I guarantee I will not sell you anything in this article. All I will give you is free information to show you How to Earn Money Online.
Quick Links to save you time:
Beginner: Keep Reading.
Intermediate: Skip the intro and Jump to step by step guide.
Advanced: Skip the guide and jump straight to the huge list of places to get free anchored backlinks.
Chances are that heading made most people move on. Articles about making money online or about How to Earn Money Online are a dime a dozen. People see what A-list bloggers like Shoemoney, John Chow and Problogger have achieved, start up new blogs, start posting about topics with article headings like the heading of this article, and just wait for the money to come in. I know, because, to some degree I was one of these jackasses. I started this blog with the intention to make a bit of money. I wanted 1000’s of visitors, I wanted them to click on my ads and I wanted to make some cash to support my full time job.
Have you ever read terms like: Content is king, post often to stimulate the search engines, etc etc.
Truth is good content helps, and having a site that is updated often is almost certainly a factor in major search engine ranking algorithms. However, at the end of the day what will make you money is not how regularly you post, or necessarily how great your content is, but how many quality backlinks you build to your site.
What I am saying is hardly ground breaking stuff. Bloggers like Griz who blogs about How to Make Money Online, have been writing about this for some time. Griz has an ugly looking blogger blog, hosted on a free platform, and many of the first time visitors to his site don’t even get onto his content because they assume it must be average because of the way the blog looks, or that fact that it is on a free platform. Well reading his blog will make you money. It really is a one stop shop to making money with Google Adsense and Niche blogs. And it makes him 1000′s each month.
What mistakes people make
People want to make money like the A-list blogger’s, so they copy them. Problems is it is hard to replicate what most A-lister’s have done. What most first timers see is a blog with 30,000 RSS readers and think, well if I some how get 30,000 RSS readers I can make a living out of this.
If you get 30,000 readers on your blog then yes you can probably make a living selling stuff to your readers like affiliate offers, and sign ups to the next best thing. But if you don’t have 30,000 RSS readers how can you replicate this same method. Selling affiliate offers and signing up people to the next big thing won’t make you money. All your readers, if you have any, have signed up to the A-listers affiliate links.
Social sites V Organic Traffic
We need to define a difference between an A-list blog(or social blog) and the blog you want. A-list blogs make money because they have lots of subscribers. They can sell stuff to their subscribers, because most of them believe that if they do what the A-lister says they will make money. You want to make money by getting organic traffic from search engines. You will make money by attracting visitors to your site who are searching for something (have a need), and some of them will click on your ads because the ads closely align with their need.
So how can you earn money online
This is a step by step guide to making money with an Adsense niche site.
Step 1 : Pick A niche
You need to have plenty of potential search visitors, and it helps to have higher paying keywords if we are going to monetize it with Adsense. Use this tool, making sure you show the column Average CPC.
Step 2 : Pick your Keywords – very important – don’t skip
You can use the Adwords tool above for this, however, at times some of the volume results are exaggerated. Try something like this keyword tool. Keyword Elite is also good, but that costs a bit, and I am not here to sell you anything. Pick one main keyword which has plenty of searches, and at least 4 others which complement it.
Step 3 : Pick a platform
WordPress sites are great, but you need a host, and to buy a domain. If this is your first attempt at making money online, why not try blogger. If you go down the buying a domain path, try and get a domain which has your main keyword in it. Normally it can take up to six months before you will get any google traffic on a new domain (Sandbox effect), however, on one occasion I found a domain “myKeyword.net” which started ranking in Google 3 days after registering the domain. Albeit for a fairly low competition keyword with roughly 1000 searches a month. If you want your own domain also consider buying an old expired domain, it will rank much faster than a new domain. If you use blogger, try and get the keyword in the URL also. It helps.
Step 4 : Set up your site – On site SEO
Your main keyword needs to be in the title of you homepage. You want your main keyword to appear in things like H1 header tags – i.e. article titles. In image alt text. In the first few paragraphs of text on the page. It’s important you write for your reader still, but get your keywords in there.
Step 5 : Write some content
You want at least 5 articles before you start. Write good clever content about your topic, include your keywords in your headings. The better your content is the more likely to will attract natural links which you don’t have to get your self. Link bait is content that is written with the intention of attracting links from other sites .i.e. a linkable resource.
Step 6 : Build Anchored Backlinks
Assuming you selected good keywords in step 2, this is the step that will determine your success, and it is probably the hardest. Backlinks are like search engine recommendations for your site. If you have lots of them from well ranked sites, your site will rank well and get lots of traffic. The “Anchored” part of it is what determines what terms or words you rank for. I.e. if a link says “check out this “site“”, and the link is from the word site, that doesn’t tell anything about the site, and thus isn’t as valuable. However, if a link says “check out this information about “how to earn money online” ” and the link is around the term how to earn money online, search engines will see your site is about earning money online.
Step 7 : Where to get Anchored Backlinks
Here is the valuable resource in this post. I have spent considerable time building up this resource and I am sharing it with you for free. All of the backlinks below are legit sites, so please don’t spam your crappy url’s on them. It’s a waste of time.
1) Comment on Keywordluv blogs
Blogs like this one have a plug-in called Keywordluv so you can get a backlink that is anchored. You have to leave your name in the format Yourname@keyword. You can also use the custom Google search below which only searches a list of blogs which have keywordluv installed. I am updating it regularly. DO NOT SPAM THESE BLOGS. Leave meaningful comments in the correct format and you will be rewarded. One of the leading contenders in the Busby SEO Challenge used Keywordluv to build up search engine rankings with great success.
Here is a list of all the higher PR Keywordluv blogs. There are others in the custom search.
Howtospoter PR5
Untwisted Vortex PR5
Shankrila PR4
Lost address PR4
SEO noobs PR4
Pingable PR3
Best of stupid PR3
Frank Haywood PR3
Freyer PR3
Inspiritblog PR3
LX Marketing PR3
Review Blog PR3
Link Building Bible PR3
Bloglot PR3
Capital City Toastmasters PR3
With a Brain PR3
A Much Better Way PR3
Tim Gary PR3
Andrew Daum Pr3
Steven Lohrenz PR3
Upstart Agent PR2
It Might Be Love PR2
Jackkeifer PR2
Getting rich the certain way PR2
Videotyme PR2
pinoyambisyoso PR2
Green energy trends PR2
2) Comment on forums that allow a link in your signature
Many forums allow you to add a signature with links to your site. If you have commented on 100 posts in forum then that is 100 links back to your site. Unless the forum post itself has been linked to, to build up PR, the pages don’t carry a huge amount of juice, however, it is still well worth the effort of adding a signature with the correct anchor if you post on forums anyway.
SitePoint Forums PR7
Digitalpoint PR6
Harmony-Central Forums PR6
Search Engine Round Table PR6
Submit Express Forums PR6
Start Ups PR6
v7n PR6
Webmaster Talk PR6
Comic Book Resources Forums PR5
Web Design Forum PR5
Marketing Chat PR5
Earners Forum PR4
TriPHP Forums PR4
360 Gamerscore PR4
Acorn Domain Name Forums PR4
Book and Reading Forum PR4
Check out “My SEO Blog” for a huge list of do follow forum signature sites.
3) Submit to social bookmark sites
Social Marker is a good free online tool to achieve this. I only bother with the sites that have do follow links. The first time you use it, it is slow as you have to sign up with all the sites. After that each following run through only takes a few minutes. Bookmark all your good articles with this site.
Here is a huge list of Pligg based social bookmarking sites for you to submit to. I am not suggesting it is a good idea to submit to them all, however, the sites in your niche and the sites with high PR would be well worth signing up for and submitting your content.
3dyo PR2
AddThisTo PR3
Affiliated Business PR3
Articles Network PR2
Ausculture PR4
BabbleStorm PR3
Bliggi PR0
BlogBookMark PR3
BlogsVine PR3
Blurpalicious PR4
Book-Mark Site PR0
Bookmarks PR2
BrightSaffire PR0
BukMarc PR2
Buzz24 PR3
C My Mark PR3
Choowawa PR0
DevBump PR4
Digg and Stumble PR0
DiggCore PR0
DigUfun PR0
DropJack PR5
eBizDigger PR0
Favename PR0
Firdaus PR3
Free Speech Project PR1
Gaddiposh PR3
Good Web Directory PR0
GoodDiggNews PR2
GoodSubmit PR2
Gradded PR0
Gruks PR2
HiVibeit PR4
HotBuzz PR2
I Want To PR0
Informed Networker PR5
Jackool PR1
Joomocracy PR5
LifeInNews PR4
LinkBin PR3
Live Wire News PR3
MashFactor PR1
Mindcow PR2
MobilityBeat PR4
My Social Bookmarkers PR2
Napkl PR0
NetSteering PR5
NewsDoggy PR4
NewsFinda PR1
NewsHeat PR2
NewsTimePR4
Neymo PR2
OldRec PR1
OneDepot PR1
OpenKiwi PR3
PillFish PR1
PingLog PR1
PinoyMug PR3
Pligg Directory PR3
Pligg.se PR1
Positive Sharing PR4
PPCad PR2
SDAS PR4
SEOjam PR0
SEOvoter PR3
Shouting Stones PR0
SiteSmash PR0
Social Bookmarking SEO PR2
Social XD PR2
SocialDanger PR2
SocialMedia1 PR3
Starton.us PR2
Takemetop PR1
Tech in Review PR1
Techiendo PR0
Thatsi PR0
The Blog Link PR1
The Pligg PR1
The Zero PR0
TopStumbles PR2
v0v PR1
Very Hot Link PR3
VetrItalia PR2
Votedlinks PR2
Votepress PR2
Wagthis PR2
We Be Social PR1
We Together PR2
WebGare PR0
Webonoid PR0
Wedgsearch PR0
Wedigg PR1
What ‘n’ Where PR1
Xawk PR0
XMaui PR0
Your Bookmark PR0
4) Article sites
Free article sites offer you a great opportunity to get great targeted anchored backlinks. You write a short informative article about a topic in your niche and use your main keyword in the heading. Add two or three (depending on site) anchored links in the resource box, then submit away. Many of the sites require you write unique articles, so I only suggest submitting them to the best sites with the highest PR.
Article Dashboard – This site gets a lot of backlinks because it offers article directory software. So the links from your articles should carry some juice.
Ezine – The largest and most popular article directory, well worth submitting to. It will bring you some direct traffic also.
5) Friends
Making friends is the best way to get high quality anchored links to your sites. If you have a project which you want links for, drop me a line, I might have a project that would be a good link exchange for your site. I have 7 different niche sites as of writing this article.
That’s it. There is well over 100 do follow links above, all of which allow you to use an anchored link to target specific keywords, and many of them from authority sites. I hope you find this a useful resource.
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ok simon looks like I’ve got caught with your spam filter… anyway thanks for your resources.
Its correct we have to pick a niche. But when we choose one we will narrowing our amount of post as we will only post to that niche only.
Hi Simon!
Great advice and resource, but if you made a list of sites with these attributes:
High PR
CommentLuv
DoFollow
- it would be the absolute tops. Commentators score two links, one of which uses the last post KeyWords, so the back link is the best possible anchor text!
I seek out such sites and support them with constructive comment, and in return I get juicy gold plated back links – MAGIC!
Here’s the link you are after Rhys: http://www.untwistedvortex.com/do-follow-commentluv-keywordluv-blog-list/
Fantastic list, I have seen others but none as comprehensive as this one. Definitely a bookmark.
great step by step and useful list.
Thanks
Thanks you so much for this useful post. grizz is great and this is a superb compliment to his teachings.
Such a hugely useful resource! This is really really generous of you to share with everybody. Thanks very much for putting all this work into the links.
I’ve learned a ton from your articles. Thanks and thanks again.
Hey, really informative post you have! I liked how you organized it accordingly. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Simon. From a beginner. It’s nice to get friendly advice. I especially was intrigued by the bookmark tools and your thoughts on that. Interesting. Thanks again.
Thank you for this post! I’ve been looking for a comprehensive list of real good sites to focus my link building efforts on. There’s way too many bad sites that are a waste of time. Thanks again.
Thanks for the excellent post. The steps are so nicely laid out and easy to follow. I bookmarked this one and will come back to it often.
I have not done anything with forum signatures yet and I am already a member on most of them. Thanks for turning the light on in my brain.
Thanks for the good content. This article taught me the majority of what I know about increasing internet traffic and earning money online, although I’ve spent the past several weeks researching.
Wow I like what you’ve done here!
Thanks a lot
How To Make Cash Online
The social book mark sites are good for some sites. I do not think i would use them for sites with adsense ads. It could get you smart priced. Affiliate marketing is good for bookmarks if they are on topic.
Thanks for all this Great Information!
The lists will really prove helpful, especially to newcomers!
You’ve set a great example!
I think organic search is the best way to get traffic. I would not use social book marks if i had adsense on site.
Hi Simon, this is one of the best posts on this topic that I have read. and I read a LOT.
In many blogs and forums, the recommendation is to focus only on content. But this is relevant for the best of the best bloggers.
The rest should understand the steps you wrote here. Thanks for a very good post.
Simon, I believe that links are King and content is Queen. This is after many years of building traffic and ranking pages. It is not uncommon for me to get the ranking first then create top notch content. Why invest until the ranking is solid? Thanks for the KeywordLuv list you gave. I also recommend that each person check to make sure these are DoFollow. Just use the SEO plugin for FireFox and it will highlight NoFollow links.
Simon, good article thanks for the help. Just getting started and every piece of info is like gold.
Dusty
Nice post. You listed some good sites to get people going and ways to get links. I do not think forums help much because most pages never have any page rank. They can send traffic but not help pr most of the time.
Great list here will definitely utilize these dofollow links, thank you.
Thank you so much for this informative post. I can tell you put a lot of effort into it and I wanted to say it’s appreciated.
I also use the comment luv plug in but this is the first I’m hearing about the keyword plug in. How do you control people who try to spam your blog? Is there a setting in the control panel where you can pre-set how many comments someone has to make before it kicks in?
I followed your instructions….to put my keyword after my name. I’m interested to see how this works.
Thanks again!
This is an amazing list. Do you think all of these ways of getting links have the same value to the search engines. I mean, does a forum link = a blog comment = a blog roll?
Thanks for the great resource.
I’m new at this and Im beginning to see that all of mojo in this deal is backlinks. My blog is dofollow with commentluv. I may add keywordluv as well soon. Thanks for the post!
Finally, a real helpful make-money-online article that does not sound like a product review. Thanks!
this is a list which sure must have taken a long time and energy to compile. Thanks a ton for this post!!
You rock, man! Came over from grizz’s site and you didn’t let me down! Great list. Awesome custom search. I’ve been putting one together as well.
I can’t wait to read more posts…after I make more backlinks, of course!! Thanks!!
Very good post.. But, if you dont earn money, you dont have to spend it! Ja
Thanks a lot simon,
These steps and list to get backlink are really helpful to me to improve my SEO on my adsense site.
Keep doing great stuff like this.
Thank you so much for sharing this list, i have been looking for auditional sites to get do follow links from other then article marketing.
Holy crap,
I had to bookmark a link building list this sweet…
Can you believe that SEO Noobs went down? A sweet PR4 with tons and tons of high ranking pages all gone to waste…
Landed here from Griz website. Already bookmarked this page. Thanks for the list.
I sometimes kind of think that Griz, Brad Callen, and all the people linked to Griz, is a bot from Google (or all the same person), but its impossible. What you people say here is real.
Thank you i’m learning fast.
Great post. Nice you listed places to get traffic and links from. I do not use some of the social sites they are no follow or low value in terms of sales.
Quality article and well-written. Thanks for the posted links, I have to check them out.
Note that Sitepoint Forum is nomore a Do Follow.
In my opinion one have two options: quit or work harder. If you choose to work harder, then don’t work extra hard, work extra smart.
Online marketing is like fishing in troubled waters. You have to do it piece by piece. Research, read, and learn various traffic techniques and apply them one by one.
Great post. Has everything you need to start earning money. I think lost adress is not a do follow site just to let you know.
There is always something new to learn when talking about MMO! Now i have something to do for the next 8 hours or so!
Thanks a lot for sharing this grate list! Since link building is continual forum links etc is excellent to remind the bots about a site while good links comes slow. I defiantly needed this resources!
You may want to know that the listed seonoobs.com is nomore an active blog. It is parked courtesy of Bluehost.com.
This was a great article on how to increase traffic to your site and I really appreciate the time you took in assembling a list of sites where people like myself can visit to obtain some good backlinks.
Your labors will not go unrewarded. Thanks again
These are some great tips for buildong traffic to your site.
Do you normally submit the same article to each article site or should you keep each article unique?
Thanks for such a great list of sites and places get backlinks for how to earn money online.
The hardest part in getting anchored backlinks is finding places that will allow you to use anchored links in your comments.
I will surely be bookmarking this page so I can ramp up my backlinks and and hopefully start placing high enough in Google to place Adsense on my blog.
Thanks so much for taking the time to establish this list and posting it. Big Help Here.
Wow. Thanks so much for all of the tips. I’m off to check some of those sites you have listed. Thanks for putting your time in to help the rest of us out.
This is a great resource and hence I have it bookmarked now because it will really come in handy!
Your step-by-step and easy to follow guide provides very useful information whether at beginner, intermediate or advanced level. Especially when new to internet marketing, can avoid costly mistakes and time-wasted by using solid methods to make money online.
One of the best guides for making money online. Simple, easy to follow and precise.
It’s been a while since you originally created this article but it still stands true. The additional resources you provide are brilliant and I have added this post to my favorites. I’m always looking for places to promote my loss making hobby online :o)
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