Search Engine, the Best Source of Traffic

As I mentioned in my previous post, traffic and money, there are many sources of traffic for your blog. But among these sources of traffic, the search engine result pages is the best.

Search engine result pages is the pages shown by the search engine after a users entered keywords and clicked the search button. On this page, the list of websites arranged based on their popularity and relevancy to the searched keywords.

The website listed on the first page is most likely visited by the users.

Now, why I considered it the best source of websites? It's because the users coming from the search engines are really looking for something. So, they are the ones who will easily click those ads on a website they visited. In other words, they are the visitors who can be converted in to money.

I don't mean that these people will become money. But their action will really bring you money. Just imagine if these people will visit your blog and then on your blog they will check or follow the ads published at your blog. And you're earning money from the click of an ad, right?

That's the reason why you should do the SEO technique for your blog.

Traffic and Money

There is one thing that I discovered just recently. It's about the traffic of the blog and the monetization process.

Actually, I created a blog outside the blogger.com. I monetized it by borrowing a Google adsense account from a friend. My friend and I agreed that I will use his Adsense account in my blog and the income I earned will be divided into 10 percent and 90 percent. 10 percent of the income will be his and the 90 percent will be mine.

Now, in just 2 weeks, I managed to place adsense ads into my new blog. I was observing it and found out that with no visitor visiting your blog, means no income for you.

That is true. Traffic simply means money. No wonder why my mentor, SELaplana, is always telling me to get traffic for my blog because traffic is really money.

Tinkering about it, I realized these things:

1. If your blog has no traffic, it means that no one will click on your ads or no one will buy product under your referrals.

2. If no one is visiting your blog then it is of course sure that no one is reading your blog. And while no one is reading your blog, then no one will do what you are telling them to do. So there is no really money in a blog that has no traffic.

These finding simply told me that I really need to get traffic for the blog. But how?

Here's is the list of few things that I learned while reading blogs around me:

1. Comment to other blogs. Commenting to other blogs will not just add content to the blog you are commenting. If your comment is quite interesting, people who read it might be tempted to click and visit the blog linked from your name at the comment. Thus, getting traffic for your blog.

2. Inviting friends via email. You can of course send email to your friends and invite them to visit your blog.  If you friends think you are an exciting writer and blogger, then I am sure they'll visit you at your blog. However, you should not abuse this system because it might led to flagging you as spammer.

3. Search Engine Optimization. Most of the bloggers will surely say that SEO or search engine optimization will bring an organic traffic to your blog. But it will only happen if your blog is listed at the top ranking of the SERP or search engine result pages. In this way, those who are searching the search engine will easily find your blog and visit it.

There are still lots of ways on how to gain traffic but these three is sure way of gaining traffic. I will update this blog soon.

Sponsored Article or Post

I was thinking lately of other ways how I can use a blog in making money online. Displaying Adsense ads and other Adsense alternate ads is already common and it is a well known method in monetizing a blog.

While thinking, it happened that a newspaper boy passed by me. So I decided to buy an Inquirer news paper. I opened every pages of the newspaper checking only the titles of the news articles without reading the content of it. That's the fastest way of reading a newspaper.

Now, in the middle part of the newspaper, I found articles featuring restaurants. My mind screamed, and said "Oh yes, this article is a sponsored one."

I know that an article posted in a newspaper featuring a business establishment or any products is most likely paying the writer or author of that article. It might also be true that the product or business being featured in that particular article is paying the newspaper itself because it's the newspaper that will bring the article.

I tried asking the the local newspaper here about the price of advertising. Their prices is quite affordable but the fullpage is quite expensive. I also asked them if they accept sponsored news article. And they newspaper personnel confirmed that they are accepting sponsored news article.

In other words, it can also be another way of making money online by blogging.

For example: I will approach a beach resort here in our place and ask them if they are willing to sponsor an article. It however needs a PR skill because I will be talking managers of the business establishments that might sponsor an article for the blog.

Anyway, only the first step is difficult. Once I can mange the first step, the following steps will just be easy to accomplish.

I can start at a lower price first. Of course it is a good way so that business owners will become interested in sponsoring a post. 100 Pesos per post is I think affordable and reasonable. Anyway, time will come that I can increase the prices. But it will depend on how popular is my blog of course. The more visitors visiting my blog means higher prices too because it has a higher chances of exposure.

Starting a Home Based Business

Finding for a living is so hard these days especially if you have limited skills. And if you have not finished your college studies, you won't land a better job except those hard but cheap labor job.

In my case, I lost my day job because of manpower retrenchment. Our company is struggling to earn considering that their business is more on exporting goods and the Dollar to Peso exchange is too low and the prices of commodities are too high. The demand of the employees on salary increase added the burden of the company.

I was tinkering these recent days on what can I do just to find for a living. I am supporting my family. I may have no family of my own but I have my siblings and parents to feed for. I lost hope in looking for better job. I am currently earning money by doing any tutorial but it's not really enough.

When I passed by the internet cafe where I am at now typing these post, I accidentally stumbled into the SELaplana's Make Money Online Blogging Philippines blog. Actually, I was searching for scandals at that time. The blog has a post about Pinay Scandal but the content of it is all about how a person can earn money by writing article about scandal without promoting the scandalous materials instead fighting against it. That was the time when I realized that I would have an opportunity to earn money by creating a blog, writing articles, and sharing the articles to the readers through the blog.

I am actually few years late in starting my own blog because I learned from the blogger of that blog that he started having income from his blog in 2005 and according to him, there are others who started blogging since 1999. But I believe that I still have time and it's now.. the time to start my own blog and work for it to earn money too.

I admit that at first I am struggling. But thanks to owner of the blogger.com for making the interface user friendly and the labels are easy to understand and to follow. In just three days of studying the blogger interface, I can say that I already learned a lot like... I know now how to place a link on this post to the other websites like what I did above which I put a linked back the pinay scandal post of Mr. Selaplana.

I only need to discipline my self so that I can tackle my blogging works without the hassle of anything. I am a little bit fortunate because God give me little skills in English composition. This is the real advantage that I have for now.

I don't know yet how to gain visitors for the blog but I know that in just few days of reading articles and references I can acquire the knowledge that I need so that I will be successful in blogging like Mr. Selaplana did.

And yes! Creating a blog is the first step to success. Next is to post regularly here. So far today, I will just leave this post closed.