Site Build It Aftermath
One of the more humourous (international spelling) things I see online are people that use link baiting. And the people who think others are link baiting. Link baiting is simply writing contentious posts and titles designed to attract attention. A useless endeavor for making money as the visitors don't click ads or buy things. Link baiting attracts social traffic. The only good that can be said for it is that they may leave you gobs of comments full of rich keywords to feed the Google bot. Keywords that will bring you targeted long tail traffic in future.
Lissie was accused of link baiting with her recent posts concerning SBI or Site Build It. She wasn't, she was simply using a tried and true technique known as Keyword Targeting her post in order to rank well in the search engines. The point was to obtain targeted search visitors who do click ads and buy things. She wrote a second follow up post in order to link to the first post. The reason? That is how you can obtain double indexing in Google. (You have to use the exact same keywords anchored in both posts though) I wrote a post about Site Build It as well and have now linked to it and will link that post to this one.
If you use keyword targeting and people link to you then they are likely to use your post title in the anchored link pointing at you. If that happens then you will rank better for that keyword.
How did Lissie make out? (click images to enlarge)
- and that's how you make money with Adsense. Let the people flogging a program pay you to flog it for them. They do all the work - you collect the money. When one batch of affiliates have lost enough money using PPC another batch will replace them. You will still be making money with a program like SBI long after the current crop of users have quit blogging on SBI. Just be sure to target a program like Lissie did - it has been around a long time and probably will be for some time to come. To find the right programs just look for fanatical cheerleaders, and lots of fake review sites. Simply post a contrary review and the fanatics will get your post noticed. Once noticed many people who have been scammed or are simply not happy with the program in question will link to you. Google will also give your post a nice position even without the links. See Justin's SEO blog for a technical explanation of why this is so.
Lissie's post is done, ranked and she will never have to do another thing and the search traffic will show up every day and make her money should she add Adsense to the post. (assuming there is search traffic for the term - if not use the post to send authority for a term that does get search traffic - ie. Site Build IT, Site Build It Review etc) Ideally you want to rank number 1 for all the terms. I have discussed how this is done previously.
Oh... and how well does social traffic convert?
Some of the folks on Digital Point Forum seemed to think my Niche Blogging with Hot Topics post was designed as link bait. Let's see why I don't bother with forums or chase social traffic.
This past week my 5th highest source of traffic came from a thread in Digital point.
Source: Google Analytics
And let's see how well my traffic sources converted into Adsense Earnings.
Source: Google Analytics
Some of you may think $12 bucks is worth spending your time chasing 1100 social visitors but it will take a lot of work to keep that traffic coming daily. Do what Lissie did and you won't have to chase anything - Google will send them to you.
So? Does SEO work?
Lesson completed. (insert smilie dude)
Cheers
Griz
Related Posts
Site Build It Review Update
Honest Reviews Online
Friday, March 27, 2009
Site Build It - Lessons Learned
Project Payday - A Legit Method to Make Money at Home
I have included Project Payday on my blog for all of my readers who write in asking if there are any legit online programs that they can use to make some quick money. Project Payday is not a get rich quick scheme - it is more like a work at home job. You don't need a blog or website as it involves getting paid to try out trial offers from online advertisers. There is work to this but you can realistically earn a couple of hundred dollars a day if you want to put in the effort.
I have written several posts about this and suggest you start with this one. Project Payday
Unfortunately Project Payday is only available to American users at this time.
CashCrate is another similar program (you get paid to take trial offers for products, services or completing online surveys etc.) Cashcrate does accept people world wide and they have a decent selection for Canadian and UK residents. If you are American then you will benefit the most as you have the most offers to choose from. Btw - it's free to join.
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63 comments:
Hey Grizz,
Been following Lis and her rankings etc. Good to see that she has climbed up there for a few of the different keywords around for reviews of site build it and sbi review scam etc.
Think this is a good lesson for all of us to understand how things work in the real world. Also, interesting to take a look over in the forums and see the different posts that are being put up - quite funny :-)
It sure has been fun watching the SBI thing play out. Now I'm wishing I took part in it. But I showed up a little late to the game. Oh well, next time.
I have been having a lot of fun tearing up the SERPs at the local level. For the most part, I haven't really come across any terms that required a massive gang of compadres like you've got here. But it sure would come in handy.
This Bobby Flay style throwdown sure lit a fire under me to get my flagship blog out of parked status and into the game.
I'll certainly be ready the next time a big lesson needs to be served:)
Hi Grizz,
Another great post.
I was wondering what program did you use for those screen shots. It tells you exactly how much money you make from adsense from what traffic source. That seems very useful. Is is SEO Elite or another program?
Thanks,
Bridget
Thanks for the post Griz,
I really like how you are able to show us how to dissect what is going on in the SEO arena. With your help I am starting to really grasp how it works, although I can see it will be a life long endeavor considering it is always changing.
Your work here is appreciated.
This has got to be one of the ultimate games going.
I don't get it Griz. Who cares if her post was linkbait; isn't one of the things we're supposed to to to get links write baiting posts? I mean that's what makes top 10/10 best/the worst lists work so well in the A list world. They're linkbait.
I think she should own it, as it was a GREAT post. It was cool for everyone to rally around about it too; even if there WERE some haters.
Hell, now that she's on top she should move to plan B. Not say anything about while gradually rewriting the post. In a few months when we've all forgotten about it, insert some affiliate links for SBI and other related programs along with her AdSense. Bam. Get paid in both hands. =)
So Griz, assuming that she doesn't do anything else with the post (no more links) is there anyway to know how long it will stay in that spot or even on page 1? I'm having trouble understanding that.
If it takes me months of solid work to hit number 1, what must I do to keep it? It seems like eventually you could only manage a couple niches before you simply wouldn't have time to build links or post.
Hey Griz,
You finally switched over the Analytics? I have found that the earnings reported on Analytics are at best 80% of what gets reported in the Adsense interface. I have also found that the page earnings report is a little funky - it tells you that a page earned money but then you go to that page and things are all out of whack and it says that you didn't earn any money on that page. Very strange if you ask me.
But it could be because my site that I am testing it on only gets about 100 visitors a day. Too small time for Google to care.
This whole Site Built It! Review thing has really taught me a lot about SEO - thanks for running the clinic!
Steward
I think it would be really funny if Liz signed up to SBI as an affiliate and added the link to that series of posts and comments. I would be really curious to see how many people would, in spite of all the information posted there, still sign up.
Strathy
Griz,
Those bounce rates are pretty high - 76% LOL
Seriously though, the time on site is amazing even with a 76% bounce... Just proves that you have quality content... when you catch a fly, you really catch them!
Hey Griz,
I hit post before I asked the question I have been wanting to ask. I have been putting links to people with good information on my blogrolls. Since a link from a targeted post has more juice would it be better to actually write one or two targeted posts with anchored text keywords or is it worthwhile to use the blog roll. Also, If I have a pr4 blog and I write a post is that post pr4 only as long as it is on the home page or do all the posts carry that ranking? And one more, are the links on the blogroll pr4 even though they are of a lesser quality than the links in a targeted post?
I just want to give the most bang for the buck when linking out.
Thanks again.
Griz,
the biggest lesson learned from this "Site Build It" thing is that everyone (your royal readers) should be ready to support someone and help him/her climb the SERPs. I think this is the main point. We are here to learn from you but also support you (and our community) to succeed in our common goal (improve our SERPs). I also admit that this time I did not get this from the beginning but I will be "In" in your next call.
And a question....do you have any comments about webseo dot org and its services?
Thanks a lot again
Kill two birds with one stone...
1) 1st bird - Scam bird.
2) 2nd bird - Hatchling bird (just broke the hard shell, now I see how the world looks like!).
"Harvey Ball"
Griz
The link to Justin's SEO site is pure gold for the most coherent explanation I've yet encountered as to why and how long tail traffic works as well as it does.
Day after day I watch a steady stream of folk show up at my door with the weirdest assortment of long tail variations on my main keywords, and every day one in eight of all these passing strangers clicks on an ad.
I always suspected that the excruciatingly long and tediously focussed nature of the articles played a crucial role in this pleasingly lucrative phenomenon, but now I think I actually understand why.
Rambling content automatically creates long tails and long tail searches inherently convey greater “intent” which implies two things:
- it’s altogether easier to create material that closely matches specific intents and thus gets favoured by Google.
- the searcher is more likely to be looking for something specific and to therefore click ads;
Anyway, I’m procrastinating – I have a long and achingly dull article I need to craft to meet an apparently burgeoning demand for a specialist type of kitchen appliance. Yawn, but needs must.
Griz,
I've always tried to shy away from social traffic, because I haven't been able to convert well. I think this post of yours just confirmed that my hunch is right.
The value of having someone who is seriously searching for relevant information is way above that of someone who just has too much time on his hands,...and he's just whiling away all his time, putting others down in forum or other social networks.
Two thumbs up for great post and seo traffic.
Thanks Grizzly, did not think of doing follow up posts using the same keywords in the title, but it will be a tactic in future, kind of like the to be continued cliffhangers on tv. Did you get the artificial impressions bump up this week from adsense like everyone else, and do you have any theories why? Thanks
The whole SBI thing was amazing. I occasionally took a look at the SERPs and saw how the posts moved around on the pages of G. A very interesting SEO lesson indeed. Things will continue to change in the SERPs since from what I have read G treats links like wine the older the better. In a year those posts may even be unbeatable considering the amount of anchored links they received. Unless G does something about it. By the way Griz got approved at today.com used your name in the referral: (Griz).
Hey, Grizz, I'm a first time poster. I think I've just about read everything on this site as well as the other two blogs. I love what you write. Sorry this doesn't have anything to do with Site Build It, but I wanted to thank you for all this information.
I first heard about you on the Warrior Forum and now I find I'm spending more time here than there. It's still a good forum, but most of the time the info is all over the place. And you just hammer the same things over and over.
I do have one question, do you explain where you're watching all your stats at? What program, is it Google Analytics?
thanks again
Mack
This is awesome. I've always wondered how double-listing on Google happens. Lissie probably doesn't need to do this anymore because she's number 1 for her target, but does it help at all to, over time, make more posts on a blog that link back to the original? Like maybe wait two weeks or a month and do a third follow-up? Can you build more authority that way? Or is it diminishing returns.
Thanks as always.
Google Analytics?
Now that's a new one. :)
Doesn't link-baiting do just that, build links? And a links to any post or page gives your whole blog juice in general, right?
Thanks, Griz.
Learned lots through all this.
I have to wonder if SBIers typically spend so much time chatting, posting, and pontificating online. Major time suck. (Probably MMO is easy with SBI, and hence the abundance of free leisure time that can be spent on online banter.)
Seems like a lot has happened on this blog and friends. Have to go back and read the stuff.
So Griz,
Do you recommend doing this with past articles as well? For example, going back a few months and linking a more current post to it? Hopefully I am asking this question correctly. Thanks for your time.
thanx, Griz.
Please reveal what are those signs next to sponsored links at the google search screenshot. What addon do you use and what it shows?
Excellent stuff Griz,
I wondered what you were up to, now I need to read it again to understand it, then I guess I'll be writing some more posts about SBI. Very illuminating ! VicW
Like I said over at the other site, if nothing else, the whole SBI experiment should have shown any of you doubters out there that the methods that Grizz recommends work.
I really enjoyed it :)
Hmm ... I understand the concept, and appreciate the knowledge being shared here, but I can't understand the furor raised by the term 'link baiting'. I guess it is the current 'politically correct' thing to hide or sugar coat what you are doing in the real world with frothy names.
If someone writes a controversial article and monetizes it with ads, what else are they doing except link baiting? In case poeple haven't norticed, fish are a very important source of food in this world, and a great many fish are caught with bait. What's next, a law forcing fishermen to use unbaited hooks ... or a ban on fishing until a government comisison studies the effects on the fiches psyche?
Personally, I like cod, and many other species. I fail to see how commercial fishing could be made any better, ot more profitable by calling it something else. To say she was 'accused' of linkbaiting is silly. Accused gives the connotation that she was doing something wrong. She was not. She shared her opinon, and mainly due to the links she got, Google propelled her to the top.
I can't understand the prevailing attitude where people want to make money, but want to put some sort of window dressing on what they are doing so that it sounds 'nice', or so much more 'scientific' than it really is.
By the way, I've never been there, but I'll wager that the guests at Griz's lodge are encouraged to use bait, live, fly or otherwise ;-)
Yes, it was great to see all this play out with SBI and on the DP forum. There were a lot of very important lessons to be learned too. It's just to bad that most of the people who replied negatively aren't going to see what they could learn. They're blinded by their own way and it's sad.
I don't know if she monetized the site or not and maybe I won't make thousands because of this line of thinking, but if she truly felt that SiteBuildIT were a piece of junk, shouldn't she not monetize for that product? I have excluded ads on sites that I felt went against my grain.
I fish with a net, or dynamite when I can get it.
Hi Griz,
I've no questions to ask at this point in time. :-)
This "Site Build It Scam Review" thing was an extremely great lesson worth tons.
It basically was a live exercise on what you are teaching about SEO...and the SERPs provided convincing and crystal clear evidence that they work.
Have a pleasant day Sensei.
Thanks.
Hey Griz,
Nice seeing you and Lissie move up in the SERPS. Loved the SBI post btw. Great reaction from the comments also. Didn't expect to see so many detractors though.
Oh, I sent your post and Lissie's some UAW love the other morning. You should start seeing it show up soon.
Don
Thanks Grizz!! I think everyone should've learned this lesson. But like everything you learn, there is the TELL/SHOW/DO aspect.
You can TELL people how to do something (which you've done repeatedly and this IM'er thanks you from the bottom of his heart)... this lesson SHOWED them how it can work... now all they need to do is DO IT!!!
Its too bad the SBIers didn't learn a thing from this object lesson.
Oh yeah - I did a nice BMD run on all the posts you linked to on the previous SBI page. Hopefully we keep Lissie #1 for a long time.
Griz,
Thank you!
I have been posting links to prior posts, but I failed to understand they had to be the exact same keywords. No wonder I wasn't getting double indexing.
Now I need to go back and redo a few links. :-)
I guess I need another post for Site Bild It and see what happens.
Hey Griz,
I've been watching the SBI saga focusing on the lessons of linkbuilding and what it does to rise up the SERP. From out of nowhere, Lis' post went to no. 1 because of the many links and their proper anchor tags. Never really thought about the money-making angle until I read this post. Umm, makes me think as there are so many crappy products out there to target.
Hey griz, I've been following your blog for awhile. But, since when Google Analytics has the feature for tracking Adsense click? I thought it's not launched yet?
Duh I am so stupid - "you have to have the exact same keywords to get the double post" fixed it up now LOL
The CBC for SBi is really quite high -though I read in the SBI forums that Ken Evoy is on the war path to ban affiliates who dare to run "negative SBI ads" for their adwords programs - guess I won't be doing that!
I somehow feel that I may get rejected for their affiliate program ...
But the CPC is quite good in Adsense ....
Lissie
Funny how people get so worked up over your posts, Griz. Maybe it's because I'm an SEO noob, but I don't see the problem in link baiting, smashing a scam product or getting your friends to help smash a scam product.
Oh and thanks for explaining the double indexing again. I couldn't put it together from one of your older posts.
Cheers
Phil
This was quite an explosive response but a great free educational opportunity to actually see up close what you've taught on your blog all along regarding link building with the use of targeted anchor text and a bit of controversy - negative, contrarian viewpoints.
Thanks for the education Griz - it's been an eye opener !
Hey Griz,
This SBI event has been a good lesson. I am still struggling with building links. Have been trying to build links through articles though. Need some serious thinking, I guess..
well.. posted this comment just to say 'hi'.. it's been a while..
cheers
Griz:
Just wondering what your your position is in using meta keyword tags and why you don't use them? I couldn't find any related info on any of your pages or sites.
I understand the importance of back linking, but are keyword tags useless and why?
Wow! This whole thing has been an eye-opener (especially the "query deserves diversity" business - I guess that explains why Google is a better experience than Yahoo from a user point of view).
P.S. Is blogging Zoom now closed? I tried to register but got an error page
Hello Grizzly,
Way to go man. Your revenues are the finest.
I was wondering how many websites do you have to generate this amount of traffic?
I started a project in this area but it's recently new. I am new in the Internet money making area.
If you could give me a feedback I would be very grateful:
http://how-to-make-online.blogspot.com/
Thanks a lot.
Sinceraly,
Mauricio
Griz,
Every post you make is like a mini-College education in SEO. Thanks for giving this "freshman" some insights into what works -- and what doesn't -- in this game.
Andy- Couldn't you write the post with your outgoing link in it, and then put the individual posts into your blogroll (or change "blogroll" to "persons of interest" or something similar)? That way, they get the post links, and you may increase your page views... Just a thought. :-)
Well I can see where all this is coming from now after reading that fresh post about SEO and that girls way of directing targetted traffic back to her from google. I like that idea I would do it on a refresh. Im putting this in place as much as I can right now. I hope I enjoy as much success as she did!
Hi Griz,
Great followup man! I have 4 sites that are complete scam review sites of differing MLM schemes. (did a vid about a while ago) These sites get really good traffic and as you stated, the cheerleaders like to come on there and leave comments berating me! I just laugh to the bank as my CTR goes up and up because after they rip me a new one in the comments, they just have to click the pretty ad on the sidebar! LOL
ANother great post about the site build it scam, and more importantly, a lesson in IM.
AL
Great Post Griz (and another excellent example of doing a follow up post targetting the same keywords as your first SBI post to get double indexing).
To do this successfully, does the first post need to be ranking well? I think I need to build links to my first post until its ranking on the first page before I write a second post to try and get double listing - is this correct or will the second post help ranking for both?
Tracey
Hi Griz,
After working for an American transcription company, now I am working for a British one. Though the language they use is rich than the American, the spellings are too confusing, am still not able to know what the "o" is doing in oedema (international spelling).
Is it dangerous if I have more than five blogs in a single blogger account with adsense in all with interlinking all the blogs through blogroll and sometimes posts(all with original posts, no spam).
Venkat
What an eye-opener all this SBI stuff was for me - & it's fascinating to see how everyone helps everyone else out here. I hadn't really appreciated the importance of 'online friends' before now!
I've also been trolling through the archives (again!) & have a question related to another post, but I'll put it here in case you don't respond to comments on earlier posts after a certain time. You mentioned that you usually optimise your sites for Adsense first, then if that doesn't work out, you convert them to affiliate ads, but that you don't really get around to optimising them for the affiliate stuff. So I'm curious to know what you'd do differently if you did set up a site specifically for affiliate ads, rather than Adsense?
Thanks again for all the great info - I'm in the process of launching my first project based on what I've learned here (& on Court's blogs), & am looking forward to seeing how it turns out! (I do have some other sites already, but didn't really know what I was doing when I set up those lol)
That's actually much higher CPM from digital point users than I expected to see... figured it'd only be worth 50 cents at most for 1000 visitors from there. Thanks for stats :)
Hi Grizz,
Thanks for such a wonderful article. Would like to read about SEO optimization
Hi Griz,
I greatly enjoued reading this article. You've got yourself another fan of your blog.
IT has taken me quite a while to realize that successful writing for the search engines is NOT the same as successful submissions to a magazine editor. Cute, catchy, and humourous (international spelling) titles just get ignored. The spiders are like Joe Friday in Dragnet... "just the facts ma'am". Too bad, in a way. Colin
You got some page rank back ;-)
Mmmm PR update just boosted my morale. :)
I can now actually barter with NON PR0 lol
Griz,
Congrats on getting position 1 and 2 on Google!
You are the man!
Which keywords are you referring to Denise?
Hey Griz,
Saw your rant and wanted to apologize. I actually responded to one of the guys on the DP forums, but I guess looking back on it...it was unnecessary.
I also missed out on the site build it linking thing, but maybe I can propose a new project...the Ken Evoy project? I'm sure a second go around could be fun :)
Anyway, just wanted to apologize cuz you're the king man.
Anyway, I guess I should get back to "requesting" those backlinks.
This is great information about how Google does their ranking with double indexing. Just when we think we have it figured out Google will change the formula for success!
Lol, 61 comments already. Took me a while to get down here to ask you a question.
You mentioned, double-indexing. What's that?
Hey Griz,
Great article as always. I am a new reader but just wanted to say I'm glad I found your blog.
To Dan Sherman:
I actually was curious as to what you meant when you said you wished you had been part of watching the whole SBI thing play out. Did that whole mentoring racket finally burn itself out or something?
Or did I miss something else?
ET (Eddy Teach)
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