There's a good chance that you have mixed feelings about blogging for money if you consider it to be lame, immoral or even evil, then the best thing to do is not commercialise it at all.

But if you think that the whole idea is fine, then go for it or if you think it's somehow evil then of course, that's fine as well.

Your mind must be made up 100% before you start down this road because attempting to generate earnings from your blog is hard enough, without having to deal with some form of self-sabotage holding you back.

You ought to feel great about generating income this way, there really is nothing wrong with having an urge to succeed.

If your blog has real, genuine value then you deserve to earn something from it.

There's no way you can be in any way timid about the whole idea though, if you put ads on there, really put those ads in there it has to be the same if you're putting in requests for donations, do not be shy.

Some people might complain, they always do when you commercialise a free site.

Is it possible to make a proper income online? Absolutely. It will take longer if you have a day job but the possibility is there.

It does not matter what your website is for, be it business or pleasure, a definite must have is traffic.

With the Internet being as big as it is, you will be just a small fish in a gigantic sea.

How to enhance your visibility online

Before you can set about increasing the traffic to your site, you will need to plan your marketing campaign.

Learn about your potential visitors

Traffic generating programs exist that will send you floods of traffic. These are no good though, unless they send you targeted visitors.

If for instance, you had a antiques website, what are the chances someone who found your site through a teenage social site link are going to buy your products? Not very high.

Target your potential customers and make sure they can find you.

SEO - search engine optimization

Beginners learning seo often run for the hills. It can leave you a bit confused.

Seo is by far quick and simple. In consist of many on site and off site optimization techniques. It is extremely time consuming.

Here is a simple seo guide if you want to start with the basics. Also, don't be afraid to call in a seo expert. Outsourcing is a wise business move.

Pay per click

This can be a very fast way of getting your site noticed. It is also an expensive learning curve so make sure you get to grips with pay per click management before you start.

Get traffic from social networking

A popular choice by many. This consists of things like blogging, commenting on blogs and participating in message boards or forums.

Whatever methods you use, the most important task you should be doing is research. Without a campaign and proper research you will not see an improvement.

I hope this has given you a short insight to ways you can get more visitors to your website.

Having a website that has high search engine ranking, has many advantages. Although learning seo can be a little mind blowing, did you know that the simplest seo mistakes can ruin your chances of search engine ranking.

1. Chasing the wrong keywords

The first thing you should do is keyword research. If you get this wrong your off to a non starter. Make sure you target the best keywords for your niche, ones that searchers actually are using.

2. Forgetting to use title tags

A common mistake is to forget to use individual title tags for each page of your website. Titles tell searches and Google what your page is about.

3. Too much flash

Flash cannot be read by googles bots. If you are going to use flash, it is essential that you also use the html mark-up for it.

4. Back link spamming

This is something even the best webmasters are failing to grasp. Link farms are not a good thing with Google. You will get much further by getting high quality one way links from website with high pr.

5. Keyword stuffing

Your content must make sense. If you try and over do the keywords you will get penalized by Google quickly. What you write must flow.

6. Keyword density too high. Keep it below 5%

7. Duplicate content. If you use content that has been used elsewhere, you will get your website sand boxed by Google. Search engines love fresh content.

8. Inadequate navigation

Your sites navigation and links must be clean and unbroken. Your visitors and search engine bots must be able to find their way around your site.

9. Using images for headers

Headers are the first thing Google bots see. Take advantage of this and use your keywords in the h1 and h2 headers.

10. Using unreliable hosting. Cheap may be good for your bank but having servers going down and pages not loading will lose you visitors and stop Google being able to properly access your site and give it high search engine ranking.

1. Keywords

You need to decide which keywords you want high search engine ranking with.

Research is very important, target the wrong keywords and your off to a non starter. Make sure people are using the keywords to search in the first place.

2. Find your competitors

You have to beat your competitors to the top spots. Type in your keywords in the search bar and analyze the top 10. See what they are doing.

3. Your pages titles

There are two tips for optimizing your pages titles. One is to make sure each page has a different title.

Secondly try to include your main keywords in the title. But, make sure they are relevant and make sense. Don't keyword spam.

4. Meta tags

You should only use keyword meta tags if you fully understand them. If you get it wrong you could harm your ranking.

5. H2 and H1 headers

Having your keywords included in the headers h2 and h1, will tell googles spiders that what is in these headers, are important.

6. Content must always be fresh. Duplicate content is a big no no.

7. If you can get a high pr website to link to your site, you are on to a winner. Remember anchored keyword links are best.

8. Site maps tell search engine about your website pages. Having a site map will help to get more of your pages indexed.

9. Alt tags should always have a description and should not be left blank.

10. Update your website often. Google loves fresh content, don't let your website become stale.

Having your website search engine optimized is very beneficial. I have built a site for all you beginners. Start with seo basics and take it from there.

This is for all you newbies who have heard the phrase seo and wondering what on earth it is all about.

Seo is the short term used for search engine optimization.

It is a process that is done to make sure website pages are optimized for google and other search engines.

Why use seo?

One thing any site needs, regardless of it's purpose, is traffic. You need people to visit your website.

You can use many ways of getting traffic to your site, but by far the best one is the free one. If you learn search engine optimization and optimize all your pages you can get free traffic.

Organic ranking is when you naturally rank high on search engines for your keywords.

This is a biggy you want to be concentrating on.

It is a fact that the majority of searches who use google, only click on listings that appear above the fold. With this in mind your goal should be to appear in the top 3 search results.

Where does a beginner start?

In this blog i am going to write articles just for beginners, i wont baffle you with big terms and i will take it slow.

Despite it's first impressions, seo is not rocket science, but it does take some hard work.

One thing i will start by saying is to stick with it.

What you will need.

Website to have a fiddle with

Patience

Tons of coffee lol

Right, that is the basic low down on search engine optimization. Now to to get you started on how to get high search engine ranking.

My previous post was about search engine optimization, or seo for short.

Which one should you use as part of your marketing campaign? Google AdWords or seo?

My answer to this is simple........BOTH!

What is Google AdWords?

It is a pay per click program that gets you fast traffic.

1. Join Google AdWords

2. Set your daily budget. This can be as little as £1 per day.



3. Create your keywords list

4. Create your ads and then your ready to go.



Why you should use both google AdWords and seo

Seo friendly pages will bring free organic traffic to your website.

Google AdWords will generate fast targeted traffic for your website.

Using search engine optimization and AdWords as part of your Internet marketing campaign, will bring you the best of both worlds.

I have heard google AdWords is expensive!

AdWords has a reputation of being an expensive learning curve. But if it is done correctly the ROI can be substantial.

I wont go into the right and wrong way of using AdWords in this post, but i will say that seo and AdWords compliment each other and can actually lower the click price you pay for your ads.

If you are new to Internet marketing and are indecisive about which marketing option to take, AdWords or seo? My advice is to learn both.

In my next post, i will dedicate it to all those beginners baffled by google AdWords.

search engine optimization or seo for short, is the process used to optimize your website for the search engines.

If you have an online business then you will benefit greatly from having a seo friendly website.

You may have your own ways of getting traffic, but organic free traffic is always a bonus.

If your website ranks high for certain keywords then you will get FREE quality targeted traffic.

How do i make my website seo friendly?

1. Choose your keywords

Decide which keywords you want your site to rank high with. They must be associated with your content. Keywords are not restrained to one word. Long tail keywords are more attainable.

2. URL

This one is optional but i would try and include keywords in your URL if you are not going for the branding approach

3. Content

You have probably heard the saying "content is king". It is important but there are too many factors to consider with search engine optimization for it to be as clear cut as that.

The content that is on your website has to appeal to both your viewers and search engines.

Include your keywords, ensuring your sentences make sense. Keyword density should be below 5% to avoid being seen as spam.

4. Links

Anchored keyword links are the best, and one way not back links.

If you can get an anchored one way link to your website from a high pr website, .......BRILLIANT.

I have given you the 4 basic seo tasks you need to perform on your website.

I would be happy to perform a free seo report on your website.

What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization or for short SEO is the task of making your site search engine friendly. I use the word task because it is a task. It takes hard work to get your site to the top and a continuous task to keep it there.

Why use search engine optimization?
The Internet is massive if you want to succeed, you need to beat your competitors . One way to do this is by getting a Higher Search Engine Ranking than them. It is common knowledge that you need to appear on the first page of search engine results if you want maximum traffic to your site.

Why optimizing your web site will save you money
If you have a web site or blog then one thing for sure is that you want to get it noticed. SEO is something all those with web presence should be interested in. It will save you money in the long run. Why? Well many Internet marketers use adwords which is paid advertising, this can be very costly. If you organically appear at the top of search engines then this is free advertising. Which would you prefer?

How to get Indexed by Google
If you want high search engine ranking then firstly you need to make sure your site is indexed. You need to make sure that google knows about your web site.

Many webmasters use what is called black hat methods of getting google to notice them, i would recommend you avoid these methods, it is not worth the risk. Google is clever and can penalize your web site.

How to get indexed by google.
You can use the google submit tool but to be honest there is no point. It can take anything from 3-6 weeks to index you.

I have tried and tested many methods to get a site indexed by google quickly and here are my findings.

Choose a good domain name - Try and include your main keywords in the domain if your keywords are not available then use hyphens for example if i my web site was about nursing home abuse and nursinghomeabuse.co.uk was gone i would try for nursing-home-abuse.co.uk

Content - Create approx 5 pages of good quality content. Making sure that your content is not duplicated from any other site and that it is keyword enriched. Try not to go over a 5% keyword density or google will think you are spamming.

Backlinks - Get backlinks from high PR web sites. This is the most important task. The web site that you get the link from must be on the same niche as your web site. Type in your keyword on google and look for high web sites that except links. You can email them asking for a link exchange.

Articles - Submit articles to article directories like this one.

Track your stats - Join google webmaster tools and google analytics so you can track when you get indexed and view your traffic stats.

Once you are indexed on google you need to keep added fresh quality content and gain quality anchored back links. Learn more Search Engine Optimization

Don't dismiss Yahoo

For all of you bloggers out there who concentrate on getting high search engine ranking with Google only to find your still not getting top 10 ranking go and check Yahoo search engine listings, you may just be in for a shock.

Anyone noticed more traffic from yahoo?

Not sure what is going on but there has definitely been some changes with the Yahoo serps. Many of my blogs are showing in the number 1 position on yahoo for many many keywords. I have noticed a surge in traffic from yahoo in the past month. Anyone else noticing changes or know whats going on. Please enlighten us.

Quality back links are one of the most important tips i can give you to get high search engine ranking. If you have a website that scores high with your keyword and the site has a link to you then this is worth its weight in gold.

How to get back links
You can get back links many ways:
social networking
blogging
message boards
commenting
directories
classifieds
direct request

In my next post i will look at how you can get back links from each of the above and get on your way to high search engine ranking.

Many people believe in the term 'Build and they will come' this is simply not true. It is no good to just build a website or blog and hope for the best, you need to be able to get your blog or website noticed, you need to get traffic.

You can get your website noticed many ways

Social networking
Paid ads
Banner exchange
Forums
Question and Answer sites
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
Email Marketing Campiagns

later in this blog i will discuss all of these techniques to get your website noticed but for now i want to tallk about why it is important to rank high in search engines.

Most interner seaches will use a search engine search bars to search for what they want, they will type in thier keywords or phrase and be provided with many pages of results. Most internet uses only click on the top ten search engine results so it is important that your site is ranked high in search engines.

In my next post i will look into which search engines you need to rank high with.