The Niche Think Tank » Traffic

Google Search Results Are Skewed – How To Get Real Search Results

Larry C. — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:14:35 +0000

How To Get Rid of Google Personalized Search

Many people may already know that Google personalizes search results based on your search and browse patterns, but I didn’t realize how it affected me and my business until just recently. When I thought my websites were climbing in the ranks to page 1 of Google they really weren’t on page 1, they were more on page 2 or 3.

Google is using what is commonly know as Personalized Search. This changes the search results based on the websites you’ve previously visited. While this might be great in some instances, it’s very misleading in others and can hurt your web based internet business and keep you from really attaining the #1 position in Google if you’re not careful.

Because I visit my websites more than other websites in the search results when I do a search of my keywords, the search rankings and results are skewed and not as accurate as some believe. This gives a false sense of security and reality for those who have no idea Google is customizing the search results based on search history.

So me, being a niche marketer who depends on knowing his ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages, needs to know where I stand with the Google, as most of my traffic will come from Google. I need to know so I can determine what course of action I should take for getting my ranking higher, or if I just need to maintain my current status. I also need to have an accurate result so I can best assess my competition based on their true ranking, and not what Google thinks I want to see. Make sense?

There are several things you can do to get a true search result. One is go to an anonymizer search system such as Scroogle.org and use their un-skewed results and also get no ads. Another thing you can do is turn off Google’s Personalized Search by reading their instructions HERE.

I use both Scroogle and Turned off the Personalized Search and now get the more accurate results when I search my keywords and look at my competition.

Thanks to Pat Flynn at smartpassiveincome.com for the Scroogle Tip, and be sure to read the little fiction story on Scroogle.org Called “Scroogled“, pretty good read.

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Business Intelligence and Strategy with David Crandall – Podcast Interview #2

Larry C. — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:37:59 +0000

I ran across David Crandall from Heroic Destiny in a Teleclass Podcast on BlogcastFM.Com a bit over a month ago. I’ve been listening to the podcasts at BlogcastFM.com for some time now and this post about this teleclass interested me. It was their first product they were marketing, all of $12 and so I bought it.

This was my first knowledge of David Crandall, and I was very impressed with the content of the podcast. It was something that spoke to me and inspired me to do this podcast I have since started. David also posted on his blog about how he has saved companies several millions of dollars, and in the same post offered free coaching for a few select people who could meet a certain criteria.

I had spoken to David on Skype a few days before about the fear of doing a podcast, and fear of moving forward in uncharted territory, in my blogging. Knowing he had only done a few podcasts and having inspired me at the same time, I contacted him to talk about over coming that fear, not knowing this one teleclass would lead to much bigger things for me.

After talking to him on Skype and getting his explanation of Twitter, I finally understood how to use twitter, and started to follow David on Twitter as well. I saw a tweet he did about free coaching and I immediately contacted him back and told him to save a spot for me, and to tell me where I could learn more about this coaching. He directed me to his post about saving companies several millions of dollars, which is where I found out what he was looking for and that I fit the criteria.

In the month and a half that David has been coaching me, I’ve seen a huge difference in my attitude towards success and failure, my productivity has gone way up, and the confidence in what I am doing and trying to do have been major bonuses for me, all thanks to David.

The rest as they say is history, and history in the making.

Show Notes:

Srinivas Rao at BlogcastFM.com
Gorillas in the Niche
How to grow your blog through interviews – Teleclass
Coaching Helps Productivity through accountability
Seeing inside The Matrix
Business Intelligence, Looking for patterns of Success and Failure
BIBA (Business Intelligence Bad Ass)
Joel Runyon
Unicorns…Seriously?
My Wife, My Girlfriend…Huh?(did you catch that one?)
My Coach is a Legend
Podcast Past the Unicorn

Unicorns are more than just 1's and 0's

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March Income Report – A Watched Pot Never Boils

Larry C. — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:02:24 +0000

I’ve finally had a better month at making some good online income, and have spent less time on the computer doing it too. I’ve made some huge leaps and bounds and while my income has only gone up about 100$ since my last income report, I’ve also spent less time doing it. WAY LESS.

First off, I’ll be giving another review of Niche Profit Classroom, as I have used it for over six months now, and not earned a single dime from it. At least not the way they teach it. But I will review that in another post. I recommend it for people needing or wanting to learn about selling ebooks or other info products, but the way they teach it and the products they sell with the program are… crap. But again that’s for another post.

So I’ve been very busy and away from the computer and this blog for WAY TOO LONG, and I need to post to this blog more frequently. So my total for this month right off the top of my head is $1,356.91. My last report was 1,294.78. The difference as I said before is I spent way less time on the computer and online doing it this month than ever.

I listen to blog talk radio sometimes and ran across this program: Adsense Masters Course, which I liked what I was hearing. I make some good money from Google AdSense but what this guy was talking is so simple and I am wondering why I didn’t think about doing this months ago, because I KNOW that Google AdSense does work.

Basically you make a site which a keyword phrase and pull traffic to the site and people click on the AdSense. It’s all White hat, no black hat crap. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it and risk losing my AdSense account. I’ve also implemented my own little twist to it too: Amazon Affiliate Sales. I will be putting out my own PDF document Product on how I do this now because I have had a steady growing stream of revenue from both the Adsense and Amazon stuff, that I feel I have finally figured it out and found the magic ingredients.

I’ve also re-discovered the real secret behind marketing and sales online: TRAFFIC. If you have no traffic, you have no one to sell to. I’ve also figured out that for me, I need to blog and work on sites that I have an interest in what I am writing or selling. For instance, my site www.rockabillylifestyle.com, or my photography Website on Hollywood Glamour Photography: Darkmans Darkroom. Oh and you should have seen the jump in traffic when I blogged about Michelle Bombshell McGee, Jesse James Mistress( I almost Photographed her once). That was a hot topic. So was the death of Peter Gowland, The Pinup Legend.

Traffic is a big part of those sites and there is a lot of interest in those topics. So I will be putting together an eBook for my own product here shortly and will be giving it away for a week and then I will be charging for it once I get some feedback.

Ok so here is the lesson with small streams of income and traffic kids, please do try this at home.

I have this money tree, it was given to me by a close friend who couldn’t take care of it any longer and it was not doing to good. I put it in a larger pot, and fresh dirt, with some fertilizer and it took off. I’ve had it about 3-4 years. I recently started trimming it just before spring of the past two years. I do this to keep it groomed and to train it to grow the way I want it to grow. I also have this idea that if I nurture this little tree, it will bring me luck and money.

So each spring I trim it and feed it and watch the new leaves sprout, but you never really see it grow by watching it. Just as you don’t see a pot of water boil if you stand there and watch it, or it takes just too damn long. So this year I took some pictures to illustrate how little streams and online marketing will frustrate the hell out of you if you start there and watch it try to grow. It will just be very frustrating, which I found out.

Each day I would look at it, and see no real change, but between photographs, which were taken only days apart from each other over a period of 2-3 weeks, you can see the difference. Little streams start to gather momentum, and then join with other little streams to start forming a larger stream of income and then the next thing you know you have a nice chunk of change coming in. See the pictures below.

The Money Tree

Little Buds Starting

Little BudsTurn into Leaves

Little Leaves Grow into Bigger Leaves

Over time things mature and really take form

The pictures were taken over a period of a couple of weeks(2), and this is how I have experienced the growth of my online presence and income slowly growing and gathering momentum. If you sit there and try to watch each click, visitor or payment that comes to your site instead of focusing on Good Content, Driving traffic and being patient, you will NEVER see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Still with something for at least 6 months to 1 year before giving up on it.

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Compounding Online Income Streams and December’s Income Report

Larry C. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:07:15 +0000

Compounding Little Income Streams to make Bigger Income Streams.

I’d like to go over Decembers earnings and how Compounding Little Online Income Streams can help to form Bigger Streams of Income. This post is meant to encourage those having a hard time with making money online, by seeing how it’s working for me. Decembers income report is much better than the last one I put up, about $450.00 better than the last one. The last one was around $800.00.

Decembers Report.

So far the figures from December of 2009, which total $1,294.78, are as follows:

Dating Site I Run – $338.89

TLA(Text Link Ads) – $52.19

Direct Advertising on my www.RockabillyLifestyle.com website – $250.00

Photography Sales (I’m a photographer too) – $150.00

Various Affiliate Sales – $173.70

Contextual Ad Placement on 5 sites – $330.00

Again the total of all these is $1,294.78 which is pretty darn cool if you ask me, it’s gone up about $400 since my last earnings report, that I actually took down a while ago.

Compounding effects of little income streams.

In Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind Program, which I am enrolled in, he talks about compounding: “The traffic secret that every blogger knows is the power of compounding.” I am now seeing the effects of compounding this month and I’ve only been doing this for about 7 months now. I think Iam doing pretty good considering I have been totally flaking on a couple of my blogs. I have several blogs I run, most of which are hobby related and stuff I am very interested in. I know some people do blogs on topics they could care less about, but I just can’t do that. I have to have a passion in order to write about something, otherwise people will see right through me and know it’s fake.

So above I have 6 different little income streams. Each one alone, is not much money, however the effect and power of all of them together is worth $1,294.78 per month to me. That’s most of my rent payment right there. In today’s economy my day job is going downhill. I am an IT consultant and I manage 6 different companies networks and computer systems. Several of those companies are in debt to me by 3+ months, and I haven’t been paid in those 3 months by them. That’s several thousand dollars that I am out each month and needed to supplement that somehow.

Where and How I started.

I got my start accidentally through Ebay. I sell Hellraiser Puzzle Boxes on Ebay and I was also interested in Costume and Vintage Jewelry. I educated myself on the jewelry and I make and sell the puzzle boxes on Ebay. I realized when things weren’t selling that well on Ebay lately, that somethign was terribly wrong. That’s about when I realized the economy was going downhill fast and I needed to find a way to supplement.

Looking for an alternative.

I started looking around, bought a couple things, several bottles of Snake Oil as I was still learning what’s legitimate out there and whats not, and that’s when I stumbled upon Blog Mastermind, For Desperate Buyers Only, Niche Profit Classroom and Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate by Chris Rempel. I also stumbled upon 31 days to Build a Better Blog which is the best 19.95 I’ve spent on a product in a long time. If you want to learn about blogging and making an income, I suggest reading that. If you’ve got $97.00 a month you can spare for 6 months, then I Highly Suggest Signing Up for Yaro’s Blog Mastermind. That is a COMPLETE course in and of itself and I highly recommend it. If you don’t know anything at all about Blogging, what it is and isn’t, then I would suggest checking into Yaros “Become a Blogger Course”. This will teach you what is blogging, how to set it up completely and how to star blogging and make your first money, even if you have NO CLUE about blogging.

Optimizing what I already had going.

I had been running a dating service for people with a certain health issue for 13 years, when I started blog mastermind. I was making some money with it monthly, but not as much as I am starting to make now. In the blog mastermind forums you will meet all kinds of people willing to help you out for free. They are all in there for several reasons, to make money, to learn more about making money online, and helping others make money online too.

I found a few people who helped me to look at my dating site, optimize the keywords to pull in more traffic and helped to optimize the contextual advertising on the site to bring in more money from that as well. This was about 4 months ago and I posted about the site and my findings. It’s been 4 months now and the income from the site keeps going up a little bit each months, as does the income streams from my other little streams.

The Most Supremely Ultimate Important thing.

The most supremely important thing I’ve found about all this making money online stuff is being consistent. Through consistency we built discipline, and through discipline we are able to push through the times when we feel like giving up, and putting the blog down. I hit a little bt of burnout a few Weeks or months ago, as I have been doing this on several blogs for a little while now. Through consistency I have been building traffic which is the other most important thing about making money online. Traffic Traffic Traffic. Without it you have NOTHING. It is where all sales are generated and where all word of mouth comes from and all incoming links come from. If you don’t believe me, try selling something to nobody. Then you will understand the importance of Traffic! That and good content.

Enjoy your week!

Larry

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10 Steps to Start and Run a Successful Dating Site

Larry C. — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:10:08 +0000

The ten steps to start and run a successful dating site.

Find a Niche that may not be met or fulfilled – Possibly a medical need, or a handicap type need, or cultural need. Think Jewish dating, or dating for amputees or Gay Midget Dating, the software I suggest for finding niches for dating sites is Micro Niche Finder. This software will make your life so much easier, it is a must have.
Research the searches per month and search result with Google, Google Keyword Tool or Micro Niche Finder, to determine need and effective placement in search engine ranking. Decide if the niche you picked is going to work, if not start over.
Review and choose the dating site software to run the site. One software I recommend and use is Webscribble’s Webdate. This is a very robust software and is easy to use and configure and customize. I can also talk to you about it myself if you want my opinion and how I use it and it’s only $199.
Hire a programmer to customize the site, if you aren’t code savvy.
Make the site a totally free dating site, to help populate it.
Do SEO work for search engine placement and build back links for traffic.
Article submissions for attention and SEO Ranking.
Start charging for premium accounts(more email sending capability, better visibility of profiles, or other perks)
Start charging for advertising(once traffic is high)
Enjoy recurring payments for membership, recurring advertising payments, or flip for profit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Have a great Friday night folks.

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The Secret to Successful Blogging or Marketing.

Larry C. — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:39:26 +0000

Old Dog

I’ve been in the business of making money on the internet for about 10 years now. I started in the dating site niche back in 1997 back when the internet was still young and growing. I wasn’t making any money at the time, but I was running a dating site specific for people with a certain medical condition. I would receive emails with an ad and then I would post it by hand myself and people would then be accessible for dating.

At this stage of the game I didn’t know much about SEO, or traffic or html for that matter but I was doing it. I was also the first and only dating site for this genre of people, so I obviously stood out in the searches. I continued to be a stand out and then I noticed something, there were other dating sites in my niche but they were charging money. I got a little angry, then got over being angry and started to charge money too. This is when I started my marketing career on the internet.

“New” Old Trick

In my years of being in this niche I have had a very nice steady flow of income from this dating site even though there are bigger and better corporate entities around. I come up on the 1st page of Google, within the first 5 results for most if not all of the search terms for my specific niche. So how is it that, even though I am still pretty much the oldest site in this niche; I am not making more money than I am currently?

I decided to go to Compete.com and look up my traffic stats as opposed to that of my competition. I typed in my URL and I had about 250-ish uniques, per month. Ok, not bad I guess considering a lot of traffic is repeat people coming back to check their mail, profiles and see what new profiles are on the site, Ok so it’s a little low but it’s not bad. Right? I then punched in the URL for my competition and my jaw hit the floor. My competition was getting 250, 000 uniques per month, 100,000 times more than I was getting.

The Secret

It hit me square upside the head, Traffic. I didn’t have the traffic. I had gotten so desensitized to the Basics of Traffic, that I forgot to continue with the basics. I hear it all the time, everyday, all day long about “generate traffic”, “marketing”, “more traffic…”, and so on that I had gotten completely desensitized to the fact that I still needed to generate traffic coming to my site.

Even though I am still in the top search engine results, I was not getting the traffic I needed or wanted to make more money. The secret to making money in ANY niche, market or blog, is TRAFFIC. If you have none, you have no money. Period. Sure people search the net for things, but they don’t always search for everything. So what I needed to do was return to the basics of traffic generation.

Forum posting, comment posting, link directories, link trades and talking anywhere and everywhere about my site. I needed to do this so people know it exists and see it, instead of having to go hunt for it. In effect I needed to get it to the point that whenever someone turned around, my URL was in their face. How did I find where to put my URL? I’ll tell you grasshopper.

And the truth shall set you free…

If you go to Google and type in “link: domainurl.com” and hit enter. The domainurl.com is the URL of a competitors site that you might want to know where they have back links coming from. Once you know this, you can go to each of those results and see if there’s a place that you too can post your link and get some back link traffic and page rank. This is one of the EASIEST ways to find good places to put back links. Do this with several sites that you know of and you will have enough places to begin re-marketing your site. This is how I started to get my traffic to go up again, hopefully eventually as much as my competitor in the near future.

Have a great holiday weekend,

Larry

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The Niche Think Tank » Traffic

Google Search Results Are Skewed – How To Get Real Search Results

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March Income Report – A Watched Pot Never Boils

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