Aristotle accomplished a lot in his ancient Greek life.  He can be credited as one of the founding fathers of western thought.  He studied and made observations about morality and aesthetics, logic and science, politics and metaphysics.  In his free time he was a tutor of Alexander the Great.  A person like this is not common.  He has the ability to keep going and going – doing more and more.

How did he keep motivated?  What helped him get out of bed every morning and dive into his work?  Aristotle’s answer:

Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

Goals.  Man needs to set goals for himself.  Without goals there is no meaning – there is nothing to strive for.

My Goal – Make Money Online Website

Who am I to doubt Aristotle.  I must set goals.  This website was started willy-nilly.  It was built with the intent of just seeing what happens. But that is not the right approach.  I need something to strive for.  If it helped Aristotle become one of the greatest thinkers of all time, I am sure setting goals will help this website.

The main keywords for this website are: make,money,online,website.  My goal is to be one of the top five results in Google search for the term ‘make money online website‘.  When somebody types ‘make money online website‘ into Google I want to see this website appear in one of the top 5 spots.  Currently for this term this website is nowhere to be seen.  I checked as far back as the 500th result.  No luck – not there.

Know The Enemy (the competition)

Before I tackle this goal I need to know who I am fighting against.  Who are in the top 5 spots now?  The best way to beat them is to know who they are.  What have they done to get there.  By studying who they are I can adjust my strategy to either mimic what they did to get there or find a weak spot in their approach.  Find something that they are missing, or not doing, or doing poorly.  Once I know how they got to where they are then I can do what they are doing and add a little more – that extra push that puts me above them.

The nice thing about the ‘make money online’ niche is that it is about revealing what you do.  So most of the blogs and website are about how they got to where they are at.  So it is only a matter of going through their website and finding out what strategies they recommend for online success. 

I am going to focus on two of the top 5 holders, because they have very different strategies.  And they are very good writers – they do a good job explaining how they got to the top.

A Brick and Mortar Website

The top spot is currently held by 2createawebsite.com.  It is a really good ‘Make Money Online’ website.  The owner is Lisa.  Her website made it to the top in what can be called the traditional approach – time, quality content, and persistence.  She started making money online in 1998 and has stuck with it.  By constantly adding content and maintaining a presence on the Internet she has made it to the top.  Hard work and time.  Posting on forums, answering questions by readers, making comments on other blogs.  By helping others her name became known.  Slowing, but steadily she gained readers.  10 years later, it is paying off.  Now she has inspirational youtube videos and tutorials, a busy forum and a popular blog.  She has become an trusted authority in the field.  Her opinion is respected.  She does not hide her identity and is completely honest about everything she has to say. 

Her website is a rock.  It is well designed, clear and well written.  Quality material, a great personality, and high ranking.  She does everything by the book and there is little chance that her ranking will fall.  Her website is like amazon, or ebay.  A trusted and quality site.  Exactly what Google likes.  Google rewards her by placing her website at the top.

Understand and Exploit

The website at spot 4 is makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com.  This website is almost the complete opposite of the one above.  It is not pretty.  No flashing graphics, logos or pull down menus.  Actually is it a basic free blogspot blog.  Simple design – black text against a white background.  His posts are extremely long, something that your ’suppose’ to not do.  The owner is Grizzly.  He does not reveal his true identity.  All that is known is that he lives somewhere in Northern Canada.  His blog is only 3 years old.  He does not participate in forums and does not do any Internet marketing.

But he is in the 4th spot.  He is doing something right.  With his completely non-traditional approach he has manged to make it to the top.  How does he do it?

Grizzly knows how Google works.  He can think like Google.  He does not care about having a great website, or people thinking of him as an authority.  All he cares about is making money online.  So he focuses specifically on Google and does whatever necessary to make money with it.  The best way to describe it is that he understands the underlying principle of Google and exploits it.  He focuses in on the fundamental principles of Google and does whatever necessary to make money.  He knows how to force Google to put him at the top.

The great part is that he does not keep it a secret.  If you read all his long well written posts, he reveals exactly how he does it.  You need to read a little between the lines – but it is there.  And his proof is not in words, but in results.  Do a search for ‘make money online’ and there he is – on the top.  He knows what he is doing.

How Am I Going To Get To The Top?

It is not going to be easy.  Both of the above examples are smart people.  Masters in their art.  They have completely different approaches, but both successful. 

My approach will be to learn from both.  Not to copy their approaches exactly, but to combine the two.  To mix the two approaches into a new hybrid approach.  Have a traditional website – brick and mortar, well built, organized and pleasing to the eye; patiently become a authority in the field and gain people’s trust.  But also not ignore what Grizzly has to say,  his approach is untraditional but cannot be dismissed.

Hopefully, by taking bits and pieces from the people at the top.  Combining it in a new way and creating something new, I can acheive my goal and become a member of the Top 5 club for ‘make money online website’.

To find out how this post will help me towards my goal please see post How to Make Money With Jesus.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, There is a HOW TO in the Post, What YOU Should Do

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a very inspirational story.  Scrooge is a man who knows his business.  He operates it at full optimization.  Every aspect of the business is calculated and profits are maximized.  All that is required is one piece of coal – so all he gives is one piece of coal.  Even the merriment of those around him does not distract from his purpose.  To run a highly profitable business.  Scrooge would be a wealthy webmaster.

If you are trying to make money from a website then you need to think about what is best for the website.  What will bring in the most money.  Your website’s purpose is not to make the world a better place or to help you find the meaning of life.  It’s purpose is to bring in the most amount of money possible. That is it. 

OK, so we have established the purpose of your website.  Now what?  How do you make the most amount of money possible?

Guessing What is Best For The Website

Currently this website makes around $2 dollars a day.  Could it make more?  Yes it can.  The chances that this website is fully optimized is very low.  The website was designed based on what I thought was best.  Not a really scientific method.  Put the ads here, the content there, the header should say this – hopefully that will work.  Unfortunately, at the beginning that is all you can do.  Just guess.  But Scrooge did not become rich by guessing how much coal to give away.  He knew exactly how much Cratchit needed to survive through Christmas.

To find out what makes the most money you need to perform tests on your website.  Tests that will tell you what works and what works better. 

A-B Test

A-B testing is one method to test what makes more money on your website.  You make two pages with  slight variations and then see which one makes the most money.  For example, on one page you put the text ads on the left and on another page you put the text ads on the right.  Run one page for a week and then run the other page for a week.  Compare the results and keep the page with the best returns.

The important aspect of this test is that the content must be the same for both pages.  You are not testing the content.  Your results would be useless if your changed the content.  The content is the product.  You are just changing the packaging.  Test what packaging sells the most content.

Change the location of ads, type of ad, location of the content, the size of the header, the text of the header.  What works better a banner ad or a text ad, a large font bolded header with short text or a small font  but descriptive header text?  ‘THIS IS A GREAT POST!’  or ‘This is a great post because I wrote it’.

Running A Test In Parallel

When performing an experiment it is important to keep the amount of variables that could effect your results to a minimum.  Isolate what you are testing.  Ensure what you are testing is only effected by factors you control.

The normal method of doing a webpage optimization test is to run a page for a week.  Record the results.  Change the page.  Then run the new page for a week.  This method has a major flaw.  It is run in two different times.  There are too many external factors that could effect the results.

The problem is that between the two weeks you receive different types of traffic.  For example, during the first week your website might rise up in reddit.com and you get lots of visitors from reddit.  These are completely different types of visitors then the ones you get the second week in which you make a great post on a niche related forum.  The first week was anybody and everybody, the second week were niche related visitors.  Two different type of visitors.  This situation makes your test completely useless.

What you need to do is run the two pages at the same time.  So that the test is not effected by the type of traffic.  Each page is viewed by the same type of traffic.  You need to run the two pages at the same time.

How to Run A-B Test in Parallel

I created PHP code to run A-B tests in parallel.  Here is what I do:

1. Pick a page on website that I want to test. Lets say tinytim.php.
2. Make an copy of it. Now I have two identical pages.
3. Rename the original page to tinytim_1.php and the copy to tinytim_2.php.
4. I make a small change to tinytim_2.php. Ensuring that the pages have different ads or create specific ad channels for each page, so that you I have a way of measuring the results.
5. Create a new third PHP page. Call it tinytim.php.
6. Paste this code into it:


<?php
srand(time());
$random = (rand()%2);
if ($random==0){
    include('tinytim_1.php');
}else{
    include('tinytim_2.php');
}
?>


How It Works

When the tinytim.php is requested the PHP code randomly picks one the the two pages to display.  There is a 50% chance that  tinytim_1.php will be displayed and a 50% chance that  tinytim_2.php will be displayed.  The PHP code will pick one of the pages and then copy the page to the tinytim.php page.

The visitor does not notice anything different.  As far as they are concerned they are viewing the tinytim.php page.

After a week of running this I compare the results of the different ads.  Which one made more money.

With this method you are certain that your tests is not effected by different types of traffic.  Each of the two pages has an equal chance of being called at any given time.  On a given day if there are a hundred visitors then 50 of them will be presented with tinytim_1.php and 50 will be presented with tinytim_2.php.  The daily variations in  types of traffic does not effect the test results.  Any A-B website test method that is not in parallel – I say ba humbug.

There is a HOW TO in the Post, What YOU Should Do

Your website has been up for a few months.  The initial excitement has worn off.  But still, every morning you wake up and head straight for the computer.  Open browser, favorites, traffic stats.  Seeing basically the same number that has greeted you every morning for the last couple weeks, you head for the shower.  There your tears wash down the drain.  At least that is how my mornings go.

This website has been hovering around 50 visitors a day for the last couple weeks.  A gray cloud is beginning to form above my head.

As of February 22, 2009 the traffic for the last 30 days:

As you can see there have been good days and bad days.  But no discernable upward trend. It hovers around 50.  The two spikes are from the two times that the website was listed on reddit.com.  But the spikes are lightning bolts.  Exciting while it is happening but gone in a flash.

Looking at the graph it appears that the website is not progressing.  There is no upward trend.  I want an upward trend.  I need a ray of sunshine to peek through the gray clouds.

So I created a graph that has an upward trend.  I call it the Extrapolated Traffic Graph.  It takes traffic from recent time periods and extrapolates what the total traffic would of been had the traffic always been what it is now.  (Feel free to re-read that last sentence. Sorry, but I can not improve it).  The time periods start from the most recent and narrowest time frame and move to the past with increasing time frames.

It is best explained with the actual graph.  Here is the Extrapolated Traffic Graph for February 22, 2009.

See – an upward trend.  To help understand how the graph works it is best to view it as an answer to the question: What would the total traffic be if all the past daily traffic was the same as the daily traffic for the last # days?

For the last 4 days traffic was 319 visitors.  Take the number of visitors (319) and divide by the number of days (4).  You get 80 visitors per day.  The website has been up for 53 days.  Multiply the visitors per day (80) by total days live (53) and you have extrapolated total traffic of 4240 visitors.  Now compare that against your actual total visitors.  Extrapolated 4240 compared to actual 2206.  Vwola – the website is progressing nicely.

Keep doing this for all the different time periods and you get a nice uptrend graph.

The reason it works is because the website is progressing.  The problem with the normal traffic graph is that the progress is hard to see.  The progress gets lost in the noise.  One day traffic is high, then 3 days in a row it is low.  These 3 days make it look like you are loosing ground.  But you are not.  You are still better off then you were a month ago.  And that is the point.  The magic in the Extrapolated Traffic Graph is that is gives more weight to traffic closer to the present.  For new websites the present is always better then the past.

The Extrapolated Traffic Graph is not misleading.  This website’s traffic is progressing.  It has to be.  Everyday I add more content.  I visit forums and leave thought provoking posts.  I submit the website to directories.  I make jaw dropping comments on other blogs.  It all adds up.  The website is better then it use to be. But the standard traffic graph just does not show it.  Extrapolate present traffic, compare it against actual traffic, and the progress becomes clearly visible.

If you are at the beginning stages of your website then I recommend you plot your own Extrapolated Traffic Graph.  Print it out and hang it on the wall.  Then every time dark clouds begin to form – have a look at your up trending graph.  Save the tears till your really need them.  Like when even the extrapolated graph trends down.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Actual Stats From The Website Used, Optimistic and Motivational, There is a HOW TO in the Post

Can Jesus help me make money?  I am a little rusty with my recollection of Jesus stories, but I think I remember the gist of a few of them.  There is the one about how He came across a man who had been sleeping in a cave for days.  The man refused to talk to anybody, eat, or even breath.  Jesus miraculously convinced him that he better get up and return to work otherwise he will not be invited to the office Christmas party.  And there is the inspiring story of Jesus informing a couple of down on their luck fisherman, that the real money is in the ‘personal self help’ industry.  These two fisherman went on to become leaders in the field.

My problem is traffic.  It has stayed steady around 50 visitors a day for a couple of weeks.  I post to forums and make comments on other blogs.  This gets traffic, but always around 50 visitors.  I cannot seems to get anymore. I read on other websites that they receive thousands of visitors a day.  How do they do this?  Jesus help me.

Actually I have an inkling of what the problem is.  This site gets no traffic from search engines.  Last month only 11 visitors found the site via Google.  All the rest were through forums, and bloggers checking who left a comment on their blog.  I need more search traffic. How to increase traffic from search engines?

Writing Posts For Google Or For People

This Sunday morning while everybody was at church I was doing research about increasing search traffic. I found plenty of articles which argue that to get lots of traffic you need to write for Google, not for people.

There are two ways to write a post.  First one is to write for people.  Make it interesting.  Offer some advise.  Make the reader feel special.  Reading your post the visitor will feel good about themselves and they will think you are a great person.  They will keep coming back for more and they will tell their friends.  That’s great.

Writing Posts for Google

The second type is to write the post for Google.  Google is a machine.  It does not know what words mean.  You can not make Google smile or feel good.  Google takes the words on your post and creates statistics.  What words are used, how often are they used, what words are used the title, what words are bold.

By using certain words in your website and by using them in a specific way, you can get Google to place your website at the beginning of search results.  If your website is at the top of Google searches then you will get more traffic.  More traffic is more money.

Your website does not need to be interesting.  It does not need to make readers happy.  It simply needs traffic.  Google brings you traffic.  Once the traffic arrives visitors will have a look around; and find the material repetitive and useless.  Then quickly becoming bored, they click an ad just to get away from your site.  Jesus hallelujah.

How To Get Search Traffic

The trick is to create a website in a very competitive niche.  Which means a niche that lots of people search for.  A good example is “money”.  Every month 30,000,000 searches are done for the term money.   If you can got to the top of search results for money you can consider yourself a millionaire.  But most likely you will not get to the top of search results with that word alone.  No matter how well your content is geared towards making Google happy.  There is too much competition.

So what you need to do is combine the very competitive keyword with another keyword.  A word with less searches and therefore not as competitive.  For example , “Jesus”.  The term “Money Jesus” is searched 6,600 times.  Now you have a chance of getting to the top of search results for “Money Jesus”.  How?  Make Google think your post is perfect for people looking up the term “Money Jesus”.

Google with rank you higher in searches if you:

• Have the keywords in your title.
• The first sentence has your keywords
• You do not use the keyword too much. Google will think that you are making the post simply to please Google. There is lots of debate about what is ‘too much’. So to be safe do not use keywords ‘too much’.
• The last sentence contains your keywords.

These are the tips that I have been able to gather on the Internet.  Are they true?  Do they work?  Who knows.  This is simply what a lot people think that Google likes.  Of course, Google does not reveal what it likes.  If it did, then there would be a lot of crappy posts  on page 1 of search results.  The only way to find out if its true is to try.

Traffic vs. Morality

Something about creating a website specifically for Google just does not feel biblical.  It feels wrong.  True, I need traffic and will do almost anything for it.  But writing posts simply to trick Google into sending me traffic -  that is not right. I have to ask myself, is that something Jesus would do to make money?

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Optimistic and Motivational, There is a HOW TO in the Post, What YOU Should Do

If you are a webmaster you probably do not have a balance sheet. You do not need one. What would you put on it? What would you put as your assets and liabilities?

Of course it is possible to start being a webmaster with absolutely no assets. OK, actually you do need one asset. A public library card. Go the library, use one of the computers and sign up for a free online blog (like Blogger). Everyday you go to the library and write your blog. Completely free and no big assets.

Assets

I am sure that there are a few blogs out there created from a free access computer at the library, but most web masters use their own computer, at their own desk, and on their own chair. There you go – three assets right there. Computer, table, chair.

Next you probably do not want to use a free online hosting service. They look unprofessional and your domain name will be tom.freehosting.com. So you register a domain name for 1 year. And because you are not sure you really want to be a webmaster, you sign up for a six month hosting service. There you go again – more assets. You have prepaid a years worth for a domain name and six months for a hosting service. These are assets that you now own.

Liabilities

Now for the liabilities. For a month straight you slave away long into the night punching away at your keyboard spewing out Hemingway quality content. Nobody is paying you. You are doing it for free. But it is still work and you expect to be paid back one day. It is like you are giving your website a loan. One day when the website is making money it will have to pay you back. This is a liability to the website as wages owed to you. After a few months the website will start making lots of money. As soon as it does it will have to pay its debts. Namely the one to you. Your salary.

Equity

You own the website.

After it has paid you and if there is still some money left over that will be your equity. Equity=assets-liabilities. The amount the website is worth to you. If you could sell all the assets and pay off all the liabilities the amount left over would go into your pocket.

Most businesses when they start the equity is not a pretty sight. This is especially the case for all webmasters. You put a little bit of money into the required tools (computer, desk, chair) and then a lot of time into building the website. Once it is built you still have nothing. You have spent money and you have spent time. But you still have nothing. Just a whole bunch of megabytes sitting on some server’s hard drive.

Only after the visitors start coming and click on ads and buy your products do you recoup your initial investment. Only then does your negative equity begin to slowly turn around and begin its climb into the positives.

As I write this my equity is still deep in the negative.

Actual Stats From The Website Used, There is a HOW TO in the Post, What YOU Should Do