SEO Site | Make Online Income with SEO

Hello, and welcome to SEO Site Spider.  This is a personal site on how to make income online.  This site focuses on search engine optimization (SEO) onsite and offsite as core strategies.  Why do you want to hear me speak (read me rather)?  I’m a professional webmaster by day and an internet marketer by night.  It first started out as a desire to expand my online skills but then it turned into something more profitable.  There have been numerous pitfalls, starts and stops in my adventure and I hope to impart what I’ve learned with you.

When I first started thinking about making income online I created a blog because that’s what everyone was doing.  Like I said ealier, I also wanted to play with the technology for learning purposes.  However, I was soon let down because I wasn’t making as much money as the perceived pro bloggers of the “Make Money Online” niche.  They all say make good content, engage the readers, get a high RSS feed count.  Advertisers will see the feed count and they will then line up to advertise on to your site.  Or perhaps you can endorse a product and make affiliate commissions.  This is the mentality of today’s online trend.  Everything is interactive; everything is social.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  But it also takes a long time to gain readership and readership trust.  Do you actually use the product or are you just shilling it?  And what about making engaging content?  Do you think you can churn out blog posts every day?  Or will you dribble it down to once a week, or once a month when your interest wanes?  Very few people can keep audience attention if it isn’t on a regular schedule.  How would you like it if your favorite TV program was on sporadically?

The reason why I ask is because I too have tried this method of creating an online income.  My first blog that I mentioned was a finance blog.  I think the average of how long a new blogger lasts might be a year and I think I lasted exactly that long.  I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about that.  On the one hand, I am happy I got out of the grind of 3-4 blog posts per week.  On the other hand, I’m disappointed that I was… well, average.

I had gone on vacation and came back with the feeling that I just enjoyed not being tied down to a blog.  It got to be a chore writing and socializing with the financial blogging community in order to be seen and heard.  It was like a networking gig all the time.  Most of all, it wasn’t profitable either.  I had readers but they weren’t clickers of the Google Adsense ads or any other random banners that were displayed on my site.  The problem was the fact that they were READERS.  For whatever reason, they liked what I had to say.  They didn’t come to my website because they had any need I could fulfill.  They were probably just bored during their lunch hour and decided to come visit.  I also wasn’t a big enough voice in the community to recommend financial software products either.  Frankly, I would have felt uneasy about touting a “proven financial system” in this economy.  However, what did make me money was genuine search traffic.  These people got to my site through searching Google because they did want to know things like what an exchange traded fund was.  And they clicked. This led me to the realization that I did not like social blogging for free.  I also came to the realization that it would probably take me too long and too much work to become a voice of authority in the finance niche and that in itself wasn’t a guarantee.

Knowing what I know now, I would have concentrated on search engine traffic from the get-go.  What I mean by that is to serve a need on the world wide web and not just “shoot the breeze” for the sake of it.  The most important thing about search traffic is that they are easy to convert as opposed to social traffic.  Think about it.  Has Facebook been able to make users money?  Sure it sounds good that you can make money by suggesting a product to friends but Facebook Beacon failed because of privacy concerns and the fact that it just seemed slimy to pitch a product to your friends in a social setting.  On the other hand, if a user has a need and your website is number one in the Google search index for the keywords like “How to trap a mouse in my house”, you know that person is pretty desperate and are more likely to click the links provided on your site.

That’s my spiel about search traffic versus social traffic from first hand experience.  This is not to say that you can’t make income online by using social media.  No, I’m just saying that it might take longer to establish credibility to push products.  Social traffic also doesn’t do well with Adsense, which is probably one of the first things people put on their blogs when they try to monetize it.  Also, because of the time and dedication involved, you’ll be married to that one site.  In trying to obtain search traffic, you will get interested visitors who will more likely click on Google Adsense links or buy your products.  You can also build numerous sites for specific niches as well, so you also diversify your internet presence.

So after saying all that, why do I have this site up?  First off, it might serve as professional material for a future career as a consultant if I am ever crazy enough to do it (i.e.  I would have to be paid big bucks).  The second reason is that I have poor friends and I scratch my head when I think that they could be making income online by expanding their skill sets beyond their dead end jobs.  Personally, I like my current job because it affords me the research time to learn the internet marketing aspects.  I also know that not everyone else is that lucky and can’t stand their jobs but need a second income.  I feel that an online income is the way to go because you can do it part time.  Make no mistake, it isn’t easy and you’ll suffer set backs but I’ll try to steer you away from them from what I’ve learned.  However, I don’t have enough spit in my mouth to explain things over and over again so I’m documenting it.  On my own time and when I feel like it.  This isn’t a regular blog gig  but an interesting side project in experimentation.  For those who want to learn how to make an online income then subscribe to my RSS feed.  It’s around here somewhere.  For those who eventually come here through search engine traffic, then bravo, I’m glad that you made it this far.

Tags: make online income, search engine optimization, search engine traffic, seo, social media