest in advertising in new places. I think if I can find a way to do a presentation on SEO to like the local real estate board or the local dental board or the local plastic surgeons association and point out why SEO is important.

Hopefully my story will help some of you guys. There is no reason why any of you guys out there anywhere in the world can’t duplicate my success. It takes ZERO investment to get started and the market is wide open.

Thanks again to John Chow for pointing me to Free SEO Report and also thanks to Free SEO Report for making such a awesome and resell-able service!

“Put your wallet away!”

Immediately, this statement goes completely against what many online have led you to believe.

This story is well known and goes a little something like this:

First, a “newbie’s” introduction to the online world typically comes from those who have been successful (and, unfortunately, not so successful, as well) who tout the value of one legitimate online business model over the next. While one may advise of the benefits behind jumping right into product creation, others can passionately argue the value of loading your own website up with Google Adsense adverts and affiliate links. Generally, with anything you choose to do online, you will require some degree of an online presence: facilitated by your own website, with domain and hosting packages.

Let’s put this commonplace logic behind us for just a moment, though.

While I don’t mean to discourage any goals pertaining to the development of your own internet business empire, the truth of the matter is that many who find themselves wandering aimlessly in the online world don’t necessarily have a significant amount of money to spend or invest. Their dreams may be lofty; however, their resources may be very limited. Where the crinkle of hundred dollar greenbacks doesn’t provide extra cushioning to your backside, leveraging your own skills, passions, and abilities is a completely viable alternative to making any significant monetary investment. In fact, in order to get started making money online, you have only to look so far as the many completely free websites and business models that are available to you.

1 – Crowdsourcing

From writing, to graphic design, head on over to a website like CrowdSPRING.com, sign up for free, and submit an entry or two. In an online space where brands are continually competing, you can tactically embed your own skills and abilities into the crowdsourcing business model and walk away with a few extra bucks in your pocket: if you are good enough, and passionate enough. Be wary, however, because a “creative”, such as what I would advise you to become, essentially assumes all the risk in this online model. With thousands of “creatives” throughout the world submitting entries, you may work very hard on an entry, only to find out that you don’t win. Akin to investing in a pink sheet penny stock, your upside reward can be very substantial if you learn to be a good steward of your own time, and go after projects that you are very confident you can win.

2 – Fiverr

Making serious waves in an online space, Fiverr’s business model isn’t without it’s own fair share of those who gloriously praise it to those who outright condemn it. When you sign up to post a gig on Fiverr, be sure to think long and hard about something valuable that you can offer to others, that will require a very minimal time investment on your part. The key to succeeding with Fiverr is finding a perfect combination between uniqueness and value, while also gaining the momentum and social proof necessary to substantiate a buyer’s purchase.

3 – Social Bookmarking

Whenever you write an article or blog post, you can also create a social bookmark to it. In it’s simplest form, a “social boomark” is simply a few sentence overview written in order to give a brief overview of a piece of content. Dependent upon the site you choose to socially bookmark from, not only can you earn a pre-designated revenue share on your completely free account, but, oftentimes, short bookmarks can rank quite high in Google. If you do have your own website, social bookmarking websites, like Xomba, InfoPirate, and SheToldMe, can also be used to gain a great high authority backlink. If you haven’t written your own article, ownership of social bookmarking websites tend to prefer that their contributors actually submit content from a variety of online sources (so as to diversify their content submissions).

4 – Writing Articles for Syndication and Affiliate Earnings

Ask any internet marketer about their preference of article directories and they will, most likely, mention EzineArticle.com. As the lifeblood of online marketing efforts, I truly believe that the written word will always be valuable: even in a world where video (think, YouTube) is beginning to gain a major foothold. When you submit a high quality article to Ezine Articles, you can have the opportunity to have your article syndicated. This simply means that others, who deem your content to be valuable, can take your article and use it on their own website, while keeping your author’s resource area intact. Several people I know earn a few thousand a month just from writing content for syndication while embedding their own affiliate links at the tail end of their content. Alexa Smith, a young internet marketer who posts frequently on the Warrior Forum, earns over $10,000 a month, consistently, just from contributing content for syndication to a website that was completely free to join.

5 – Writing Articles for Web 2.0 Revenue Sharing Websites

While the potential for content syndication is generally not allowed in conjunction with the Terms of Service (TOS) of these respective websites, writing for a free website like this can incur its own great benefits. From an aesthetic point of view, it may actually be very difficult to tell an article directory from a Web 2.0 revenue sharing website platform to begin with. Both are free to use, and both have hosted advertisements. Where hybrids of each model exists online, you will find that revenue sharing websites do just that: share revenue. While article directories will allow for content syndication, they generally don’t allow for revenue sharing. Free revenue sharing websites that exist online include sites like HubPages (60% revenue share), InfoBarrel (up to 90% revenue share), and Suite101 (unknown revenue share), just to name a small handful. Jason Mayer (jcmayer777), on InfoBarrel, consistently earns over $1,500 a month there, which gives great indication to the value and potential of writing for a Web 2.0 revenue sharing website.

As you can see from this article, there are a plethora of absolutely free opportunities available online for you to leverage your own passions and skills to begin making money online today. The opportunities presented just skim the surface in an online world that is filled with completely viable business models that you can certainly use to help you earn money that you can further invest into future ventures.

Howie Romans is a U.S. Army officer, and blogs frequently over at tacticalcashflow.com.

How do I get Traffic to my blog/website or Forum? I get this question asked almost daily and instead its asked by every one of my 10 readers, So In this post I will tell top 6 reasons why you are not getting traffic to your blog/website or Forum, So here are six reasons why you are not getting any traffic

1. Poor Content

Well you might have probably heard that content is the king and without offering Good content to your readers you cannot get any kind of traffic and If you get any traffic reader won’t stay on your blog, won’t subscribe to your RSS feed and never return to your website that you probably don’t want to let it happen because returning visitors are very crucial for your website’s success

2. Poor SEO

Without Seo you cannot get a good rank in search engines, If you have good content but no one is reading is then whats the use of it, You also need to do search engine optimization along with writing good content

3. You Probably listen but don’t act

You may have read the best Internet marketing books on the web, You may know what are the best traffic generation methods but if you are not acting on it then you won’t get any traffic, So Listen and act

4. You are not posting Frequently

Search engines like those website which are updated regularly and if you are not posting and updating your blog frequently then it will be very difficult for you to get Traffic from search engines but keep a thing in your mind that Posting frequently does not mean that you pull garbage in your blog, instead focus on the quality and frequency keeping both of them at a balanced level, One more thing is that you should have a proper schedule if you are posting daily then stick to it

5. You believe that there is a silver bullet to get traffic

Most of people believe that there is a silver bullet or magic button which when pressed will get flood of traffic to their blogs and that’s not true, So stop searching for a magic button and focus only building content and optimizing that content for search engines

6. Your Blog is Probably New

If you have just started your blog few weeks or months ago then you need to wait until it’s properly indexed by search engines and it takes so make sure that you have enough patience in order to succeed, Just focus on building content regularly and building quality links and search engine will index you soon, Usually it takes search engine around 4-6 months to rank you

Rafay baloch is an Ethical hacker, Web entrepreneur and Internet marketer he blogs at Techlotips and he is author of the book A Beginners Guide To Ethical Hacking.

Whether you are a big brand, a small business, or a money-making blog, the internet has created a universal arena for public relations. Your name and reputation are among the most important assets you have and protecting that name online should be pretty high on your priority list. Whether the challenge is creating more citations or fixing negative publicity, it can be more than a little overwhelming. But when you look at Online Reputation Management (ORM) on a few different levels, you can start small and close to home and then start thinking broader, and eventually, thinking abroad.

Local

Lately Google is getting personal with a vengeance. Personalized results are the future of search and there’s nothing more personal than home. First, make sure your local address is present on your site. And if you put it in the header, footer or sidebar so that it’s there on every page, even better. Then make sure you register your business with Google local and verify your listing.

One of the most interesting developments in local search is the reviews that appear next to most local searches. These reviews also tie directly into ORM. There are two kinds of problems you can have here, either a lack of reviews, or bad ones. In this screen shot for a search for Chicago Pizza, you’ll see that each of the results has a number of reviews beside it along with an average star rating.

Even more interesting is the Review snippet which is featured right there on the front page. Fortunately for these pizza joints, they seem to be making the hungry masses happy. But imagine if one of these Read “The WORST Pizza I’ve ever had in my life”. That kind of statement on Page one of Google could actually be severely detrimental to a business.

Then when you got to the “Place Page” for each business, you get a lot more information, and a lot more opinions. You can’t please everyone all the time, true. But you need to be aware of what people are saying, and where.

When you search the local results for your keyword phrases, take note of the reviews for your competitors. It’s no so much about whether or not people think their sauce is better, what’s important to note is where the reviews are coming from. Chicago Pizza tends to get a lot of reviews from places like Tripadvisor, Zagat’s, Yelp and Urbanspoon. Meanwhile the phrase “Chicago Vacuums” has reviews from places like Dexknows and Dealtime. The point is every niche has a different set of review sites to focus on. Find out what yours are, and find out what’s being said about you there, or what isn’t.

You may have hundreds of satisfied customers, but are they speaking up? People are typically more compelled to write a review of a bad experience than a good one, so it may take a little nudging to get the acclaim you deserve. There is no shame in integrating subtle and humble review requests into your marketing. Encourage people to say nice things about you online, and perhaps, even recommend which sites they should do it on. And if the sites you choose just happen to be Google’s favorite resources for reviews in your niche… well that’s just a happy coincidence right?

National

Moving past local search, the playing field gets much bigger. You have social networks, blogs, videos, news sites, and hundreds of other places where your name could come up in conversation. The first thing to check is the top ten results in Search Engines for your name. Seeing as most people will click a link on the first page of results, those are the most important place to start. Evaluate whether or not the results are positive, negative or neutral. Is every result even about you or do they relate to another business with a similar name? If you don’t dominate the top 10 for your name you are risking brand confusion and potentially losing business because of it.

If you do own your first page of results, the next thing to do is determine if those are the results YOU want there. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just call up Google and ask them to rearrange their results for us? Maybe someday I’ll make that call, just for fun. Then I’ll play it on You Tube. But wishes and prank calls aside, there are some actions you can take to oust results that you don’t like.

Displacing undesired SERP results isn’t always easy, but with proactive measures it’s possible. First, if you haven’t already, create social profiles on the big networks like LikedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. You should use them, but that’s another post, for now, just get them up and running. Claiming your name on these major channels is itself an important act. These popular sites carry weight in search results for your name, and it prevents imposters from getting hold of it. You can also build links to these profiles to help them gain ranking momentum. If you need more than just a slight boost, you’re going to have to work a little harder than the Big Three. Fortunately there are tons of social networks, groups, directories, and business profiles where you can list your business, often for free, which can help fill up that top 10.

International

Everyone has the propensity to be a little ethnocentric when it comes to their business. As in, they are primarily concerned with their reputation in their nation of origin. And that’s fine if you only serve your own country, state or city. But if you ship internationally, or have multiple websites for different countries then your reputation matters world wide. First, try to get a hold of all versions of your domain, as in the .com, .net, .info and your country specific TLD. It’s also smart to get, hyphenated versions, and common misspellings. Then 301 redirect them all to your primary website.

From there, take note of where your international traffic is coming from. Do you have a huge contingent from India? Is Europe hot for your product? If you have been seeing success from a particular country, it’s a good idea to peruse that country’s specific search engine results for your name as well. The process of dealing with mediocre results is much the same as doing it for your home country. International social media juggernauts will probably perform equally well across country lines. But every country has distinct places which carry weight. Find out what those are in the countries where you are doing strong business, and even the places you’d like to see your business improve. Find competitors which are indigenous to that country and see what their Top 10 results look like. That recon will help you identify which sites you should attempt to get listings on. Sometimes this level of work requires you to transcend language barriers, human translators are good, but if you don’t have a native Russian speaker in your office, online translators and tools will suffice.

This is a big pool to be swimming in so do yourself a favor; use tools. There are tons of tools, some free, some with nominal costs and some that are really expensive. The ones you need will depend largely on the scope of your business and the state of your reputation. If you have huge problems, then you may need professional help to clear up a mess. But if your rep is generally lukewarm or lacking, then there is a lot you can do on your own. Once you’ve gone though these steps to bolster lackluster search results make sure to subscribe to tracking programs like Google and Yahoo alerts, and SocialMediaMention to keep track of new mentions of your company good or bad. Ultimately no amount of ORM can compensate for a bad business model, poor product or lousy service. But if you are giving your customers the best of you, then the rest of the world should know it. There is no room in ORM for wallflowers, so it’s up to you to stand up and be counted, in your home town and across the globe.

Jessica is a writer for a German based online reputation management program. She has been working as a freelance writer and an aspiring SEO for the last 5 years. Her expertise covers a number of areas including, online reputation management, link building, branding and social media.