Earn A Living Online » google

Is Google Testing Your Worthiness Of A Search Term? They Are Testing Mine.

Keith Lock — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:36:45 +0000

Understand something from the get-go. I have a great deal of knowledge of SEO and search engine ranking. I have insider knowledge from some informed folks that work at Google and Bing. Matt Cutts personally sends me SEO tips via anonymous postcards, and I am close friends with the smart folks that work with the Google algorithm :) OK, none of that is true, but I do have some insight on things… being on both ends… as a browser and a marketer with a bit of SEO and technical know-how.

This isn’t going to be some inside secrets to SEO, as I don’t know any, all I can suggest is to think like the searcher. Is what you are offering worthy of top positions for your targeted search term? If yes, then good.. if not, then you have some work to do.

What I’d like to discuss is a bit about my experiences lately regarding some search terms that I am targeting, and what appears to be Google “testing” the worthiness of my search terms.

I know what I’m about to discuss might sound like Google is measuring “bounce rate” to determine the quality of a page but that’s not it at all. Bounce rate may give some indication and you can check bounce rate on a per-page per-keyword level, but it doesn’t provide a complete picture so it couldn’t be really used effectively, in my opinion, as a true factor in search ranking. First off, not everyone uses Google Analytics, so Google couldn’t assess the bounce rate on all sites (which is the only way it would be a fair assessment). On top of that, high bounce rate is actually appropriate in some cases, depending on the goal of the web page being visited. Someone might come to a page, get EXACTLY what they want (like a recipe), close the browser and ultimately increase the bounce rate, and without all the facts it would appear as though the content did not give value.

But.. where Google can measure things consistently, regardless of the Analytics package used.. is… keep track of “click-backs” (if someone clicks the back button after clicking a link in the results), and seeing if they click on another result. The result they do not come back from.. is.. in most cases, I would say.. the most appropriate result.

The Google Keyword Worthiness Trial

Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, but this happens quite often to be a coincidence for me… I submit a piece of content to an authority site… and if it gets published (and therefore probably crawled) immediately… I fire up my “real-time” search traffic tool for the page I linked to from the content.. and I start seeing an in-flux of traffic for the keyword (or phrase) that I used in the anchor text. It’s usually just brief.. it seems like Google is ranking me higher temporarily for the anchored keyword, and grabbing some stats for analysis later, or for implementation later.. to determine if the content is worthy (based on the number of “click-backs” that occurred from that content), for the given key-phrase.

Now.. this doesn’t happen all the time.. it just seems to happen for keywords that I am on the brink of getting top spots for. And Google is testing my worthiness before it gives me the privilege of being #1 (or close to it). If this is what is happening, I think it is a wonderful, fair, way of determining the value of content for a given keyword… because really.. the number of backlinks to content can be inflated pretty easily (and the number of backlinks is not a true measure of value), we all know that.

After all.. only the people that visit our page can truly determine the “value” of it.. and.. they should be the one’s that do (without any extra effort on their part)… even Facebook’s ‘like’ and Google’s +1 can be inflated inappropriately. I s’pose eventually we’ll see contests being run on the web… and instead of asking people to “+1″ or “like” or “share” our content… we’ll be asking them to fire up Google.. search for our keyphrase, find our page in the results and click and stay there… which in my opinion is equivalent to asking someone to click your AdSense ads.. but hey.. what do I know?

More info: Is Google Testing Your Worthiness Of A Search Term? They Are Testing Mine.

Affordable Content Creation Service

Keith Lock — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:58:22 +0000

You all know the value of video to your affiliate business.. you know that YouTube videos show in the top spots of the Google SERPS and that you can brand YouTube videos, plus include your clickable URL in the video description… right? A lot of marketers I talk to know this but still haven’t jumped into creating videos. I, for one, do not have strengths in this area so I often outsource it. Well, I found a VERY affordable service that I wanted to tell you about.

Melanie William, the content developer I mentioned awhile back is offering a video creation service (and distribution) to compliment her article writing service. Prices are great and the work is returned quickly. Check her out… get some videos (or articles) to help your SEO efforts.

More info: Affordable Content Creation Service

Not All Backlinks Are Created Equal

Keith Lock — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:10:49 +0000

Below I’m going to go through some of the different types of backlinks that you can get to your web sites. Just know, I’m not an authority on backlinking, I have never taken the time to test new backlink strategies and measure results, and I’m not an innovator in this area. I will only be discussing what I have learned from other people. Granted, I have used these methods and have seen good results. But for the most part, I just “trust” that this stuff is valid. I understand Google’s goal as a search engine, and the information I have acquired about backlinking makes sense and is in align with my understanding of search engines for the most part. So, with that said, this isn’t “cutting edge” material, it is tried and tested methods and descriptions that have been passed around the SEO circles for years.

Truly, the best method of getting backlinks that is 100% inline with what search engines want is to write good content and let people link to it on their own. But as we know, there are ways to assist in the process…

Backlinks From Different IP Addresses

It is generally accepted that backlinks to your websites from sites that are hosted on different servers other than your own, have more value. So, don’t buy a shared hosting account that allows unlimited web sites and create a network of sites all linking back to your money site. It is easily detectable and not that valuable.

There are numerous ways to get backlinks from different IP addresses. These include (but are not limited to): Social Bookmarking, RSS Submission, Blog Commenting, Directory Submission, Video Sharing, General Article Marketing, Blog Content Syndication, Web 2.0 Property Building (Squidoo, Weebly, etc.), Press Releases, Guest Blogging, etc. etc.

Anchor Text Used In Backlink

The word(s) used that link to your site, the anchor text, is deemed as important. Change it up a bit and use related keywords as well. Just don’t use “click here” all the time, be creative, or focus on specific keywords that you want to rank for.

Slow, Natural Link Building

Sure, it is often said that links should be built gradually and not just stop suddenly, that the same steady pace should, for the most part, continue, in order to be “natural”. I really don’t know about this one myself. What if you wrote something really newsworthy one day and it hit CNN and then suddenly 1000′s of backlinks are being built inside of a week and maybe you even make it to Google Trends. Then, what if it suddenly dies down because it’s old news? That defies the whole theory that slow and steady is the way to go. In fact the news blast seems more natural to me. So, I don’t worry about this a whole lot myself, but it seems that the general consensus is to keep it slow and steady.

Education And Government Backlinks

Backlinks coming from web sites that have a .edu or .gov TLD are said to have more value. Makes sense.

Mixed PR Backlinks

Backlinks coming from sites that have a Google Page Rank of 10 are more valuable than a PR0 of course. Again, makes sense. Getting only backlinks from high PR’s may not be the way to go though. It’s probably good to get backlinks from a range of PR’s, wouldn’t you say? It would just be to obviously fabricated otherwise. I could be wrong of course, because getting backlinks from just PR8′s only for example can occur naturally, it’s just not likely in my opinion.

Deep Linking

Getting links just to your homepage isn’t always best. Some of your best money making content may be at lower levels of your site. Also, you may want to rank some deeper pages for keywords on their own. I also read that if you say, add a page of content to Squidoo, and create more than 1 backlink to your homepage within that 1 page, the first backlink will be the one that is taken into account. The links further down the page won’t pass any juice or anchor text.

Contextual Links

If you have a backlink created in the middle of a paragraph or article that is related to the content on your site, it is much more valuable than say, getting a backlink in the sidebar or footer that is part of a list or cluster of links.

DoFollow Links

A search engine may not give value to a backlink if it has a nofollow tag attached to it. A nofollow tag is essentially telling the search engine (particularly Google) that the backlink does not count as a vote for the linked site. The site the backlink is on is not vouching for your site so the search engine may ignore the anchor text, PR, etc.

What Are The Best Backlinks To Get?

Based on the info above it would seem you want backlinks with the following characteristics:

from a range of IP addresses
containing your choice of, and a variety of, anchor text
perhaps created slowly
from .edu and .gov sites on occasion if you can
from mixed PR, high PR if you can
to different pages of your site, not just the homepage
within a paragraph of related content (contextual, rather than clustered)
dofollow if possible

Now, if you can get backlinks like described in the list above you are on the right track. Of the backlinking procedures that I follow for my niche sites, there is one method that covers all of the backlink characteristics (except maybe getting links from education and government sites), and that’s from blog content syndication. <- That's a link to a post I wrote on it a few days back.

With blog content syndication you can essentially get 100's of backlinks with the above criteria created slowly over time with just a couple hours work or less up front. Outsource it and it's just 10 or 15 minutes of your time. Some of my thriving sites, like the one described here where I have made almost $400 a month for the past few months, this is the only method of backlink building I put effort into. And for that particular site discussed, I only did 2 submissions.

A 3rd party company, Article Marketing Automation, offers a network of sites with different IP addresses to automatically post content on. The tools make certain the content is unique and lets you create backlinks with a variety of anchor text, even with just 1 submission. You are allowed as many submissions, for as many sites as you want. Last I checked, if you sign up for Article Marketing Automation’s free blog content service they are letting you try the blog content syndication service out for free.

More info: Not All Backlinks Are Created Equal

3 WordPress Review Site Types, With Examples

Keith Lock — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:13:36 +0000

I just wanted to put together a quick post to talk about a few different types of review sites that I use.

Also, I will give some examples and the tools that are needed.

You’d be surprised at how well these work. It takes a bit of work of course, but when they are up and running, you could potentially have a network of money-earners that run on autopilot.

Pick a type and go with it. They ALL work!

Typical 3-5 Product or Service Review Site; Still Works

1st you have the typical review site that you see all over the place. A marketer lists 3-5 similar products or services, gives a “review”, or better yet, gives facts, about each one. Each review has links to an affiliate offer where the customer can make a purchase.

As an example, I built one of these sites about a year ago (I sold it recently) that did very well. I was simply running ads in the content network on Google to get traffic. Anyway, the site reviewed 3 software packages from RegNow.com that allow someone to convert DVDs into Zune-playable files. Here’s the site: ZuneMovieConverters.com and here’s one of the landing pages: http://zunemovieconverters.com/dvd-to-zune-review. The site just uses WordPress and I used an HTML table in the post to format the text properly. Make sure there is other content on the site besides the review and it will do better. That’s why it’s nice to use WordPress, it makes it easier to add other content.

Another review site that is apparently doing quite well… between $2,000 and $3,000 per month according to the owner is this one: http://www.specialonlinebusinessreviewauthority.com/

I’m not sure what the site uses but it can easily be done in WordPress if you know how to edit themes. The owner is trying to sell the site right now for $27,000! All sales come from organic traffic too! He used strictly article marketing to accomplish that. Do not underestimate the power of article marketing. To potentially accomplish the same thing (it’ll cost you about $47 minimum per month), sign up with AMA, and submit an article or 2 per week for a year (1 article can translate into 100′s of backlinks slowly over time). In the first couple of articles use the anchor text of your main keyword. In the rest, use varying anchor text. Find related keywords using the Google External Keyword Tool to use as the anchor text. Then sell your site for 10x monthly profit and break me off a slice!

Customer Review Site

I love these customer review sites. I will be building more of these this year. You simply setup WordPress and write posts discussing facts or properties of several related products or services. You use a special plugin that will accept customer reviews in the form of comments. The customer can also rate the product based on any factor you wish. An overall rating will be shown next to the post. Here’s an example of a site that reviews different hosting companies: http://www.awardwinninghosts.com/. I asked the author of the plugin the best way to get the reviews going initially and he said he just visits forums at the product/company web sites and, if allowed, asks other people in the forum (i.e. customers) to come over to the site and tell him what they think.

Check out the plugin site and you can see other cool examples.

Micro-Niche Review/Guide Websites

These sites are also very cool. They offer great value to your potential customer. You provide lots and lots of valuable content that the search engines will gobble up. The content will be guides, like “how-to” or “top 10″ guides perhaps, and you will also add product reviews. The reviews will be for individual products that are available on eBay. You simple drop a few eBay auctions in the middle or end of your review of the product. Here’s an example: http://forgedgolfirons.com/

These sites have long term earning ability. Don’t expect any money too quickly. Wait a couple months and things should start picking up. And don’t expect the money to stop flowing once it comes! Certainly, if you follow the plan in this 9-step guide you will have a well designed site that is ready for search engine love. The guys who wrote the guide have tried and tested the method and swear by it. They hardly do any marketing. They focus on content and site building and that’s pretty much it. The tools used… phpBay and WordPress. You can get the exact details from this guide. I built about 5 of these sites since buying the guide last week. The way it’s done is quite unique (at least from anything I’ve ever done). It’s impressive. Also, try TextBroker.com for content. You don’t have to worry about being stiffed by a writer on that site, plus you don’t have to pay until you are satisfied. Had I known that last year I would’ve saved lots of money!

Have you used any of the above methods in the past? What do you think?

More info: 3 WordPress Review Site Types, With Examples

WordPress Geo Targeting Script

Keith Lock — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:55:43 +0000

Updated: July 6th, 2011

Looking for geo targeting capabilities for WordPress and other PHP-based sites and Content Management Systems?

Check out the geo targeting scripts that we have available.

If you want to specify ads ( or other content ) to show to your web site visitors based on the city and/or region (state, province) and/or country they are visiting from, the Geo City Plus Package is for you. It includes BOTH the WordPress Geo City Plugin AND the Geo City PHP Script.

If you want to specify ads ( or other content ) to show to your web site visitors based on the country they are visiting from, the Geo Country Bundle is for you. It includes BOTH the WordPress Geo Country Plugin AND the Geo Country PHP Script.

If you want to simply show country specific messages, like “We deliver directly to {country-name}!” to your site visitors, this free geo targeting WP plugin will do the trick.

Let’s run through a quick example using the WordPress plugin ( or script ) from the Geo Country Bundle…

A common use of the geo country scripts is to show different ads ( or other content ) in posts, pages, widgets and / or theme files based on the person’s country. The content can be in the form of text, html, javascript and / or php <--- even in posts and pages! See how here.

For example, say you are running an “acai berry” blog or site. You may have an offer / creative for the U.S. only which pays $37.00. You may also have another offer that caters to Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. which pays only $34.00. Before using this plugin, you may have opted for the second offer ( the $34.00 one ) so you didn’t miss out on the U.K. and Canadian traffic. However, the $3.00 extra you would get for the U.S. offer is very important to your bottom line, plus… what about all of the other countries visitors that may drop by? You can monetize that traffic as well with say… some Google AdSense.

So how do you display the correct offer to your visitor? Simple, you install the geo-targeting script ( or plugin ) and run some simple commands when using the script ( or use WordPress shortcodes when using the plugin ) to decide which ads to display. In English you’d say “If this visitor is from the U.S., show the $37.00 offer, if they are from Canada or the U.K. show the $34.00 offer, and if they are from anywhere else, show Google AdSense!”

The plugin and script are both very easy to install and use on WordPress and other php based sites. I created a very thorough step-by-step quick-start guide as well to explain exactly how to use it, plus there are a variety of support avenues to get things going quickly.

Learn More Here

Note: Some of the comments below might relate to prior versions of the geo targeting scripts. Please use the link above for the most recent information pertaining to our products.

More info: WordPress Geo Targeting Script