Backlinks

Welcome back to How To Set Up Your First Blog and Start Making Money as we discuss back-links today!

Many of you probably wonder why you have to create articles to get back-links to your own website. Back-links are what give you your ranking in the Serps (Search Engine Results Page). When someone types in the keywords for your site into Google, what you want is for your website to come up on the page. You'd not only like it to show up, but you'd like it to show up on the first page. Why? It's what traffic sees first and therefore clicks first.

What are back-links? Back links are what brings traffic to your site by way of a different site. I'm sure most of you have seen these on websites you've been to. Mostly you'll notice them within the text while you're reading, probably because the 'words' (preferably your keywords) are a different color and underlined. If you click on this word or set of words, you will be taken to a different site. We want our site to be this 'different site'. If you've followed my steps to setting up your first blog, then you've already written an article and created a back-link to your site.

So why are back-links so important? When Google sees that there are other sites that link to your site, they assume that your site is more important because this means other sites think what you have to offer has value. Now within this method, we find that Google has a way of assigning a value to these links. For example, let's say you have a website like mine, about how to set up a blog and make money and another website about pickles that has a link to your website. How relevant do you think Google will believe your site to be based on that link? Not very much relevance at all because pickles have nothing to do with setting up a blog. The only value that link has is in the fact that an irrelevant back-link is better than no back-link at all.

With that being said, it stands to reason that the more relevant a site is to your site (meaning if I'm talking about 'making money online' and the other site is about 'making money online'), then we have a relevant link to our site. This type of link is so much better and will give you 'strength' in regards to the SERPS (search engine results page). When Google sees links to your page, assuming your back-links have relevance, this helps to increase your page rank. Page rank, the stronger it is, along with other factors, determines your position in the search engines. Once you have optimized your site to get the best position in the SERPS, then you get traffic. Traffic means money. (And I am talking about traffic from the search engines.) The more traffic you get, the more money you will make.

How are you going to make this money? With the introduction of Google's Adsense program, you now have the easiest way in the world to make money and it's absolutely free. Are there other ways? Yes, there are. But the best place to start is with Google Adsense ads. If you've followed my steps to setting up your first blog, you already have adsense in place.

Remember! As you build your page rank, make sure your links pertain to your relevant keywords for which you wish to have authority. You don't want someone linking to your name unless you're using a name that has your keywords in it. Very important, guys!

Let's talk about a few ways to collect back-links. By now, everyone should have accomplished the first way that we've already discussed and that's through article submission. It puts your information out to the web on a high ranking website that will expose more people to the information in your blog. That is, when you have written and posted your article with the appropriate links as instructed, an article reader would be able to click on your link and go straight to your blog and there's your traffic! Aside from linking back to your site, after some time when you've posted enough of these articles, other sites will begin linking back to your page because of the content in your article.

Another factor that seems to play a part in getting your sites ranked higher in the SERPS is whether or not your site is optimized first. Many have studied this and it would seem that often times your site will get ranked higher in the SERPS if you have not optimized your site beforehand. At least they get ranked higher...quicker. Perhaps Google thinks your content is less relevant if it doesn't appear to be a site that has advertisements listed making it seem as though your sole purpose is to make money from other people visiting your site. What does this mean? To me, I find it worth the wait. If I can get traffic to my site first, and then optimize, it's that much sooner that I can begin to bring in substantial income. Personally, I believe that either way you will eventually reach your goals and I'll leave it up to each of you to decide how you want to proceed. At the present time, I'm testing this theory for myself on different sites. One, I optimized as the blog was on-going and the other, I will wait until I can begin to build page rank using my keywords. When I get information that I can share with you, I will put another post here with what I've found. By the way, in case it hasn't occurred to you yet, when you get one of your sites to a higher page rank, be sure to use it to link to some of your sites that have a lower rank. The extra page rank will help raise the lower ranked site. Use caution, however, if you have too many links going out from the higher ranked site, with each link carries less weight. What if you don't have any high ranked sites? Then follow the other methods of link building until you can add this to your list.

Another way to get back-links from other sites is to swap links. Remember, the more connected this site's content is to your own, the better. Swapping links doesn't have as much power as simply having others link to your site, but it's not anything to scoff at either. As time goes on, you will develop the perfect links for your site. If swapping links isn't your cup of tea, then you might try to buy links from other sites. This works in some situations only. Many competitor sites, if their keywords are the same as yours, don't want to risk losing their traffic to your site. Others won't think about that, they'll be more focused on obtaining links.

I don't recommend buying links until you're in a position to do so financially and making money from your blog. As I've already said before, you can make money online without having to spend money!

Another option for increasing your back-links is with blog networks. A blog network is when many bloggers join together and post their own material. Not just one blogger, but everyone who joins the network can be an author. Another way to post links, just like with articles, and create back-links to your own site or exchange links with other bloggers. Use caution, however, on these sites. Build links with the lower ranks sites and well as the higher page rank sites. It probably won't serve you to build a dozen links to high page rank sites all in one day and might set off an alert that your site isn't following the rules. Build your links slowly, the rest will come. As I mentioned when we were writing our article, don't use duplicate content. Write an original article pertaining to your blog focusing on the same keywords. Short articles are fine.

All the ways we've talked aboaut thus far are legitimit and free ways to build your page rank to your site. The one point you need to remember, and I believe I mentioned it before, is that this all takes time. Yeah, it's probably going to take a lot of time and it's going to take a lot of work. I don't say this to discourage anyone, but I do want to paint a realistic picture to the process. This is why many marketers will spend lots and lots of money to get ahead. We'll be discussing some of these techniques in future posts. In the meantime, let's build some back-links and get this show on the road!

Make Money with Adsense!

Adsense Tips To Increase Your Profits

Now that we've completed the basic steps to creating a blog, I'm hoping everyone is comfortable with posting and layouts and fonts and all of the tools blogger gives you to work with so now we can fine tune adsense to increase money making potential.

Adding adsense to your site is the first way to start bringing in income, assuming you have traffic coming to your site and assuming they will click on your adsense ads. Before I get into any 'tips' or 'tricks' with adsense ads, I'm going to present some different ideas on how you want your website to appear to your visitors. Some of you are going to want to design sites simply for the purpose of making money from adsense. I hope you will remember that quality content is important no matter what your intention is for your site.

Let's say, for example, that you are going to design hundreds of websites for the purpose of making money through adsense advertising and possibly the addition of a few other money making strategies. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this strategy. So many online marketers do nothing but this, yet, many don't want to admit it. Why? Because for some, ethics becomes an issue. There are millions of useless, poor quality content websites, that serve as nothing more then a host to advertisers. Some will go as far as to put up sites to lure in traffic only to have that visitor arrive and realize the site has nothing whatsoever to do with their original search. Other marketers will design very plain and often times downright ugly sites in hopes the traffic will not get stuck on their site forever and so they click the first ad they see that might get them to the desired destination or at least one more interesting and appealing to the eye. Marketers will put up thousands of these and rake in the money from advertising. For me, I think it's just as easy to write a good quality content site as a poor one. But some marketers don't care to focus as much on their writing as I do. I also don't see anything wrong with having sites simply to promote products. I draw the line at intentional misrepresentation or doing anything that would cause harm to another human being. I say to each his own! In regards to ethics, I think it's important to know where you draw the line. I'm not here to judge so let's move on.

Other marketers focus mainly on the content they offer on their sites - high quality content, an abundance of content and information that visitors are looking for. Then, hopefully, while the visitors are absorbing this great content they will notice other items on the same site, links that will give them even more information and will not only be of benefit to the seeker of information as well as to the provider (publisher) by clicking on one of their links.

So maybe you're wondering at this point, why all the discussion about adsense ads? All you have to do is sign up for an adsense account, make a few choices about size and placement, copy the code into your blog and you're done, right? Well, almost. Here's another thing you don't hear marketers mentioning. The size, color and placement of your ads can make a huge difference to your bank account.

Let's take a look at my site, the one you're reading right now. It's plain on purpose. Okay, it's ugly. The colors, black and white, are as basic as you can get. In case you're wondering why, think about the books you read, or the newspapers (when we used to buy them at the newsstand or have delivered to our doorsteps) - black print on white backgrounds. These colors weren't chosen because they're particularly beautiful. They were chosen because they're easier to read! If I had to read orange letters on a green background, I'd probably give up sooner, either because it's making me go blind or I start to feel nauseous. Black and white is easy to read and it's what people expect. Blue and white are also used but not as often as black and white. Are there other colors that will work? I suppose there are for some sites but if you're offering a lot of content and want your visitors to stick around for a while, then I would suggest starting with the basics. What does this have to do with your ads? It has everything to do with your ads. You want your ads to be easy to read too!

Most times, when I visit a site, I avoid ads. They're always sitting off to the right side, looking so obvious and I just know that if I click one of those little ads somebody's going to try to sell me something. For those of you planning on creating 'value-less' content sites, this might be a good plan. Lure the traffic to your site and when they find out it isn't exactly what they were looking for, they'll quickly click an ad to get the heck out of there! In my opinion, you'd better plan to have thousands of blogs if this is going to be your main method for making any kind of money. It's good in places, let's leave it at that. Take a look at lockergnome.com and spend a little time observing the colors, sizes and placement of the ads. Can you even tell which ones are ads? Sometimes I can, sometimes I'm not so sure. This website is perfect for adsense ads. While I haven't seen the stats for this person's site I do know that on advice of a fellow blogging expert, after changing the color scheme alone on this page, his income and click through rate on his ads improved dramatically. Ad size and placement are equally important. I'm not going to suggest one specific way of doing this other than the tips I've already mentioned.

Many of you, by now, have heard the phrase 'cracking the code'. When it comes to adsense, cracking the code simply means finding the right combination for your ads on your blog that works the best. It means you may have to track one method for a while and then make adjustments. Often times, I see reports of someone making these changes and they notice an increase immediately in revenues. Now that's what I like!

One other point regarding ad design....make the ad look like it belongs on your page. Adsense will match up the ads with your content assuming you've followed the basics with keywords, titles, posts, etc. but you can do the rest. Don't be afraid to experiment. The old style ads with the box drawn around them? Which one is best, the square, slightly rounded or rounded corners? None of them. Get rid of the borders! Don't have a background color behind your ads that is different from the page of your site. It looks pasted on and it's unattractive! Match the text in your ads with the text in your blog. Go on, crack the code! Find what works for you!

Thanks for sitting in with me again and I'd like to remind everyone that comments are always appreciated. If you have tips to offer about improving your site to improve your money making possibilities through the use of adsense ads I'd love to hear from you!

Step 5 - Writing Articles For Your Blog

Welcome to the next step on How To Set Up Your First Blog and Start Making Money as we learn how to write effective articles to help get your blog indexed.

Wouldn't it be great if there were people reading your blog and thought it was so fantastic they just had to write an article about how great you are and how smart you are and how great your blog is? Yes, it certainly would and while there are those that will possible write articles about your blog, the truth is they're only going to write about you if they have something to gain. Sound harsh? Maybe. Ok, so maybe there's one or two who do that simply for no other reason then help share your wisdom, but if you're in this to make money, then you need to be realistic. This is what all successful online marketers do. Press releases are written by the business themselves, to promote themselves. Online or offline, it's marketing. Offline, one counts on the fact that someone is going to come visit their business and buy whatever they're selling. How? By advertising their products somewhere else, not within their own business. Online, we are simply choosing an advertising source to promote our sites. Instead of giving coupons or incentives, we are making it super easy for someone to visit our site by clicking on a backlink. Backlinks help readers find our page and then perhaps they will see what we have to offer is of significant value. Make sense? It does to me too. Before I started marketing online, I was under the naive impression that all I had to do was have a great site with great products and people would eventually flock to my site in search of whatever it was they desired. Maybe if I was one of a select few sites that offered that product..but again...I ask you..the next time you search for anything on Google, glance in the top right corner before making your selection on a specific site and see how many sites Google lists for the keyword(s) you just typed. How many hundred thousands or how many millions.

In today's lesson, we're going to learn how to write an article that we'll be posting to another site specifically for posting articles. Yes, this is also free. I'm sure there are a number of places that you could pay for membership to be able to post your articles, but there are many others that don't charge. I'm going to recommend that you use the same site I did simply because I am familiar with their set up and can guide you through it.

Some of you might be confused and wonder why we're going to stray from our own blog and go somewhere to post another article. I'll tell you why. If Google finds a duplicate article, they will not index articles the pages were found on. This is what's going to get your blog indexed. Your article that you are getting ready to post is also going to provide your blog with free backlinks. We'll get more into backlinks later. This does involve a little bit of html, but don't worry, I'm going to walk you through it step by step.

Let's begin.

Open a new tab and go to GoArticles.com. Click the link that says 'submit articles'. On the next page select 'new member'. You'll be sent to a page that says you will be receiving an email to complete the process. Click on the link in your email to go to another goarticle page that will now allow you to sign in with your email and password. The next page is where you're going to enter your article. Enter your name that you plan to use and also enter the URL of your blog. Write a brief bio in the Authors Bio Box and be sure to include your keywords. (Mine is 'how to set up your first blog') This bio will appear at the bottom of your article and you will be able to put a backlink, if you used your keywords, that will point back to your site if someone should click on it. By now, you should have the name, the URL and the Bio completed.

Time to write that article now. Here's a tip....copy your article onto whatever program you have on your computer, notepad will work. Now edit your copy. Leave ALL your keywords alone. Do not change them. You do, however need to re-word the rest. Use synonyms in place of your current text. Basically you want your article to say the same thing as the first post in your blog but you do not want it word for word. So change it up a bit but, DON'T change your keywords.

Note: If your first post is only a few sentences like mine, you might want to do what I did...I used my second post (step 1) to write my article for goarticles.com. If that's what you need to do, then you can either stop and write your second post on blogger now or you can do the article first on goarticles and then re-write your post on blogger. Again, your keywords must be the same for your post and your article!

Once you're finished with your article, select your category and sub-category. Preview your article and edit as necessary. Do not click 'add new article'. Yet.

Next, we're going to insert html code into our article to create our backlinks.

Please note the following code below.



<*a href="http://how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com/">set up your first blog and start making money <*/a>



In the code above, replace 'how-to-set-up-your-first-blog' with the name of your URL for your blog. Next replace 'set up your first blog and start making money' with the keyword(s) you're using in your article. How-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com is the name of my URL. In the article I wrote for goarticles.com I used the keywords 'set up your first blog and start making money' and it's that phrase that I'm going to insert html so that it will create a link back to my blog. I also need for you to remove the two * (asteriks) in the above code. If I hadn't put those in I would not have been able to show you the code. Instead it would have looked like this the second I hit publish and went back to review my post....

set up your first blog and start making money

Ok? Ok! So go ahead and highlight the entire code, right click and 'copy'. Remember a few minutes back when I asked you to include your keywords in the bio? Go to your article and now highlight those keywords and 'right click' and 'paste'. Your copied code from these instructions will now appear in place of your keywords in your article. Don't worry, when you review your article prior to submission you will then see that it looks like my link above instead of seeing all the html code. You can do the same thing now on the first line of your text. Use the same code you created, highlight the keyword(s) in your first line of text and copy and paste to create another back link. If you followed my instructions by keeping your keywords from your blog in the article then the article should already have those keywords in the first sentence. This is your second link. Preview your article and you can now see the links that were created that point back to your blog. If all looks well, click 'add new article'. At the time of this post, goarticles states that it takes approximately 24 hours for your article to appear in the list of articles.

So what we've done, in essence. is this...we have created a duplicate article that will prevent it from becoming indexed from that site and ensuring that our blog will be indexed.

One last step, before we complete this lesson. If you've found yourself at a place with your blog and feel like you're ready to have others read it, then it's time to submit your url to google for indexing. Go to www.google.com/addurl/ and follow the instructions. While you're there, read how the indexing process works. Google will do a better job explaining that I.

Good job, well done! In the next step on How To Set Up Your First Blog and Start Making Money, we'll be discussing more about monetizing your blog.

Step 4 - It's a Blog Pop Quiz!

Hello and welcome back to How to Set Up Your First Blog And Start Making Money! If you're here to site this for the first time, please don't start with this page as it's a pop quiz! Follow the link on the side to the right and return to my intro page that says...yep, you got it...How to Set Up Your First Blog And Start Making Money!

For those of you brave soldiers returning for another grueling lesson, I have a surprise for you. Pop quiz! No, not really. However, I felt like this was a good time to stop and take a break and just review a few points. I also might have a couple of new points to add here, just to make sure you're on the right track.

By now, all of you should have completed your first post. Many of you will have created more than that first post although you may have just saved them to draft and not published them yet. Or you may have published them too. Either way, it's okay, If you're anything like me, I will edit and re-edit and re-re-edit my posts aiming for perfection. I hate typos. I bet I still have some now and therefore I will continue to edit my posts.

In order to make sure we're on the same page for those of you hoping to earn extra money from your blog there a few things you need to make sure are included in your blog. So please read the following lists, go back and check your posts and if you find any inconsistencies within your posts, correct them now.


1) Is your keyword in your blog title and your post title?

2) Are you using your keyword throughout your post frequently enough? Make sure your keyword is mentioned in your post at least 5 or 6 times for every 100 total words. It might help if you check out a few websites for a free word counter...google 'free online word count tool' and it'll help you find one. This will give you a total word count for your post. I don't know about you but it's much easier than counting my 'normally 2000' word posts. You can also go to a website like 'wordcounter' and it will break down the words for you and give you a total count on how many times each word is used.

3) Be sure to use your keyword in your first and last sentence of your blog.

4) If you can 'bold' your keyword once or twice in your blog, then do that as well.

5) If you already have your adsense account approved and you've followed their instructions to activate your blogs with their ads, take a look at them and make sure they apply to your content. If they're way off, then you need to go back and see what happened.

I realize I'm pounding you mercilessly about your keywords, but I want to remind you about what I said earlier about spamming your blog. You do not want to labeled as a spam blogger by G. So try to stick to these instructions as closely as you can. Just as it's possible to do too little, it's possible to do too much also.

I'll wait right here while you catch up. Now is a good time.

By the way, if you're wondering why I didn't emphasize all of these things earlier, before you started writing your posts, I'll tell you. I really wanted you to concentrate on the quality of the content in your posts. I gave you enough information at the start so you wouldn't be too far off and some of these 'rules' would already be in place. Now that you've jumped that hurdle, you can go back and tidy up everything. Not only that but it gives you good practice on editing your material and getting it just the way you want it.

I encourage you to review and review again your blog. Making money will be so much easier if you have a few set things in place.

Okay, that's done! That wasn't too bad was it? You passed! I strongly encourage you to refer to this list often and keep consistent with it in all your posts. No, I don't mean the privacy policy, who cares if the search engines crawl that, right?

So, if you're ready to get back to learning how to make money with your blog, we can move forward and I say Let's Do This!

Step 3 - Let's Talk About Money by Blogging

Welcome to the next step in How To Set Up Your First Blog and Start Making Money! If you're just joining us for the first time please catch up with step 1 and step 2. The next bit of information I'm going to be sharing with you will make a lot more sense that way!

I understand some of you may have stumbled on this site simply because you were looking for an easy, cheap way to set up a blog with no other intentions. Granted, this is a good place to start. Others have come here in the hopes of turning their blog into a place to begin earning some extra money. Is this you? I'm here for both of those reasons. I want to be able to provide valuable information to help other people......information that some sites charge well into the hundreds of dollars. Why? Because they can. Because a lot of newcomers don't know that almost anything you need to know online can be found for free! I'd also like to earn extra money as I have already mentioned. For me, it's a win-win situation.

Note: Throughout this post we will be using some terms that may be unfamiliar to many of you. I will be inserting italicized, bold text throughout to define these terms to help you better understand what they mean. If I leave any terms out please let me know!

So let's start with a few basics on how we make money online. We need to learn about search engine optimization, commonly called SEO.

SEO (search engine optimization) - According to wiktionary, SEO refers to "the use of various techniques to improve a blog or web site's ranking in the search engines and thus attract more visitors".

Throughout this blog you will be learning different SEO techniques. Properly utilizing these techniques will result in your site becoming indexed by Google. Once you are indexed, then Google will start sending traffic to your site. This is the beginning! You can't begin to make any money until you start getting traffic (visitors) to your site. How long does this take you ask? Be patient, it could take a few weeks....or it could take a few days. Google has numerous ways of determining how your site shows up. Many of these we know about, while some of their methods are undisclosed to everyone except Google.

Indexing - refers to whether or not your site is recognized by Google.

So, is your site indexed yet? How do you find out? Just go to Google and query your URL. In the search box type your complete URL address; example http://www.bite-me.com. When you begin to type out this URL in the search box you will see a drop-down list appear with an index (list) of sites that begin with those letters. Keep typing the URL so it can narrow the list down until you see your site. If you don't see your site show up on that list, then you are not indexed. Yet. Patience is a virtue. *ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!*

Anyway, these 'indexed' sites are the sites google crawls through to look for information relevant to your search. Yes, I said 'crawls'. Google is like a bug with many many legs and it continuously crawls over the sites looking for information. (Sincerely hopes the Google Gods don't banish her site to the ever loving google sandbox for such atrocity!) How does it determine what's relevant you ask? Oh, well it determines relevancy in many ways, some we know, some we don't. So we work with what we know.

Here's a few of the things we know google evaluates:

Page Content - this refers to the quality and uniqueness of your material.

Google likes material that is unique. This will help get a higher ranked site. If you're getting your material directly from another site, fine! My suggestion is to read the site you're gathering information from and understand it and then re-write it in your own words. So copy and paste? - don't do it. You won't get indexed quickly. You may not get indexed at all. Nobody likes a copycat! Speaking of copycats, let's not forget how closely the word resembles copyrights. There are laws, people! So write 'unique content'. Remember, while we do care what Google 'thinks', we are first and foremost writing for people. Yep, people reading your content. Show your personality, it's fun! Offer something of value. While I agree there is way too much importance placed on 'time', I can't deny it's something people don't want to waste. So, quality content, unique content, teach, share, whatever it is you do, make people glad they came to your site. Let's move on.....

Keywords - these are words that help someone find the web page they're looking for.

Keywords are what someone types in the search engine when looking for information. Keywords are the main points of your page. In order for google to point someone to your page, it's going to have to match up the words being searched with words you use on your page. If your page is about 'widgets', then the word 'widget' needs to be mentioned throughout your page. (Don't forget where it's most important as well, i.e. URL address, blog title, description and post title.) The more the better. If your page is about how to 'make money online', then you need to use the keywords 'make money online' and 'money makers' and 'work online' and 'online business' and 'work at home'....get it? Those are just a few I came up with, on the spot. There are probably better and many more keywords to use. The point is, keywords are important. It's how Google categorizes your site.

Caution: Be careful when using your keywords. If you overuse them you could be labeled as a 'spam blogger'. If Google thinks you're spam blogging you will be deleted from their index. I've heard from other bloggers that the general rule of thumb is to use your keyword(s) no more than 6 or 7 times per hundred words. Don't ignore this warning. What's the point of doing all of this if no one is ever going to visit your site?

Content Volume - how much information is actually on your site

This does not mean write a 3000 word essay on widgets people! It serves no purpose except to put someone to sleep while reading your article. I don't care how fascinating your subject is, a person how can only handle so much information at any given time before the mind starts to wander. So break it up. Categorize! Give readers options on what area of your content they'd like to read. Remember, the more content you have, the more information (keywords too!) that G (google) can use to send more and more traffic to your site. New information is good as well. You don't have to post daily or even weekly but fresh material never hurts. By the way, there is a place and we WILL go there, for those blogs that need no maintenance. As long as people keep coming back to that site, all is well! More on that subject later....

Age...you're how old? Oh my word.........you don't say!

Age - This does not refer to your age, no one really cares do they? It refers to the age of your website. There are so many spam blogs that are produced daily G gives preference to older sites or blogs.

Yes, I know your site is new. We will discuss ways around this minor issue. No worries!

Page Rank - this simply refers to a number between 0 and 10 that G assigns to you regarding how important they think your site is.

Yes, what they think is important here. If your page ranks a 10....great! If it ranks a 0...not so good. With those of you just beginning, as I assume most of you are, your blog holds a 0 ranking at the moment. Don't worry, that's normal. Keep working at it...as your site gets older and you keep adding great content, you might get to a '1' in a year..maybe a little higher. This will get you...well..nothing really. You'll be so far back in the search pages, no one will ever find you. "What?" you say? "How can this be?" Well, that is the nature of competition isn't it? You want more, you have to do more. This leads us to the next 'definition'.

Backlinks - are incoming links to your blog or website. This means the more websites that have 'clickable links' on their websites that bring visitors to your site, the better, and the more important G believes you to be!

Why are backlinks important? Believe it or not, search engines track the number of backlinks on your page and and will base your page rank on how many backlinks you have. Does it matter where your backlinks are from? Of course it does. The more knowledgeable the source of your backlink, the more value it has to the search engines. The higher that website is ranked, the better. If your content and the content of your backlink is related, the higher your page will be ranked. Multiply this times the number of backlinks you will have on your page. Search engines like backlinks and so will you! So this boils down to one thing. You need backlinks and you need ones that are relevant to your site!

So what does this really mean? Any successful marketer out there knows that backlinks are crucial in their success. Are they going to tell you this? Probably not. The reason is that sometimes giving too much information can threaten one's own ability to earn money. Now why would anyone do that? So I'm going to share with you what I've learned through my research and then you can try these things out for your own. Or not. You'll find what works best for you. First, stay away from linkfarms and link exchanges. They're old news. They provide irrelevant links and G ignores them these days. So, just don't do it. They're not worth the hassle. Ideally, having a one-way link to your site is better than exchanging links anyway. If someone is willing to link to your site but you don't have to link to their's in exchange, this means your content is thought to be very important. G notices this kind of thing and gives 'kudos' for having it. (Not to mention it helps raise your page rank!) Lots of backlinks are good...lots of perfect backlinks are better. What's a perfect backlink? A perfect backlink comes from a website that has a high page ranking and it's content is related to your content. There's so much more information on backlinks but rather than overwhelm anyone I'm going to stop here and hope you got the gist of it. Look for future articles on this blog specific to backlinks.

Back to the lesson at hand now...making money!

I'm going to say just a couple things about Google Adsense for right now and then we are going to get adsense set up in our blog. Adsense is the first way we're going to begin earning money. Are we going to get rich? Nah. Not if you have only one blog and you only use adsense. However, for training purposes, as well as beyond, it's a great place to start. It costs absolutely nothing. It pays YOU. How does it work? Adsense will place advertisements on your blog and when someone reads your blog and sees an ad they're interested in and decides to click on it, you get paid. (If you have followed my instructions so far, the ads you get will be directly related to the content in your blog. The very first ads you see may not look that way but give G some time to sort out what's on your blog and you'll see it happen. ) Or maybe they get to your blog and decide this wasn't what they were looking for and they click on ad and go somewhere else instead. But they clicked on your ad! Clicks mean money! (By the way, don't think you can simply click on your own ads all night long and earn money. Google has a few ways of detecting this is happening and we don't want you to get shot down by the G Police!) Easy? Sure. What's the catch? Here's the catch. The money you get for someone clicking on your ad is literally pennies. Maybe a dollar on a really good day. This is why some people create hundreds and hundreds of blogs. Many of those blogs need no maintenance and aren't updated frequently if at all. But they get traffic and they get clicks and you know as well as me that pennies do add up eventually. So yes, you can absolutely make a lot of money with adsense. There is work involved, remember? This is where it is!

Alrighty then, let's begin.

If you don't already have your blog open, do that now. Click on 'customize'. On the right side, you'll see a few boxes with options to 'edit'. The first one says 'about me'. I chose to delete this box at first until I've decided what I really want to say 'about me'. The choice is yours. If you want to add something about yourself for your visitors to see, do it now. If you don't want to do that now, click on 'about me' and then click 'remove'. No need to have an empty 'about me' section, right?

Next we're going to click on 'add a gadget'. Scroll down the list it gives you until you see 'adsense'. Select 'add to blog'. If you don't already have an account with adsense you're going to be directed to open an account. Follow the instructions and get your account set up. You will get a response by email in regards to your account, meaning it's been approved/disapproved. Don't forget to 'save changes'! Make sure you have your privacy policy in place and assuming you answered all the questions properly in the terms when signed up, there shouldn't be a problem. If there is a problem, you will be offered an explanation and the opportunity to take care of the issue. The response time is usually one or two days. Be patient. Once you're approved, you will have instructions in the email to activate your adsense account and once you've followed their instructions you should see google ads on your blog. You'll be given options to the size and placement of your ads. You choose. On this blog I use 160X600 vertical wide banners for the right columns. You can preview all the sizes and shapes and customize until you have it looking the way you want it. Once this is complete, you will see your advertisements on your blog.

While you're waiting for approval on your account from adsense, this is a good opportunity to add new posts to your blog. Just look for the box that says 'new post'.

In the meantime, take time to look over all you've done to this point. Review your definitions listed above. You will be seeing them again. Review your post(s) and edit if necessary. Brainstorm your future posts!

That ends step 3. You've been given a lot of information to take in. Breathe! When you're ready, move on and learn more about how to make money blogging, continue to Step 4 and Let's Do This!

Step 2 - Setting up a Privacy Policy

We're going to take a brief break from continuing with our blog for just a few minutes. One of the next things we're going to be talking about is Google Adsense. This is where we'll start talking about making money. Before we can use Adsense, though, we will be required to include a privacy policy somewhere on our blog. Be sure you keep up with these policies and requirements from any money making site you use to keep from violating any rules and possibly losing your ability to use their site. So, how do we do that, exactly? There's a neat little site I've found that will generate a privacy policy for you.

The URL is http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/. Open up another page or a new tab go to this site. The entire process should take less then a minute. It asks for your URL and which companies you're working with and lastly select 'generate policy'. Don't worry, as you add to your blog you can also update your privacy policy.

Once this is done you simply need to create a new post in your blog and title it 'privacy policy' or some form of such and don't forget to put in your link to your blog and copy the privacy policy into the text box. If you want your privacy policy to not interrupt the flow of your other posts, change the date of the post. Backdate it to before your first post. This can be done by clicking on the 'post options' link on the lower left corner of the post text box. Change the date. Publish! That's it. Now let's get back to the fun stuff. Ready? Let's Do This!

Step 1 - Write your first blog now!

Most people I talk with are confused about how to begin an online business and even more so when it comes to starting a blog or making money online. Now I don't know about you, but for me, I needed to find a way to break into this business with next to nothing for investment. Okay..no money was what I had and no money was what I was looking to spend. Not only that, but I needed something that was set up in a way I could follow. Yep, I needed it to be easy! I am not a computer geek. I've made computers do what I need them to, barely, and often with the assistance of friends and occasionally professional help (for my computer, not me!) and while sometimes successful, other times I've sent my computer into oblivion. Those are the days I sadly turn in my computer to a local repair shop to be 'saved'. In this day of recession and unemployment I have found myself unable to make to earn decent money with no sign of relief in the near future. You too? Maybe for some of you, the times are not so hard but you're still looking for a way to bring in some 'passive income'. Passive income is generally defined as money not derived from your job. Royalties from a book or music, rent received from real estate or any income received in which you don't have to participate can be considered passive income. For me, I want to bring in enough money to help me break free from the '9-5' scenario of working to increase someone else's worth while I just simply 'get by'. Another form of passive income is the money you can make from your own online business. Okay, it does involve work at first but there are ways to reduce your work load as well as have sites that need next to nothing as far as actual work once set up. (We'll get to that part later.) If this sounds like you, then please continue reading. Keep in mind, this is not a 'get rich quick' scheme. It will require effort on your part and a great deal of it, at least to start. But you'll be working for yourself and you'll set your own hours. You won't have to miss your child's school play or that golf game when the weather's perfect or you can go to that concert you've been waiting a year to see and party all night without consequence and, if you're anything like me, you can 'sleep in' whenever you want. Til noon!

I'm sure there are many, many ways to make money online but I've found a way to get started with no money out of pocket. This is through the use of blogs. Blogs can be created for free with the assistance of sites like Blogger.com. Today's lesson will involve setting up your own account through Blogger just like this one that you are reading right now. I know there are other places you can create free blogs, however, since this is what I'm using, I'm going to go through the instructions with you as you set up your own blog just like I did, step by step.

So let's get started....

Go to blogger.com and set up your account. Fill in the basic information requirements necessary to get started with Blogger. (Pretty much the same as any other site you've ever registered for, name, email, phone number, rights to your first born if you fail...and so on.) Just kidding on that last point. So breathe and relax!

Once that's done, select 'create account'.

The first page that comes up will ask you to select a name for your blog. In the section for 'blog title', you'll want to come up with a name that describes what your blog is about. This is what is called a "keyword". Keywords are the words someone is going to type into a search engine to find your site. For them to find you, you need to have those words throughout your blog. Keywords need to be placed in your blog url, your blog title, your blog description and your blog's post title. These are the places that the search engines will look first when determining what your blog is about. If your blog is about how to make money online, and you choose a title like "passive income", then the search engine bots are going to be confused when it comes to placing your blog in the right place for search. I suppose it could possibly attract traffic y searching how to make money online, but you'll be so far back in the search pages, nobody will find you. It will probably also attract traffic looking for real estate investments, book royalties, etc. So get specific! For this particular blog, I am interested mainly in showing others how to get started with blogging. I chose 'How To Set Up Your First Blog' so that if someone types that into a search box...how to set up a blog..then this site will present itself as an option. I've used these words in my url address, my blog title, my blog description and the title of my post. Think I've used it enough? Maybe, but just to be sure I'm going to use it again in the first line of my post and wherever else I can. So think about what you want your blog to be about and try entering it into the blog address (URL) box. I start with the URL box first because I want to make sure it's available before I set my title. Once you type in your desired URL address then click 'check availability'. Don't be surprised if your chosen title is not available. The more popular your topic is, the harder it will be to find a name. Once I have that finished, then I will go back and set the title now knowing it's also available as my URL. This way, I don't have to continually change the title because the URL was not available. After that's done, enter the word verification. (Better luck with the word verification than me....I always have to enter the letters as many times as it takes me to find an available URL...don't know why I can't read those straight off!) When completed, select 'continue'.

If you haven't thought about what your blog is going to be about, now is the time if you want to create your blog properly. So sit back, put your thinking cap on and get to it!

Go on, I'll wait right here.

Ok! Done? Good. Let's move on. Next you're going to be asked to select a template. Choose the one that is already selected for you, called Minima, just for this blog for training purposes (unless you really like it, then continue using it for all your other blogs). ("all my other blogs?" what's she talking about). Don't worry, we'll get to that later. If you don't want other blogs, don't worry, you can always change the template on this one later. You can change it every day if you like, although you might confuse someone who comes in to read your posts and it looks different every time. They might feel lost as if they're not where they're supposed to be. Not a good thing really. So go ahead, click 'continue' and let's move on.

Easy so far, huh?

You should now see a message that says 'your blog has been created'. Woo hoo! Select 'start posting' and you're almost ready to get to the heart of the matter. First though, let's customize a few things, so select "settings" and then 'basics'. In the 'descriptions' box, enter what your site is about, making sure you use those keywords again at least once and twice if you can. The ones I use are "Learn Blog Setup for Beginners|How To Use Blogs|Make Money Online|Your First Blog"

So think what you want your descriptions to be and enter them into the box.
Next check the box that says "Add your blog to our listings?" and set it to 'yes'.
Also, check the box that says "Let search engines find your blog?"and make sure this says 'yes'. Don't change anything else on this page.
Scroll to the bottom and select 'save settings'.

Now select 'formatting'. Psst....It's to the right of 'basics'.

Next to 'show', select 1 for the number of posts to show on your main page.
Select the right time zone for your area.
Make sure 'show link fields' is set to 'yes'.
Everything else stays the same.
Select 'save settings'.

Next go to 'comments'.
Next to 'comment form placement' select 'pop-up window'.
Scroll down to 'backlinks' and select 'show'.
Beside 'show word verification for comments' select 'yes'.
Enter your email address in the box for 'comment notification email'.
Now it's time, again, to 'save settings'.

Almost finished with settings!

Select 'Archiving'.
Make sure 'archiving frequency' is set to monthly.
Also, select 'yes' to 'enable post pages'.
Select 'save settings'.

YES!..You're done. Well, with the technical stuff for now at least. It's time to write your blog.

Need a break?...Hold on, I'm gonna stop soon and let you get on with things and we'll resume in our next lesson after you've had time to catch your breath.

Select "Posting" from the top left of the page.

The first box says 'title'. You want to give your post a title and while it doesn't have to be the exact same as your blog post, it does need to include your keyword(s).

The 'link' box is asking for your original URL that you set up at the beginning of this project. We're just making sure that your posts always link back to your home page on Blogger.

The next space is that big box where you're going to put in your post.

You have all sorts of options at the top of the text box to highlight, bold, italicize or whatever you feel like doing with your post.

If you're like me, this particular section will require you to stop and concentrate on the content of your post. Be sure to include your keyword(s) in the URL, blog title, post title, first and last sentence of your blog. You also need to continue using your keywords through the post. This way when the search engines crawl your blog they will have an easier time determing what you blog is about. This is very important to making sure your blog ends up where you want it to in the search engines. At the bottom of the post box you will see another box with the word 'labels' in front of it. These labels you insert are simply words you used in your post. By clicking on labels, your reader can automatically go to whatever posts include that particular word. (Be sure to put a comma between each label you use.)

Tip: It might be easier for many of you to start with a very simple and short first post. It was for me. This allows you to get it completed and then sit back and take a look at what you've done so far. When you view your blog it's possible you'll get ideas on the design, things you wished you had done and changes you'd like to make. If only you had known! Wouldn't it be much easier to make changes to a post of 200 words rather than 2000?

When you have finished writing your post it's time to select "publish post".

So get to work, write that post, publish it and click 'view blog' when you're done. That's it. You did it! You are now a 'blogger on your way'. Congrats!

Take some time to 'view' your blog and review. Don't forget about spell checker! Make sure it's the way you want it to be and if it's not, get some practice using your blogger dashboard. You can edit, delete, change fonts and colors and do many things any word processor would allow. Don't be afraid to use the 'help' section of blogger. There's a lot of information inside to assist you; things I may not have mentioned. I'd rather not put you to sleep while we're still on step 1! Remember, the more you move around the site, the more comfortable you're going to be when you decide, if you decide, to create more blogs. (Like I mentioned, we'll get to that soon enough.)

If you've completed all the above instructions, you have accomplished much today. Feel great about that. You're now online! When you're ready, move on to step 2. Warning: It's not about making money and it's not about blogging but it's very important so Let's Do This!

How To Set Up Your First Blog And Start Making Money!

Welcome to How To Set Up Your First Blog and Start Making Money! This site provides tips and techniques for setting up blogs in order to make money online. If you have questions not covered in How To Set Up Your First Blog and Start Making Money, please feel free to leave your comments and I will respond promptly. So if you're ready to get started blogging and making money, let's do this!

Privacy Policy

If you require any more information or have any questions about our privacy policy, please feel free to contact us by email at debsst@gmail.com.

At www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us. This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com and how it is used.

Log Files
Like many other Web sites, www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol ( IP ) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider ( ISP ), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons
www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

DoubleClick DART Cookie
.:: Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com.
.:: Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com and other sites on the Internet.
.:: Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html

Some of our advertising partners may use cookies and web beacons on our site. Our advertising partners include ....
Google Adsense
Clickbank


These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. www.how-to-set-up-your-first-blog.blogspot.com's privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browsers' respective websites.