Traffic Makes You Money

The title says it all folks, and to be more specific, if you are trying to make money with AdSense, then search engine traffic will make or break you.  Too often I see in the forums, comments similar to this "I just published my 80th Hub and made $10 this month.  Time to get started on the next 80 to double my earnings." 

STOP RIGHT THERE!

Why on earth would you do that?  Instead of trying to double your content, you should try to double your page views.  More specifically, the ones that come from search engines.  I hate to say it but social traffic, including our fellow Hubbers, do not typically click on AdSense ads.  We are not in the buying mood, rather we read other Hubs beacause:

• we are a follower of the publisher
• we like to harass the publisher
• it shows up on either the hot, best, or latest categories
• we like to waste time reading instead of working (i'm guilty here too)

Now the reader that landed on your Hub from the search engine is, get this, SEARCHING for something.  What a concept!  If you provide them with whatever it is they are looking for, in this case in the form of an AdSense ad, you have a much better chance of getting a conversion. 

Good question. All you have to do is rank on the first page of Google, preferably near the top. The Holy Grail of search traffic being the number one spot on Google. Depending on the popularity and profitability of your main keywords will determine just how hard it is to accomplish this.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel here, so just read the links over to the right. These people have a lot more experience than I do. There are a lot more Hubbers than Mark, Lissie, and Dark that deserve some credit, and I will get to them in future Hubs.

In addition to those three Hubbers, you really need to read How to Make Money Online for Beginners. That is a blog, hosted on a crappy old free blogger account that currently ranks #3 in Google for the term "make money online". I just stumbled across his blog recently and that is what got me to start writing on HubPages. Thanks Grizz!

And not to go unmentioned is The KeyWord Academy, run by Mark and Court. I have not even signed up for the $1 first month trial yet, I am still processing all of the free info they give you. Once semester is over and I have time to dedicate to their program, I am signing up for sure!

Now that you have finished absorbing all of that info, I want you to go into your book marks and delete all of the other so called Make Money Blogs that you read every day.  Seriously, reading about what somebody had for dinner last night is not doing you any good.

We have all heard the expression "Content is King", which I do agree with (to a degree). Without traffic, your content is crap! It just sits there not getting read by anybody because it sits on page 10 of Google. And you'll do what all the pros tell you to do and submit your site to Digg and Technorati and whatever other social site you waste time on. And you will enjoy a nice traffic spike and sit there refreshing your AdSense stats page waiting for those impressions to turn into conversions.

But they don't. And then your traffic dies. And you are still on page 10 of Google.

It sucks, it hurts, get over it. Do something about it. Instead of rushing off to churn out more unranked Hubs, get some back links to the Hubs you already published. If you read through some of the links I provided above, hopefully you picked up some tips on getting back links. To be more specific, one way keyword targeted in context do follow back links.

• one way meaning it is not a link exchange or reciprocal link. Get a link from site A to your site B. In exchange, link to site A from your site C.
• keyword targeted meaning the link contains your keywords, not "click here"
  
• in context meaning it is in the text portion of a page, not a link of off a "link" page
• do follow meaning the site does not implement the "no follow" attribute for hyper links

That is a very basic explanation of back links, more detailed information is available in the links I provided above.  And look, they got free back links just by providing good content (if any of you want the anchor text changed, just let me know!) which brings me to the next big fallacy online

"If you build it, they will come."

Hey thanks Kevin Costner for providing such an insightful quote!  Unfortunately you are not publishing your Hub in some magic corn field filled with ghosts that use Google.  There are people out there that tell you to just write good content and people will link to it.  This is true, if people actually find it.  And people find it by being on page one of Google, plain and simple.  I did not find Grizzly's blog on page 100 of Google, it was on page one, in position number one at the time.  There is no button in Google that says "Give me good content only" (if there was, we'd all be in trouble).  We can however modify the above quote to fit our needs, and it is something I strive to work on every day.

"If you link to it, they will come"

Again folks, there is a metric crap ton of FREE info on the web on how to obtain "in context keyword targeted do follow one way" (I should trademark that!) back links.  Without reinventing the wheel again, here is a quick, not complete, just quick list of things you can do to get back links:

• Hubpages, Squidoo, InfoBarrel and any other free publishing site.  Make sure you read the fine print!  For example, here on HubPages, published Hubs with a score below 75 does not have "do follow" links.  Keep this in mind while you churn out your next 80 Hubs and hope to interlink them all!
• Article writing.  Sites like ezinearticles.com (like they need keyword targeted back links from me!) allow you to self promote other sites (like Hubs) that you own.  Again, follow the rules!
• Blogs.  Free blogs to be precise.  I am sure you are quite capable of finding them yourself (I'm too lazy to link more stuff).  Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, blah blah blah.  Make a free blog, write a post that relates to your Hub, and link to it.  Rinse and repeat.  Do not use duplicate content and be sure to create some non self promotional blog posts as well.
  
• Forums.  Participate in forums.  Leave useful comments and if the site allows, include a link to your Hub.  Make use of your profile as well, a lot of times you can include a link there too.
• Comment on blogs.  Do your own research on this one (laziness is setting in again).  Do a Bing! search (I think I'm the first person ever to say do a Bing and not do a Google) for "CommentLuv" and "do follow lists".  And again, just like forum posting, post useful crap and don't look like a spammer.
• Guest Post.  I haven't done this yet, but write a guest post for a blog.  In exchange to you providing them with free content, they provide you with some exposure, and a sweet back link.  Just don't offer to do a guest post on what you had for dinner (unless of course you have a restaurant review blog)
• Interlink your Hubs!  This one is a no brainer!  If all you use is HubPages, make use of the tools.  Use the "link" capsule.  The links I have to Mark, Dark, and Lissie are contained in a "link" capsule.  Create "groups" for your hubs and enable the feature to link to other Hubs in the same group.  Get your Hubs to score 75 or higher!
  

I did not write this to make money. I actually wrote it to help other people. You see, I actually believe in the "pay it forward" concept however corny that may sound. I tired to disable AdSense, but it would not let me publish it. If anybody knows how to do this, leave a comment or send me a mail or something.

At the time of this writing, I have:

• 2 fans
• 11 published Hubs
• 1 Hub ranked on the 1st page of Google (currently 9th position)
  
• have made $17 and change in the month of September off that one hub
• 98% of the traffic to that Hub is from search engines

I am telling you this not to brag, but to reinforce the fact that search traffic is key to making money. And the key to search traffic is back links. That is it! I am newer at this than most of you who will read this, yet with one Hub have made more in one month than a lot of you. Again, $17 is nothing to brag about, I am just trying to drive home the fact that you need to get more traffic to your existing Hubs. Once in a great while a Hubber will write something that just goes viral and acquires back links with no effort on the Hubber's part. That is like playing the lottery though, and I don't play the lottery (otherwise know as "tax for the poor").

If I offended you, then good. Hatred is a great motivator, get off your keaster and promote your Hubs! If you found this Hub useful, then rate it up, link to it, whatever. I've done my job, now it's up to you to spread the word.

This is the first in a series of 1974's "Hublic Service Announcements"