I was playing around with Dreamweaver today and figured I would make a simple little theme that fits adsense in all the right places. If you folks are tired of using wordpress and feel like adding some static html into your blood, then here is a free one for you to use. I personally think that everyone should be diversified and this is one way to do it.

This theme basically adds adsense in 2 spots. The first right below the header, and the second floating inline with the page. You can dress this theme up how you like, but if you want something that is already set up real simple then here you go. If you need help then please see the readme file I added inside the theme folder.

I added a privacy policy page for you in the template as well as a link to it at the bottom of the site. Easy as pie!

I recommend that you use this theme wisely and put value into your sites. Provide images and explanation of what you are writing. As I mentioned last time, gibberish and content filler type material that has no real value is not a smart move if you want a long lasting website.

You are free to modify this theme any way you like as long as you leave a credit link back to me. So here you go folks. Check out the screen shot below, and feel free to upload this bad boy and go to town. You can click on the image below to get a better view.

>>>>>>>>>>> Download This Theme HERE

How do you make money on the internet when you aren’t sure what is safe and whats isn’t? If you were paranoid before Grizz wrote his most recent post on his experiences with blogger as well as Alan Liew over at moneymakerinfo, you are probably really paranoid now. Can sites with blogger rank well? Yes that was already established some time ago. Can they get taken away from you? Yes they can, since they are not yours to begin with.

Whats interesting though is the fact that quite a few people who are running what are considered to be thin sites are also losing adsense accounts. Google is cleaning up house, so you better make sure your sites are spotless. If you have one page sites with a spammy theme, a privacy policy and about page on them but nothing else you are in for a world of hurt at some point.

Remember that your adsense account can be gone tomorrow if you have junky sites. I’m putting a list together of No-Nos if you have a blog or website running adsense or other affiliate products. If you have something to add to it let me know. Remember, these are no hard set rules. These are based on my opinion and experience, so take away from this what you want.

• Do not use common templates or themes that are popular for adsense or affiliate sites.
• Do not EXCLUDE images and header graphics which give your site more value.
• Do not put adsense above a post so that no content can be seen.
• Do not put adsense directly below a title (even if floating left or right inside post) without some type of  spacing and border to let people know it is not a list based on the title.
• Do not put images next to adsense which would lead people to believe the image depicts what the ad is for.
• Do not keyword stuff your posts. Keep keyword density under 2%. Google knows what your site is about if you use the keywords only a couple times within your articles.
• Do not put an excessively large blogroll on your site. Especially payday loan blogroll links. This will cause you to lose your PR faster than you can say pagerank.
• Remember to link out to a handful of valuable sources, (no this doesn’t make you an authority site) which can help you prove some worth and value to Google.
• Don’t target one keyword and make it obvious. Build a site around a topic that has some substance.
• Provide some type of value to the reader (thought I would never say this) so that they don’t report you. Your site doesn’t have to be better than someone else’s in the same niche, but it should have some type of value which allows it to stand should a visual inspection come.
• Make sure to include about page, contact page and privacy policy page.

The easy money days are over. If you were lazy before when it was easy then now is about the time you should give up. If you want to make money now, then this is the best time to start clean sites.

Let me know if any of you have more to add to this list in your comments and I will add them.

I’m back from my cruise to Mexico, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica, and it was a much needed vacation. Spending 7 days relaxing and going on excursions is a great way to get away from a computer and actually enjoy the fruits of your labor. I know I don’t have a ton of followers like Chow or Yaro, but that’s perfectly fine with me. You also won’t find me sucking on another mans neck either. We will leave that homo stuff to Chow.

I do get emailed quite a bit from people wanting me to train them to make money online. Many of those who sincerely would like to put in the work, and many others who just want to make quick money with little to no work. It can become quite overwhelming though, and I just don’t have time to train people anymore like I use to. I would much rather spend this time with family and friends. I do not mind however answering questions or pointing people in the right direction.

If you email me with a question I would be more than happy to help, however if you email me and ask me where to begin I will probably point you to the one place that I recommend and trust, which is extremely affordable and straight forward. Court and Mark who run The Keyword Academy have well put together information that is clear and understandable. Lots of videos and live Webinars allow you to get real time questions answered each week as well.

As most of you know that read my blog, I would not write about this and recommend this course if it was crap. The training you will learn from The Keyword Academy about blogging is exactly what you need in order to be successful and make some serious cash.

Thats about it folks. I have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment, and will be busy with some huge projects for the next couple months. If you have any questions, you can shoot me an email and I will get back with you as soon as I can.

One thing I noticed when I came back from my trip today was news within search results which features twitter as well as new blog posts etc. when a topic is hot enough according to Search Engine Land who recently did an article on the subject, Google will show a news related scroll box which you can pause or just let it keep moving and rotating. Looks a little annoying! Maybe annoying enough for people to look and click on stuff. Instead of going more in depth on this bit I will let you all read that at SEJ.

What this does bring me too is another interesting question. How can that be used to an advantage? Now that Google has made twitter a part of their search that puts a whole new spin on things In the next few days I will be doing more of my own tests on it to see how it can effectively be used if possible to get more search traffic for people interested in various topics. Obviously the idea is to make money with twitter through natural search engine traffic.

Only testing will tell us how well this method could work in future situations. Obviously spending countless hours on twitter is not a good use of time, so automation is key. I will give a follow up on some of the testing if it is worth it. If you don’t hear about it again, then it means that I didn’t get anything great to happen, or that I found something so great that letting too many people in on the idea would spoil it.

Thanks for reading and feel free to join my twitter account. It will definitely help me with some other testing I will be doing with the Whatawookie twitter account which will include some prizes. Just to keep things clear, this blog is ultimately here to show you a thing or 2 about making money online through a viable means. One that can be replicated, and that works for just about anyone that wants to do it. This blog is a make money online site which is geared towards just that. I appreciate your comments, and will do the best to answer questions when I can through email. If you have any, shoot me an email and I will get back with you at some point. Sometimes its fast and other times its slow.

Again, thanks for reading!

Writers are easy to find. Great writers are hard to find. One of the most respected writers I know Monika has a new guide to help those wanting to get into the writing business. I took a peek into the Freelance Superstar course, and it had quite a bit of good information. Being that I am not in the writing biz though, I would have to say if I did want to get into it that this covered just about every aspect.

Some of the things it covers are the places that you can get writing jobs, as well as their pluses and minuses. It also covers the basics on getting your own site up and running, and how to sell yourself properly. If you are planning on making money online, and you need some immediate income then I am going to recommend writing as the way to go as a beginner.

If you have no interest in writing, but are still in need of money and want to know how to land the jobs then this is also for you. If however you hate writing and have enough cash to live on for a while and aren’t desperate for money, but just want some extra cash from making money online, then this is probably not for you.

Just so that you know, I am not making a dime off of promoting this course. It is simply based on having respect for Monika as a writer, and knowing after seeing the actual e-book that it really has value for someone who wants to become a freelance writer for a living or part time. It is going to save you the hassles of trying to figure out all the proper steps on your own.

This is obviously not a get rich quick scheme, and requires work just like everything else I teach on this blog. Can you make a lot of money as a writer? Heck yes you can. If you are ready to take things to the next level with a writing career, then check out Freelance Superstar.

I have received some emails from a few people having the same issues. One day you are getting traffic and earning money, and the following day literally nothing for you as far as income.

Why is it hard for you to bring in consistent income is the real question? I’m going to tell you so be ready. You either

A. Do not have the ability to get the type of links you need for the terms you are working to hold your rank.

B. Not properly doing keyword research.

C. Working too tight of a niche with little to no traffic.

A few of you are probably going to fall in almost all those categories. others just one. Is it wrong that you build these sites with inconsistent traffic? Not at all, as a matter of fact I have a few sites that are tightly focused which may earn me some big bucks off adsense when I get a click for them, but they are not my main source of income. I do not depend on them to bring in the same amount of money each day. One day they may make me $20 bucks and another day they may make $1 dollar but once again they are not my main sources for income.

With that being said, if your earners vary hugely day by day with adsense, then you are not targeting and nailing a good niche through and through. For most sites it is a numbers game and a combination of keywords which you have chosen. Pick the wrong ones and you have crappy CTR. Pick the right niche and sometimes you get clicks nonstop. This also has a lot to do with the age group you are targeting which I will get to in another article.

At this point then you should mainly focus on having a handful of consistent earners every day which can bring in $$30-$100 every day. Once you have that established then work the smaller stuff. But make sure you have consistent earners, or you will never have a gauge to what you will make each month. Personally for me, I like knowing what I can bring in each month as far as income from sites. Consistency is key.

So lets say you built a site around “Starwars Chewbacca Legos“. Once you have that main term nailed then what? If the search volume is low then you have a site that is going to be sporadic. Instead wouldn’t it make sense to build an entire site around Star wars legos and target a bunch of terms like “Han Solo Starwars figure“, “Jabba the Hut lego set” etc…? Then you will be bringing in traffic for many more terms than just one or 2 most likely making it more of a consistent earner each day.

This is not really rocket science folks, but there are so many people struggling and not earning money consistently. So if you don’t have a site that is nailing a bunch of keywords get on it. Don’t accumulate a bunch of sites that are all hit or miss. Don’t work niches you can’t get links to rank for properly. If you email me and tell me you are working credit cards, then I am going to tell you to work something easier.

Geez, I just gave you an idea for a niche with the legos, and I am willing to bet some people will start making lego sites based off this post. So why is it people can’t use their noggin a little more and think about things they had as a kid or buy for their kids, or a problem you a person needs medication for, or a household product millions of people use everyday, or places people like to travel.

There are  millions possibilities. Find them and choose them wisely. If you think a term is easy to nail and you don’t want to buy a domain then start a blogger blog and test the waters.

OK, I’m off to nailing more keywords.

I want to take an example of one of the most competitive markets in the world to give you an idea of how far link building can get you. I am not trying to pick on anyone by any means, but want to share a site that doesn’t have as big a name as Oreilly or Autozone, and show you what they have been able to do with link building.

Before I get to that let me say a few things. The issue will always go on about social media and how it is another way to build a website from the ground up in an online world full of link builders.  That’s great for those who like to toil and never reach their full potential. I am not against social media by any means as it can be a great way to boost your image, and gain some trust, but lets be real here. Social Media is never going to get you perfectly targeted links for what you would like to rank for. Social media is never going to bring you the exact people who are searching for a product or a service. You are playing with chance if you are going to rely on social means for a business growth strategy. Social Media might be a great business model for the make money online niche for those who want to peddle their crap and make a buck, but its a horrible game plan for a  niche like auto parts unless you are already a huge well established company searching for new ways of boosting your brand or interaction with customers.

Social Media should be used to complement basic SEO principles such as link building and on page optimization. In some cases where there is not a niche looking for something in Google, social means may be the route to go. But in 99% of almost all cases, link building should be at the top for ranking your website in the search engines. For those that get it from experience, I don’t even have to prove that fact, but for those that follow big names in the make money online niche, it can be very hard to prove otherwise because of all the sweet talking of the very people they worship.

I would like to ask those who say they view social media as their method of growth and of building a website how they would go about ranking for car parts? If they say they would use social media as a means to promote their business? Then I would ask them how they could ever reach a mass audience who is searching in Google for auto parts that have never gone to twitter or facebook looking for a car part. I wouldn’t say that social media can’t help you build a brand or trust, but it is not going to bring the maximum amount of people who are looking for you with the effort you spend. Of course you could get a few sales here or there, or maybe even get some people to tell you that they will buy from you in the future, but how will you reach millions every month searching for auto parts?

Lets look at a company who has used this method of link building to get to the top. Autoanything.com has managed to rank on the first page of Google for car parts. I guarantee you they didn’t get it there through focusing on social methods. They focused on link building. If you were to look at some of the terms they are targeting, you would find they rank for a whole slew of terms that are very difficult to rank for. How do you outshine a company like this with Social Media?

I’m sure you could comment and tell me I have used this example in a narrow context, and that social methods for getting traffic or building brand can work in their own way. But what I am telling you is that if you don’t start first with SEO as your main focus to ranking in Google and seeing traffic for years to come, then you are going to be busting your hump chasing after social traffic day after day without seeing the big money results. I guess I would liken that to 10 guys digging a hole with shovels rather than just using a large piece of machinery such as a backhoe to digging the hole for you.

There are plenty of other things I could add to this but I am going to leave it be now. Stop following the guys that feed you bull and start doing something that will really pay off for you.

Well I took the plunge and spent almost 2 bucks to join Problogger.com to see what all the hub bub was about, and to let some of you guys know whether it was enlightening or if anything had value there. So here is what I found.

Its pretty much just a forum. I didn’t see any valuable tools to help people build better sites, or learn how to build a website with real long term value. What I did find was a couple links to an eBook about building a better blog by yours truly, Darren Rowse. If you join the forum, some of the topics you will be discussing include Blog Promotion, Finding Readers for your blog, making money with your blog, writing content etc..

I did find a lot of newbs in there trying to find out how to grow their social traffic to engage readers. Lets stop right there. I hate it every time I talk about social traffic as being worthless when someone comes up right behind me and says that “blogging” is not about the money, but about building friendships and having a readership and building trust. Here is what ends up happening with that trust. Just like these A-list bloggers who abuse it, so do their followers who promote the same trash they do, leading people to believe its a hidden jewel. They write a stupid review on something that is crap, making it appear that the product is helping them make tons of money just to add another $3k or 4k into their pockets at the end of the month. Then they show you the reader that they made $40,000 and tell you that you can do it too. But they never tell you about how to get organic traffic which can help make you money consistently with a blog .

If you are a big A-lister I challenge you to come up with something that has real value about making money. Stop telling people that as long as you are passionate about writing about any subject that you will make money. I know some people think I am a jerk for being real about this, but if I reinforced a positive mentality about making money online, but never really gave you tips on how to build a sustainable income, would you keep coming back and kiss my butt? I bet some might. It’s what quite a few followers do with Rowse and Chow every week. I’m willing to bet that some people joined that forum in hopes of truly learning how to make money with a blog, and they aren’t going to get that. If you join the Problogger forum, You aren’t going to hear about the type of links to get in order to improve rankings, or how to get a double listing in Google, or even how to do proper keyword research. What you will get is a community of people that are clueless with the exception of a few, and you will be learning how to grow traffic through social means which will put you back in the hamster wheel spinning for nothing.

Bottom line is you either treat this as a business or you don’t. Do you want to be a Pro Blogger? Do you write for fun, or do you write to make money. Do you want to build sites that you can walk away from and make thousands of dollars a year off of, or do you want to write on sites that require you to go out and get more Twitter fans, more Facebook fans and more feed readers to make you feel good?

Here are my final words on joining Problogger.com. If you want to make some buddies, and talk about twitter followers and answer polls then go for it. But… if you want to make real money and have a real knowledge of how and why people click on ads, as well as how to get sustainable traffic that will help you make money online for ages, then its a waste of time.

If anyone wants one on one training, all you have to do is ask and I will be more than happy to answer any questions you may have for free. All you have to do is shoot me an email.

The big question that people still ask despite the proof is whether you can rank for terms with a blogspot blog as with Wordpress.  The answer is YES. At this point you can either believe me and move on, or you can read on and see the proof and why you can. First off, contrary to what some people will tell you, even so called SEO experts, you can rank for very competitive terms. For starters lets take one of the toughest terms to rank for, make money online.  If you do a search in Google on that term you will find 2 blogger blogs out of the top 5 spots.

Lets look at another example, since it has been said that you can put any word in Google and add blog after it and you won’t find any blogger blog ranking. I did a search for “my blog” and what I found was some random guy I have never heard of from Indonesia with a blogspot blog ranking right after mybloglog.com. He titled his blog, “My Personal Blog“. Lets take some more examples since blogspot blogs suck and can’t rank for anything. Look up something as simple as “happy blog” and tell me what you find? Yet again another blogspot blog. And now lets take a more comical approach. Do a search for butt implants blog in Google and tell me what you find? If you want to get a few more laughs and read further on the subject then you need to go on and visit Griz post about problogger.com but I warn you, he has a blogspot blog which ranks at the top in Google for make money online, so don’t take him too seriously.

If you want even more laughs then go visit one of the funniest vloggers I know, Allyn Hane at his video blog. He will show you how to properly drink a beer and make a video at the same time.

OK, now that you know a blogger.com blog can rank for just about anything a Wordpress blog can, lets talk about why that is possible.

The first reason is because ranking well is 90% offpage SEO and 10% onpage. What I mean by that is simply, the more relevant links you have coming into a site whether it is a Blogspot blog or a Wordpress blog is what matters most. For those of you who are going to tell me that Wordpress is just easier to customize, I’m not going to argue with you on that point, but I can tell you that a blogger blog can be set up even faster. I’m not being partial here because I use both platforms. I am simply stating a fact that you will find a bunch of A-list bloggers speak contrary too.

Here is another bit of information based on my experience. A blogger blog will have a lot higher CTR than a Wordpress blog. Primarily because they are ugly, and people like to read pretty blogs. If you want to get some serious clicks, then you really should give blogger.com a try. If you are going to focus more on affiliate products then you do need to maintain some type of professional look to your site to gain more trust and improve conversions. If you want to follow the lead of the A-listers that’s fine, but I am going to keep using blogger as a way to make money and test the waters for keywords at no cost.

If you want to learn more on the basics of how to make money blogging then read part one in the series.

If you enjoyed this post then I am going to ask you to subscribe to my feed right now.

Lets talk about how you can make money as an eBay affiliate. I’m sure most of you reading this know what eBay is, and know that you can make some decent money from it by selling stuff that’s been either sitting around in your home, or things you have picked up from garage sales or estate sales. That was one of my favorite money makers back in 1998 when eBay was still relatively undiscovered country. However like many who have stuck around with eBay for many years, I have found that a lot of the products I could easily buy and turn a profit quickly on were not selling like they used to as more and more people crowded the marketplace with rock bottom prices which did not help provide a decent profit for themselves, or the people like me around them who were also trying to sell things.

That’s when I walked away from eBay for a while and realized that it was time to move on. Well it was fun while it lasted. In the last couple years however I had found eBay to be a profitable place again but from a different angle. This was as an affiliate. I soon realized that you could really make money online with eBay if you built lots of websites and threw up some half decent content.

Software which a friend was using which was working quite nicely also started working well for me, but was short lived as Google didn’t like it and soon started not including the sites in its index. For me this meant changing things up. I started setting up blogs with decent content, which displayed eBay ads through the eBay tools provided. This would allow me to easily set up sites quickly, and make some decent money. Although it took more time, the sites lasted and I didn’t worry so much that they would be gone tomorrow if Google decided to kill some affiliate sites based on spammy looks.

Recently however eBay has gone in a new direction with paying its affiliates by clicks instead of commissions like they used too. This method of making money online is not as friendly since you may have gotten eBay a sale which you would normally have been paid $10 on but now you make 10 cents for. It is another way for eBay to cut back on paying those who help them increase sales, and it is also another way for them to weed out people who may have been trying to rig the system to make money the easy way.

From personal experience I can tell you that eBay was once a half decent way to make money, but can now make a person feel ripped off who has been an affiliate with them since before this new change. Obviously it is easy for eBay to decide what they want to pay affiliates because they not only make the rules, but control the numbers. The eBay affiliate system is flawed and will probably not make you that great of money unless you have a ton of traffic to your sites. This is why adsense can be a lot better option. But if building websites and blogs is not your cup of tea, and you love writing, then you may just want to sign up for hubpages which covers it all. Hubpages allows you to not only add eBay ads, Amazon, and Kontera, but also adds the adsense into your articles without you having to know any coding or programming knowledge.

I have tested out hubpages, and it does work. The main thing required of you is to just write quality content. If on the other hand you are still interested in building your own sites and setting up eBay affiliate feeds on them, then you can head over to the eBay partner network. Have fun!