In my previous post (long ago), I discussed Google Ranking Factors. Today I wanted to share some tips for Keyword Research. Keyword Research is very important for the success of your website. Carefully selected keywords can bring thousands of visitors to your website while poor selection can eat you up by means of cost but will attract only a few visitors. Remember, visitors are your revenue. More visitors simply result in more revenue.

I have used around a dozen Keyword Research tools both free as well as paid. However the best one I have found is Google keyword Tool. It is very accurate and free to use. However you need some experience to better understand how to use it. Just spend more and more time to experiment different ideas for a keyword and you will see your desired results coming up. A quick short tip is to use MS Word’s Thesaurus facility. Write your word and then hit Shift+F7 after highlight it and it will give you alternative words with similar meaning. Try those words in Google Keyword Tool and you can get lots of new keywords to target for your website.

Long Tail Keywords

It is a common problem that most of Pakistani webmasters don’t understand how to use Keyword Research Tools. For instance, when they do search on keyword “Gadget” they think about targeting high traffic keywords like “cool gadgets”, “tech gadgets”, “electronic gadgets” etc. Hence they fall down because they face immense completion on these keywords. Even if they can achieve first page position on such tough keywords, they won’t get much traffic. So what they did wrong?

First of all, understand that monthly searches referred in google keyword tool are not actual traffic on that keyword. It is an accumulated sum of keywords that include this keyword. For instance, google shows monthly searches for “tech gadgets” as 135K. It sounds like more than 4,000 searches per day. However it is not correct. Google includes searches of “best tech gadgets”, “hi tech gadgets”, “electronic tech gadgets” etc in this keyword. Hence 135K represents monthly searches of all keywords having “tech gadgets” as a part of it. People searching on “tech gadgets” exactly wouldn’t be much more than 200 searches per day. Hence targeting this keyword will result in tough competition and low return.

So what should we do to get lower completion and higher return? Focus more on Long Tail Keywords than short one or two word keyword. In our example, “spy gadgets for the evil genius” is a long tail keyword. Even you can try to target “cool gadgets for men” instead of “cool gadgets” And target “tech gadgets 2009” instead of “tech gadgets” and vice versa. You might have noticed a lower search volume for these keywords but they will not be tough in completion and with a quality content page, you can easily get ranking in top 5 positions which will result in traffic more quickly coming to your website than if you have targeted some high competition keyword.

No one claims to know each and everything as how Google Rank a website or page. However with experience of ranking several domains/pages for several keywords on first page or on top position, one can list out critical factors that must be kept in mind for a higher search engine ranking. I have divided such ranking factors into three categories: Must Have, Should Have and Nice to have Ranking Factors.

Here are these Google Ranking Factors as per my experience,

Must Have Ranking Factors

1. Keyword must be in the Title of Page
2. Keyword must be in the Headings (h1, h2, h3) in the page.
3. Keyword should be in Meta Tags (Keywords and Description)
4. Variation of Keyword must be present on the same page (related words)
5. The Keyword Density (frequency of keyword) should be around 2% of total word count.
6. Contents must be of related to keyword and high quality.
7. Back Links from higher PR domains with anchor text as this Keyword.
8. Page Rank of your Home Page should be 3+. And your page’s link should be on your home page.
9. If someone finds you in google search, he/she should be satisfied with your contents. That means he/she should not search same term again on google at least within next one hour.
10. Contents must not be Duplicating or found major portion on some other website.

Should Have Ranking Factors

1. Keyword should be in URL of website
2. Keyword should be in Domain Name
3. Keyword should be in first paragraph.
4. If images are used in that page, ALT tag should contain this keyword.
5. At least 10 back links from good PR websites with this keyword as anchor text.
6. Age of Domain should be more than 1 year
7. Location and Server should be in the area where majority of your target users live. If you are targeting USA visitors, make sure your domain should be hosted in USA server.
8. Keyword should be closely related to your domain’s primary purpose.
9. Domain TLD should be .com/.net/.org.

Nice to Have Ranking Factors

1. Use Keyword in your page in all formats (bold, italic, underline, colored etc)
2. Link other pages of your site with this page based upon relevancy. Similarly place this page’s link (with keyword as anchor text) on other related pages of same site.
3. Update your website regularly
4. Get back links from sites like DMOZ and Yahoo Directory
5. Reduce Outgoing links as much as you can.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. Please suggest more factors if you can.

In my efforts to find out Pakistani Adsense earners, I have realized that most of them are hesitating to disclose their earning details. I don’t know why they do it. Hence I am taking the initiative myself by posting a scanned cheque of my last month’s earning.

I know this is not a big amount at all. However by posting this, I hope to encourage some big Pakistani Adsense Earners to disclose their earning details and hence become a role model for rest of webmasters.

Here is the cheque of USD 959.57, I just received it today.

I also use Infolinks and Chitika ads along with adsense ads. However earning details of those are off the topic here.

Promoting your website is the key in earning money. Good promotion means good amount of traffic and traffic is money for you.
Here are basic 5 ways to promote your website no matter what kind of a website you run.

1. Social Bookmarking
2. Forum Posting
3. Blog Posting
4. Directory Submission
5. Link Exchange

There are many bookmarking services like del.icio.us, stumbleupon.com, foldk.com etc. People bookmark their favorite sites to make them available to them no matter where ever they are. Similarly, people also like to search through bookmarks of others as they  feel it valuable. Hence bookmarking your website (maximum pages) can result in good and quality traffic coming to your site.

Forum Posting is a way by which webmasters sign up on forums related to their website niche and then participate in discussions while leaving their website’s signature in the footer of their message. It is important that one should use appropriate keyword as anchor text for such footers so that it should not only attract its reader but also become useful in improving search engine rankings. Usually forums allow up to 3 signature links in your forum posts. However several forums don’t allow even one. So be careful and choose only those forums where they allow signatures.

Blog Posting is very useful if you do run your own blog. Go and search about blogs related to your blog and then read posts to submit your comments on that with a link to your website. Usually blog comments are  submitted with a link back to your site. Moreover, you can also refer to a particular post URL of your blog in the comment message if it is related to the post your are commenting on. This will direct more visitors to your site. Blog Posts can also help improve your search engine ranking. However
Google only counts Do Follow blog comments. So be careful while posting.

Directory Submission is an old but still useful way of promoting a new website. There are thousands of website directories available on internet that allows you free or paid listing. Initially, you can only focus on free directories but later on as you grow, you can purchase listing in good quality directories such as yahoo directory.

Link Exchange is a bit technical stuff for webmasters. In this way, website owner search related websites and then drop them an email to see if they are interested in link exchange. A two way link exchange give equal benefits to both parties. However there are also more advanced techniques such as Tree-Way link exchanges that give the benefits of one way links. Moreover, some sites also sell one way links on per month or year basis. However google dislike link trade. So better to avoid it.

I am sure almost everyone related to SEO and Webmaster World, have witness several videos posted on several websites to show proof of their earning. I was always wondering as how people do that. How they show real accounts and secure websites but with mind blowing earnings. Finally, I got the answer. Here is a video that shows it and then another one video on his website to show you how he did it.

Isn’t it interesting? More than that, it teaches us not to beleive video demonstrations of anyone claiming big mind blowing incomes.

Here is the site that shows how this guy manipulated it. {www.404defender.com}

Do you want to start making money with ZERO Investment?

You can do it. The only thing that you need to know is how to write in English. Also, one hour daily or more if you can spare.  Follow 5 steps below to get started with your journey right a way.

Step 1: Create a Free Blog account for yourself. Visit blogger.com or blogspot.com to create your very first blog.

{Here is a tutorial for you to quickly assist in this step}

Step 2: Now start posting some blog posts about the topic you love to talk or discuss with your friends. Such as games like Cricket, Politics, Your job field, or anything in your life that you feel you have some valuable knowledge to share.

Step 3: After writing every post, don’t forget to bookmark it to some social networks like del.icio.us,  stumbleupon.com, folkd.com etc.

Step 4: Spent just half an hour to search different forums and participate in the discussion related to your blog topic. Leave your blog’s link in your signatures so that interested people can follow it to reach you.

Step 5: Go and apply for an Adsense Account. Once you got approval, integrate it with your blog at blogspot.com or blogger.com.  It is quite easy to visually configure as how to put Google Adsense ads on your blog. Go and play with different placements to see which one gives you maximum benefit.

Depending upon your selection of topic and field, you can earn around $5 to $30 on your first month and can make it double every month coming after that.

Go … and Give It A Try.

After conducting enough research and my own personal experiments, I have come to the conclusion that if you wanted to make money online through Google Adense, you have to follow a Business Model described below. This business model is a key to success no matter either your goals are short term or long term.

This Business Model consists of following four steps.

Step 1:  Selection of a Niche and Keyword Research

Step 2: Domain Name Selection and Website Development

Step 3: Internet Marketing (SEO and SEM)

Step 4: Monetizing Website

Step 5: Monitoring and Improvement

Selection of a Niche and Keyword Research

The first and the most important part of this business model is selection of a Niche. This niche should have enough demand and traffic to meet your income objectives. This estimate can be prepared by finding keywords in that Niche and calculating their PPC rates as well as number of searches per day. It is also very important not to select an already saturated niche as it will take a long time for your website to come up in that competition. The best niche is the one that has more than 10,000 searches per day (top 100 to 150 keywords) and an average PPC rate in between $1 t $2 with less competitive websites being found on those search keywords at google, yahoo and bing.

Domain Name Selection and Website Development

Once a Niche has been selected, it is critical to choose a Domain Name that help visitors to understand its scope (purpose) from its name. Moreover, from SEO point of view, it is important that your main keyword should have been included in the domain name (A domain name which is itself a keyword is known as Nugget Domain). If a single word keyword domain is not available, it would be wise to choose a composite keyword domain (a domain name having more than one keyword in it).

Another important aspect is the type of TLD (Com, Net, Org etc) you should choose for your domain. A .COM is already preferred domain no matter whatever purpose you have from that domain. However I shall give equal importance to .NET and .ORG as well. But be careful not to choose .INFO or .BIZ domains. They are not as search engine friendly as the first three TLDs.

After choosing a domain name, it is the time to start the buildup. As you want to earn money by displaying Google Adsense so you need a website full of contents. If you are good in writing English articles, then prepare it yourself otherwise hire some freelancer to do the job for you. Make sure it must be end user friendly. Try to focus one or two keywords per page/article so that it should be easier to do SEO for it.

Internet Marketing (SEO and SEM)

Once you have got your website up and running, you need to focus on its Marketing i.e. SEO and SEM. SEO stands Search Engine Optimization while SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. In SEO, there are activities to make your website optimized for search engines to crawl and rank your website or page for desired keyword. These activities are called On-site SEO and Off-site SEO. In On-Site SEO, it is tried to made web page titles, URLs and contents to show desired keyword frequently. Creating an optimized navigation throughout the website is also part of On-Site SEO. While in Off-site SEO, efforts are made to spread links of website or its pages across the Internet. As much websites would be pointing to your website as more benefit you will get from search engines in ranking. A link from other website to your website is counted a vote of confidence. More links mean more confidence and hence search engines will give your website more importance in ranking.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is focused on advertising with search engines for PPC campaigns or through affiliate networks. The basic objective of SEM is to bring more and more quality traffic to your website and establish a brand name.
Monetizing Website

Once you got your website visibility in search engines and got some other traffic resources, it is time to monetize the traffic. The best way to monetize rich content website is to display Google Adsense there. Apply for Google Adsense account if you don’t have one. They need your website URL to confirm that you are serious publisher. Once your website is approved, you can put ads on as many websites as you want. However it is important to read their Terms of Service to make sure you are not going to violate any of their term which can result in your account being banned.

There are other PPC networks such as Ads Bright, Clicksor, Bidvertizer etc. But it is a common opition that no one else is as profitable as Google Adsense.

Moreover, you can use some monetizing networks along with your Google Adsense such as Chitika. However they pay quite low as compared to Google Adsense. But you can use it intelligently to actually use it in addition to Google Adsense and not as an alternative.

Monitoring and Improvement

Once you got your website up and some cash dropping by into your account. It is time to monitor sources of your traffic. Track traffic keywords and your website ranking for those keywords. Improving your ranking for such keywords means more traffic which will obviously convert into cash for you ultimately.  Moreover, try to find out more keywords related to your niche and keep adding more pages (targeting these new keywords) from time to time.

Google provides a very handy and useful resource Google Analytics to help you monitor your website traffic. Go and use it for your website. There is no alternative to this not even in paid services.

Today, I wanted to share story of Christy from My-Thank-You-Site.com. She earned her financial freedom with only four websites while the My-Thank-You-Site.com was her first success. This story gives us motivation as how a house mom earned a decent earning through internet and using Google Adsense. If she can do it…. Why not anyone else?

Christy heard about online business but never actually attempted it. Then finally she thought to give it a try and she researched about a niche to create her first website. She find “Thank You” topic as what she herself call a good topic to spend her time on. Here is what her aim was when she get started.

“Even if I didn’t make a nickel, would I feel good that I spent time doing this?”
She loves to write on this topic without a feeling of burdened or doing something like a duty.

Quality of content is what she always focused on. She wrote something that she feels good about and hence every reader of her feel good as well while reading it.

Her first milestone was 100 unique visitors per day. Here is how she describes it,

“My first 100 unique visitor day! This happened after two months with 40 pages of content and beginning link building via article and directory submissions.”

However moving forward from here took her lots of research and guidance from seniors. She research low traffic (less than 100 searches per day) keywords with less saturation. She targeted those keywords and found quick success. This technique helped her to gather more than a couple of thousand visitors per day on her website and hence increased revenue from Google Adsense.

She earned her first $1000 per month from Google Adsense on first anniversary of this website. Then she planned her second project and moved on.

She reached to her financial freedom within a couple of year. She earns more than $10,000 per month from all of her four websites and still work only a few hours a day.

She is enjoying The Dot Com Lifestyle.

A common man in Pakistan is very surprised as why everyone in Pakistan (related to IT) is so mad about Google Adsense? I was also among them too and hence my research began to find out more and more about Google Adsense as well as people who are earning through Google Adsense. Allow me to share my conclusion and summary of findings through this blog post.

In fact, this is all about The Dot Com Lifestyle. A lifestyle that allows you to quit your 9Am to 5Pm job and relax at home while working in your own defined and desired times. It offers you to work only a few hours daily rather than 8hrs heavy duty. The most fascinated thing about The Dot Com Lifestyle is that you earn money while you sleep or go on vacations. Such type of lifestyle is IDEAL in current Pakistani Business conditions because of Electricity Crisis. In The Dot Com Lifestyle, it doesn’t hurt if you don’t have power for 8hrs or even 12hrs a day. Your money making machine (website) is already hosted on a server at USA where there is no concept of load shedding.

The Dot Com Lifestyle business model is about occupying a Virtual Cyber Space online in order to host bunch of visitors by offering them quality contents and then presenting them advertisements (PPC or Affiliate Campaigns) in order to monetize it. It is by no means a simple job to do as it has its inherent complexity and lot of tricks to know. But it is worthy to invest some time in it as it can give you financial freedom and more time for your friends and family. Google Adsense has made it very easy for website owners to find non-stop advertisements related to your website contents. You just need to focus on quality of contents and maintaining a good amount of visitors on your website. That’s all.

The purpose of setting up this website Google Adsense in Pakistan is to put together all necessary information for young and newcomers to get started with The Dot Com Lifestyle. You can find success stories, earning techniques, tips and free stuff to help you shift to The Dot Com Lifestyle smoothly without taking any risk.

So keep in touch with this website and you will not be disappointed.

Here is a success story with Google Adsense where Markus Frind (A 30 Year old guy) earned $300,000 in just one month through Adsense. He runs PlentyOfFish.com which is a free dating website targeting Canada, UK, Australia and United States. According to his own claims, he is having 1 billion page impressions per month.

Markus Frind graduated in 1999 from British Columbia Institute of Technology. After graduation, he tried several companies for period of 3 to 4 years but wasn’t able to settle down anywhere. In 2003, he started learning ASP.NET and then his first website was his own (PlentyOfFish.com). How lucky he has been as his first flight was so successfulJ.

Below is his 3 month earning cheque.

PlentyOfFish earned $1100 for the very first month of July 2003 and then this journey gets started. He has shown a proof of earning $300,000 per month in early 2006. How much he earns right now? Nobody knows. But anyone can make a guessJ.

Here are a couple of Interviews published on Internet.

Google AdSense Millionaire Markus Frind on Media Talk

Markus Frind Interview – PlentyOfFish.com – nextMEDIA 2008

This is a clear example of how one man has earned such a big amount through Adsense by providing quality website service. One can also judge the potential of Google Adsense Earnings from this example.