For example, if you own a carpet cleaning company in San Diego then you are going up against something like this.  At first look, it seems pretty competitive.  There are 10 business listings and most of the first page results directly have the keywords “carpet cleaning san diego” in their title tags.  But lets look a little deeper…

Bobs Carpet Care

Why is this site ranked #1 in Google?  Because it employs multiple SEO techniques correctly.  Here are some of the biggest factors I see:

• Back links - The site only has 280 back links but they are quality back links.
• Title & Meta tags - The sites title and meta tags are keyword rich, well written and highly relevant.
• On page SEO - The sites content is well written with good utilization of keywords.
• Internal links - At the bottom of the page you will see they link to multiple pages of their site, this is good use of the homepage for max link benefits for inner pages.
• External links - Unlike most website, this one links out to trusted websites like this one, this one and this one.
• Clean URLs - Bobs utilizes clean URLs which also have keywords stuffed in them.
• Sitemap - They have a sitemap for humans and search engines!
• Good use of HTML/CSS for optimal code to content ratio, 13%.

Keyword Density Report

Overall, this is a very well SEO optimized website, and because of this, it ranks well.  Props to the SEO or SEO’s of Bobs Carpet Care.  Additionally, I’d like to add some things that would make this rank even better and for more keywords.

• Breadcrumbs - When used correctly, bread crumbs can help you spread internal link juice to every single one of your pages.
• Robots.txt - This is a minute detail, but adding a robots.txt file can help you block certain pages of your site and also will tell the spiders to crawl your site.  Its a good thing to have.
• W3C Validation - Most people will brush this off but I personally think its important.  If you’re a developer you should be developing to these standards regardless of if you’re an SEO or not.  Having a site that validates means a spider can crawl it without getting caught up in your code.
• Business listing - Bobs should be listed in the business listing in Google.  This does not take long to do and will give them two links on the first page!
• Nav links - This site already utilizes a drop down nav with regular HTML text, which is great.  The next step would be to add a drop down for all their services with a keyword rich text link in the nav.  This would help spread the link juice internally from the top of the page, not bottom.
• Text - Above the header image, I would add a list of services in small font text to ensure its the first thing the spiders see.  Text at the top of a page shows importance to spiders, so let them know what your services are right off the bat.

Adding the above suggestions would really set this site apart, but as you can see, you dont have to have a perfectly SEOed website to do well.

If you have a website you’d like me to review, drop me an email and let me know.

Here are a few things I have learned from Affiliate Marketing in the past year…

1.  Track everything!  Track every click, every link and every referring domain.  If you’re running a PPC Campaign then you should be tracking down to the keyword.  I track everything including keywords, ad group and ad.  The more data that you have the better.

2.  Buying a crap load of tools and e books wont make you a good AM, its all about trial and error.  No book can replace the feeling of loosing $500 and for that exact reason you will learn more from doing not reading.  Reading is good to learn the basics but really you just have to do it to know EXACTLY how it all works.

3.  Start small and work your way up.  Create one campaign at a time and put a lot of effort into it.  Make a nice landing page that is also SEO friendly and keep testing various versions of it.  One campaign can mean 10 different designs so why start 10 campaigns with 1 design?  If you do 1 design and never test it then it will most likely fail and you will move on.  Take long to pick a niche or market you want to get into and take long to get out of it.

4.  Focus on one type of marketing at a time.  Sometimes we get so excited about a new advertising opportunity that we half ass our other campaigns so we can move onto the new ones.  Don’t.  Not only will you screw yourself with bad campaigns that you will spend more time fixing then optimizing but you will develop bad habits that can lead to many unsuccessful campaigns.

5.  Create daily report and monitor your campaigns.  You have to keep an eye on everything and manage it.  The more time you spend looking at this stuff the easier it will be for you to spot trouble areas and things that are working well.  Don’t expect anything but great reuslts and never settle.  If you made $150 today then aim for $200 tomorrow!  Keep yourself motivated any way you can, seriously.

Hopefully you are getting the idea by now.  Affiliate Marketing takes work and will take you some time to get going but in retrospect it is quite easy to get into and learn.  All the information you need is o the web and free.  The only thing stopping you from making $20K/month is yourself.

Well, here is another great way to make money online: buying keyword rich domains and leveraging those keywords for maximum search engine visibility.

Basically we are going to pick a niche, find some keywords that have a high search volume, get the domain and slap a wordpress blog on it.

Step 1:  Find a niche you are interested in.  I picked ring tones because there is a high search volume for various artist names.

Step 2:  Is there a search volume?  You can either use Google Adwords Tool or Google Trends, I used Google Trends.

Step 3:  Using the tools listed above, think about what someone might search.  For music it was easy….  When I look for new music i use new, so “new (artist name here)” is something to check.  I found that “new akon” and “new chris brown” were on the rise so I got those domains.  Here are my sites, I don’t care if you see them.  New Akon & New Chris Brown.

Step 4:  After you find a keyword that has a search volume, buy it!

Step 5:  Download a wordpress blog and load it on your server.  I really hope you have dedicated hosting of you’re into AM because it is way easier to manage your sites having it all in one place.

Step 6:  Depending on your niche you will have to modify your blog.  Add in some graphics, change the style up a bit and make it look a little custom.  Also, be sure to add in the Wordpress SEO plugin as well as the social one, so people can spread the word for you.

Step 7:  Add in some affiliate banners and links where you see fit.  make sure to add one to the sidebar to include them on every page.

Step 8:  Go find some news related to the niche and make some postings.  You can either copy and paste the content, which I don’t recommend, or you can rewrite it.  There are various ways to generate content so get create and figure it out.

Step 9:  At this point you are pretty much done.  I’d submit a sitemap to the major search engines and build some quick links to get you going but for the most part, the site will easily rank for the keyword that you chose for your domain.

The best part of this is that there are so many domains like this that you can pickup.  If you know of something thats new and upcoming like the new dodge challenger, you can get domains like dodgechallengerpictures.com or something like that, not sure if that one is taken.  Anyway, goodluck and let me know how it works out for you.

Marko

First of all, I DON’T suggest doing this because it can, and most likely will get you banned from MeetUp.com.  I am simply exploiting a simple way I see that one can make money on this website for a minimal investment of time and money.

Step 1:  Sign up on Meetup.com and find some niches you know will have affiliate offers.  Biggest one I can see is dating.

Step 2:  Start a meetup (or 3) on the niche you picked.  I would target popular cities, New York, LA, Chicago etc…  Starting a meetup in these cities will give you a larger pool to go after.  Be sure to add a photo, a nice intro that attracts people and tie in online dating to it.  I would say something like “To help you find love I suggest going to these (List a few affiliate links here) dating sites and sign up to better your odds, but even if you’re not comfortable with online dating, hang in there and wait for our first meetup!”.

Step 3:  By default, meetup will notify people (within 3 days unless you send it earlier) who are interested in your niche or category by looking at other meetups they are a part of, this is usually a large pool of people.  Be sure to take the time and modify your invitation letter and add some links there as well.  Be sure to setup a meeting time and location before sending the blast for everyone to see because people will want to see that you’re serious about meeting up. I suggest finding a restaurant in the city you’re posting in.

Step 4:  People will slowly join your group and will begin talking, if they dont, get them to talk.  Stay active and keep them wanting more.  I’d send out a blast when you have 100+ members and just welcome them and say you’re looking forward to meeting them.  No affiliate links!!

Step 5:  Invite more people.  Go to other dating groups and start inviting them to yours.  Write up a nice letter with no links in it, only a link to your group.  State what separates your group from others.

Step 6:  There is a feature in meetup so you can easily post to craigslist, use it.  This is a great way to drive more traffic to your meetup and affiliate offers.

That’s basically it.  You can get pretty into it and create multiple accounts and groups for various cities but you will most likely get caught unless you play it safe.  There are some pretty big poker groups on there that might be worth tapping into but I am positive the dating scene would work. 

If you are like most affiliate marketers out there then you know how hard it is to break into the PPC game.  Yes, its quite possible, but it comes with a cost and a high one at that.  Well, here it is, step by step instructions how to make money using forums and not only will you make money for a short time if you follow this but you will be bringing in more and more each month.

I am going to assume you have signed up with some affiliate company’s, if you haven’t, there are some links in the right column under “My Money Makers” which will take you there.

Step 1:  Pick a Niche that you know forums exist for.  The one I did, and still do, is car warranties.  I’m not like most affiliates, I’ll tell you what I’m running because I know 95% of people will be too lazy to follow through with this.

Step 2:  Open up Excel and create 3 columns:  Site, Login and Password

Step 3:  Go into Google and search for forums related to different brand cars; BMW, Mercedes, Lexus etc…  I focused on more expensive cars because those are the people with money to buy warranties and those are usually the cars that you’d want extended warranties on.

Step 4:  Sign up on a few forums a day, don’t overwhelm yourself, it gets boring.  I would sign up on one, pimp out my profile, find a pic of a related car, add a signature without any links and make a few posts.  Respond to anything you have knowledge about, even if its just some rims you like on a persons car.  Do this everyday until you have about 30 solid accounts that look legit.

Step 5:  Keep signing up!  I know you haven’t hit 30 yet, so keep going.  Log into the ones that you have signed up in and stay active, 1 or 2 posts every few days, it only takes 5 minutes.  Don’t be lazy, this is the key here.  Keep thinking I am going to make money, hundreds of dollars a day from this so keep going!!

Step 6:  Find a domain to use.  Don’t use one you have because people hover over links and will know, find one related to your niche.  Doesn’t matter if its long but it has to be relevant.

Step 7:  Setup folders on your new domain.  Have a folder for each car maker or find a way to categorize your niche.  So if I have the domain, carwarrantiesforless.com and I was posting on a BMW forum, it would be carwarrantiesforless.com/BMW/Offerlink.php

Step 8:  Find some offers.  Dont just get the ones that pay out the most.  Look at how they are performing, look at the landing pages and make your decision from there.  I found ones that used BMWs in their landing pages and those kicked ass on the BMW forums.  Keep your max at 3 offers.

Step 9:  Setup your affiliate links.  Now that you have folders like; BMW, Lexus, Audi etc., its time to setup a redirect.  I ususally name mine like this, bmw-warranty.php and drop that in the BMW folder, then bmw-cheap-warranty.php and so on.  name them differently is the key.  I use a php redirect to hide my affiliate links.

So this is the code you put on those pages I just listed: <?php
header( ‘Location: http://www.affiliate-link-goes-here.com’ ) ;
?>

Make sure to add the different affiliate links to the different pages.  bmw-warranty.php and bmw-cheap-warranty.php should go to different offers.

Step 10:  Go back into the forums and seach for warranty, when you find ones, start posting.  Write something like “I got my warranty at (link here) for $1200 and it covers all parts for 48,000 miles.” Or something like that, I usually look at the original post and make it relevant to it.  But, I have also just posted straight links, 4 at a time, and they stayed up without getting deleted.  I only suggest this if your account is older and you have more then 100 posts.

After you get the ball rolling, this is easy.  Find forums that interest you and you will have no problem staying active.  The method I described to you makes me about $500 a month and I only have links on 4 forums.  After about 6 months add some links in your footer, should help out some too.  Enjoy!!

PS.  Leave me some comments and tell me what you think.  I have other methods I use and have no problem revealing but I want to know that someone is getting something out of this.

Marko

Randy’s outlook on life, vibrant personality and genuine care to help students achieve their goals is truly inspiring.  To think hes months from death and breaks down doing push-ups is truly amazing.  Take the time to watch this video and hear his story, it will give you a greater appreciation for life.

Rest in Peace Dr. Randy Pausch.

Looking at the “Americans Love Capatalist Superheros” logic it would appear to make sense but why then didn’t Ironman crush any records?

Some reasons to consider:

• Heath Ledgers death - Certainly the movie got more media coverage because of it.
• Superhero Traits - Batman is anti guns where as Iron man has a rocket launcher built into him and made his billions off of weapons of mass destruction.
• Batman is still a MAN - Iron man has a magnetic chest plate that gives him powers which is probably too far fetched for most viewers.

Simply put, Batman is more appealing to a wider audience then Iron man.  Plus, I’m sure the long history of followers helps too…