Can You Earn Money

Blogging Without SEO

Traffic?

To earn money blogging you need traffic and lots of it. Nobody will raise any argument with that statement.

One way to get free traffic is to enable search engines to find your blog through search engine optimization.

Why is it then that so many bloggers refuse to pay at least some attention to it?

In several of my previous posts I’ve mentioned seo. For example in Get Blog Traffic.

In my post describing how bloggers help fellow blogger with the title starting Blogging Seo Strategy I’ve even given a concrete example how SEO can help.

There are zillions of articles to be found on search engine optimization in Google and other search engines.

I was going to give the subject of seo some rest but I feel compelled to write about it again.

The reason is primarily to help my readers realize the importance of learning about this subject since it’s somehow tempting for many to ignore it.

I’m continuing to learn as well. It would be easier if it wasn’t necessary.(I do intend to write about it more in the future since I’ve barely scratched the surface).

But I’m also incensed by what I witnessed within the last few days.

It started mildly.

Recently while visiting other blogs I came across a post that speaks of writing for humans first and then, if at all, for the computers i.e. search engines.

I commented on that blog saying something to this effect :

” The search engines’ job is to find the best and most relevant content to what humans are searching for.

The days of keyword stuffing are long gone. The search engines are way too smart for that.

But without keywords, no matter how smart Google, Yahoo and Bing may be, there will be no search results.

If you are famous, people will just type in your name and your blog will be found. So no need for seo if you’re a mega star.

If you just want to keep in touch with your friends through your blog, forget about seo.

But if you want new people to find your blog and what you write about you can bet that without seo it won’t happen.”

I made my comment and felt at peace.

At least I had contributed to making the comment area a discussion which until then was really a good example of consensus.

But today I was stunned to have come across another blog under -blogging for cash- search entry and the contents of it.

It was somewhere on the first page in search results and what I found when reading it floored me.

Since this bloggers comments are conveniently closed the only way to voice my opinion is to mention it here.

At first I was intrigued since the first post I read was 3 or 4 years old. The length of it was over 7000 words.

I read through most of it and noticed there was a heading on traffic less than half way through.

But it said that traffic was covered in a previous post and there was a link to it.

As I continued reading I remembered the word traffic. So I came back to it (since I’m really interested in traffic) and clicked on the link which led to another overly long post, also quite old.

What is wrong with that? You might say. Don’t you like long posts?

Well, inside that post there were many things written out of which very few if any will help anyone get more traffic.

Aside from this blogger talking about himself endlessly and how he wants to help everybody to stop operating from fear and many of his views, there was absolutely nothing about SEO.

This person mentioned in one of his posts that he’s getting 36,666 blog visits per day. (A number of visits per month was given but it spoke to me more clearly when I converted it to a per day number).

This blogger asserts that he only blogs to serve and severely frowns on those who blog for money.

Stuart (not this person’s real name but I’m tired of he, this person etc.) says that he gets less than 1.5% of traffic through search engines.

One of his key points on getting traffic in fact is to write for people and not for computers or search engines.

That mantra almost seems to want to try to make everyone guilty if they do a keyword research.

For Stuart’s information I would add that Google themselves have a mighty good keyword research tool and I’d be willing to bet that Stuart actually uses it.
Why do I say this?

As of today, according to Alexa, Stuart’s blog has been getting around 17% of all traffic from search traffic over the last 3 months. He gets more search traffic (from SEO) than most bloggers.

Is he trying to discourage people from doing seo while he himself takes advantage of it?

I’ve also checked the keywords Stuart gets his search traffic from. The first keyword phrase is his name which is also in the domain name.

The second keyword phrase according to the largest amount of traffic that it brings has money in it.

There are two more keyword phrases on the list that have money in them.

When combined, the keyword phrases with money in them which he gets traffic from bring him roughly as much traffic as that he gets from his name.

Yet, he says his primary goal and motivation is to help people change and improve and not to make money from his blog.

How praiseworthy.

Then why ask for donations?

He takes donations on his blog and has a page devoted to collecting them.

He also monetizes his blog and in addition to links (many) and banners (only two but large) there is a whole paragraph at the bottom of each post promoting the virtues of SBI.

Let’s be honest here.

Even those who aren’t primarily blogging for money enjoy it when it comes.

Those bloggers who don’t care about money won’t try to monetize.

If you have Adsense, banners or any monetization on your site, please, cut out the hypocrisy.

Stop attacking people who are honest about trying to monetize their blog no matter how awkward they may be in doing it.

Stuart not only monetizes quite nicely for himself at $95 or so per head which is a repeat commission coming from annual subscription to SBI.

He also takes donations like a real preacher.

Yet, he hardly helps anybody to get traffic by at least making people aware of SEO.

In my opinion he shouldn’t write on the topic of how to get blog traffic.

Or making money from blogging for that matter, without giving basic information or any mention of optimization.

But how could he then promote SBI? He says basically that SBI will help you make money online.

Ah, so here we are. Stuart is after money after all and in a big way not withstanding his preachy posts.

By the way, I read somewhere that SBI has a kind of police monitoring the internet and reading everything that mentions SBI.

And then they allegedly attack and threaten with lawsuits if it’s not singing praises about them.

Some people even accuse them of being a cult.

That would almost fit together with our preacher Stuart.

But this is not about them, may they rest in peace.

All I wanted to do in this post is to make a point about the importance of search engine optimization.

Nobody should omit at least a mention of it in their post on traffic especially if it’s several thousands of words.

Back to the title of this post.

Earn Money Blogging, Get Traffic Without SEO, True Or False?

Do you think you can get enough traffic to your blog to earn money blogging without seo?

I mean enough free traffic to make enough money to support you so that you don’t have to have a job?

True or false?

Let me know what you think – leave a comment.

Bookmark the post and tweet it just below here.

Authored by Vance Sova

Subscribe to Vance Sova.com by Email

Get Blog Traffic Increase With Blog Comments

Increase Blog Traffic

Or Get Blog Traffic

Using Blog Comments


You can get blog traffic to go up dramatically within hours, days and weeks when you decide to use blog comments.

Blog traffic increase can mean a boost to your mood and in some cases even to your bottom line.

If you are just starting to blog and have no traffic at all you will get traffic to your blog for sure using this method. It produces results very quickly.

Blog comments are a great way to increase blog traffic at no cost to you, except of course you need to spend some time.

But if you like blogging you most likely also like reading what other people blog about. And when you read interesting blogs, commenting is not hard at all.

Blog Commenting Is A Part Of SEO Strategy

If you’ve read my previous post on blogging seo strategy you’ll know that I mentioned link building there. If you haven’t read it here’s the link: Blogging Seo Strategy.

By writing comments of value you can be reasonably sure that your comments will be approved. What is a comment of value? I’ve covered that in my other post on traffic which you can read (it’s covered under point #4) here: Get Traffic To Opt In.

How You Get Traffic To Your Blog Through Comments

I must admit that when I first heard about commenting in connection with getting traffic to my blog I was very skeptical. But I started to do it anyway. And I continue doing it because

I found that it produces results in at least three tangible ways:


1) You get blog links when your comments are approved

2) You get visitors to your blog that read your comments

3) You get comments on your blog from some of those visitors


And then there are some intangible and long term benefits


For example you’ll meet people and some of them you’ll become friends with.

That alone is a great benefit. But friends talk and that may bring you more visitors too.

There is a potential of future JV partnerships but we’ll leave that alone now.

Another long term benefit will come through the accumulation and aging of links which will help your blog to be placed higher in search engines.

This is the SEO benefit which starts early but takes more pronounced effect with time.

Ninety Eight Visitors From One Comment

Yes, I’ve received 98 visitors to my blog from just one comment. That comment was on a blog post that attracted a lot of visitors many of whom decided to visit my blog.

None of them left a comment but they spent on average 16 minutes reading what I had to say here. They kept on coming at the rate of 4 to 5 per day for three whole weeks.

A few days later a comment on another blog brought me 37 visitors over one week.

The traffic from both blogs started to pour in within 10 hours from posting my comments.

Not every comment will produce exciting results like these.

Sometimes it may take a couple of weeks or even months before a visitor arrives as a result.

But when such visitor spends half an hour reading on your blog I think even that is well worth it.

And to be sure, some comments won’t bring you any direct visitors at all.

But you’ll still get a link.

And some links are amazingly valuable and will bring you traffic for a long time sooner or later.

I may cover the kinds of links that are out there and their values at some other time.

What to do now?

1) You want to leave a comment on my blog whether you like this post or not and express your opinion.

2) If you liked what you’ve just read Digg it, Delicious it, Tweet it and Technorati it or use any other bookmarking of your choice.

The bookmark icons are further below.

3) Start practicing blog commenting on other blogs after making a good start here.

Thank you for visiting and for doing the above 3 points.

.

Authored by Vance Sova

Subscribe to Vance Sova.com by Email










SEO Strategy to Increase

Blog Traffic


SEO Strategy is necessary when blogging for money since it helps increase blog traffic. (You can also read my post Get Traffic To Your Website which touches on the subject of traffic).

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it is doing things that the search engines like. They include keyword research, keyword placement and links.

Anybody who is building a website or a blog should learn about seo and implement seo strategy. Yes, even the bloggers who don’t blog for money.

Not everyone who blogs likes the idea of blogging seo but I can’t imagine a blogger who wouldn’t want to increase blog traffic.

All blog owners want readers. And the more traffic there is the more readers there will be.

Why am I stating the obvious?

Because there are people who seem to be oblivious to it. They’ve never heard of it, never understood it or refuse to pay attention to it.

I know such people that I’ve met online.

Online Friendship

Here is an example of two people I’d never met in the flesh but became acquainted with them online and now we’re friends.

Both are blogging and both had been happily posting without regard to search engine optimization.

When I gently pointed out to them the fact, Jose from Notes On Blogging happily embraced it and went all out to learn everything about SEO and implemented as much as he could right away.

Ed (not his real name) on the other hand stubbornly refused to do anything differently and said he didn’t want to bother with keywords and just wanted to be himself.

I’ll let you guess who gets more traffic, comments and online friends.

Helping Fellow Bloggers

Many people are helping their fellow blogging enthusiasts.

I too want to help as much as I can and whenever the opportunity arises.

It’s always exciting to find new friends online through the existing ones.

When I saw the post on Petra Weiss blog encouraging bloggers to help her online blogger friend I didn’t pass the opportunity and took action as many others have.

I was intrigued by the text link Oes tsetnoc leading to Petra’s friend’s site.

The link above which you can check for yourself has to do with webmaster seo contest. You can read the post about it by clicking on the link. I found it interesting.

I have fulfilled the request placed there here and so can you if you are moved by it.

Learning and implementing seo strategy to increase blog traffic will help you as a blogger whether you’re blogging for money, for fun, online friendship or any other reason.

Why do you blog?

Do you do SEO?

Leave a comment.

.

Authored by Vance Sova

Subscribe to Vance Sova.com by Email

 Page 13 of 18  « First  ... « 11  12  13  14  15 » ...  Last »