Had an interesting conversation yesterday with one of my bloggy friends from the political world. He’s been messing around with SEO lately, and discovered something amazing: Google gets more searches for the word “nude” rather than “naked”. Strange, huh?

The hot topic so far this week has been about the new Miss USA, a smokin’ hawt Lebanese chick from Dearbornistan. So Paul decides to put up a headline yesterday “Miss USA Rima Fakih Naked Photos” and another one “Nude Photos of Miss America – Rima Fakih“.

Despite the error in naming the contest – calling it Miss America instead of Miss USA, the headline with the word “nude” in it brought more search traffic than the one with the correct contest title.

SEO is all about getting inside a reader’s head and knowing exactly what words they’ll use to search. There’s a downside to random searches, though:

Oh, NOT ONE new subscriber, either. Go figure. I manipulated the post title for hits and did not deliver a chance of any repeat visits. So, you better have the content that your search traffic wants, you know?

This was by far the highest traffic day for my blarq, but when Kathy Shaidle linked my stuff, I got subscribers, too.

Experiment conclusion: Traffic is not the end-all be-all, lasting relationships are. Links from dependable sources net more regular traffic. Wow! It is just like life, too. You can sleep with thousands upon thousands of people, but to have a meaningful and steady thing, you better settle down. Rima Fakih could learn something from ME. I am a good teacher, nude.

There’s been a lot of debate on the web lately as to whether or not SEO marketing can still make you money. The short answer is yes.

SEO Marketing is the simplest way to drive relevant traffic to your website. If you write about baking cookies, you want people searching for cookie recipes to find you. You aren’t so interested in having automobile afficionadoes stopping by. And once those cookie bakers show up, you want Google AdSense or another content based ad program (like Chitika) to have the appropriate ads running that you know they’ll want to click on. Baking supplies. Gourmet recipes. Cookie delivery services for Easter or Christmas.

So how does it work?

Concentrated content. If you want to attrack those cookie bakers, you need to have a proliferation of the right keywords. Cookie recipes. Easy cookie recipes. Bake cookies. These are great keywords to attract the right kind of people. And the concentration within your website or blog should be a minimum of 3%. The more those keywords are mentioned, the more they will be scanned and recognized by Google and other search engines as relevant. When someone searches for those words, Google will know to put your site near the top of the listings. And if you have AdSense embedded in your site, relevant ads will appear for your readers.

I’ll be the first to admit that there isn’t as much money out there as there used to be. But that’s because there are more people on the web today than there were even five years ago. There’s a level of saturation in most niches that there wasn’t a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean that SEO isn’t important or a good way to generate page views and revenue.

There was a time not so long ago that savvy website owners could use SEO marketing and AdSense as a main source of income. Huge blogs and sites still can, but for the rest of us, it’s really just a great trickle of additional revenue. I don’t depend on it to pay the rent, but I sure didn’t scoff at the Google check I received last Thursday.

If your website caters to a niche – celebrity gossip, cooking, pet care – then you can include SEO marketing without sacrificing the quality of your content.

This website is about freelance writing, self-publishing and making money by writing for the web. Notice that most of the Google ads that appear are relevant to my topic. And you, my readers, are clicking on those ads. Which means I’m doing something right.

Try it on your site and drop me a comment after a couple of months to let me know how it’s going.

Controlling Google is like bossing God around – it’s an arrogant thing to think you can do, and it won’t work anyway. It’s like Al Gore telling us we can control the weather. Seriously, you don’t actually believe that, do you? 

Google – like God – is all-powerful and more than a little scary to us mortals. (If Al Gore commanded that kind of respect, maybe we’d believe him.)

I’ve mentioned the basics of SEO Marketing in the past, and these are great tips to adhere to. But like in life, there can be unintended consequences with Google. Once you start treating Google with the reverence it (seems to think it) deserves, you can eliminate some of these consequences.

Complaining

I love to complain. Who doesn’t? But let’s say the last three articles on your site have been about your unbelievably bad trip to Maui. Guess what’s going to populate your Google ads on the page? That’s right! Trips to Maui!

Personal story: My regular political site spends a lot of time decrying the atrocities against women perpetrated in the name of a particular major world religion. Guess what my Google ads are for? Uh huh – dating and marriage sites geared to that faith. You can’t make this stuff up, people.

It sees you when you’re sleeping

Do not try to lie to Google – or Santa Clause. They know. Don’t ask me how, but they do. If you send an email out to your friends telling them to click on your Google ads, Google will know. And they’ll lock your account. Cast you into perdition. No amount of Hail Marys can get you out of this. And you’ll get coal for Christmas.

Quality over Quantity

For some annoying reason, Google doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you score a huge link from a prominent site that drives eleventy-trillion people to your site. All that matters is that they go for the reasons that Google themselves decree.

Personal Story: I posted a pic of Dita Von Teese on my site. This gets search engine traffic. The people that come to me from search engines mean more to Google than the ones who come to me because I got linked by some super hot blogdaddy that drives thousands of people to me. Go figure.

It’s all about the search engines. Nothing else matters.

So what can you do about it? 

I likened Google to God for a reason. It is all-powerful, and it is in charge. If you don’t like the way Google runs things, you can make up your own search engine and ad structure. It worked for Martin Luther, and it might just work for you.

Or, you can stop being such a whiney-baby and work within the system provided. You can excel at it, drive the right kind of traffic and go to Google Heaven.

There is no compulsion in Google. You can always opt out. Heathen.

The diet industry is a multi-million dollar money making machine. Every year more than $6 Billion is spent on diet products, pills, books, doctors and fads.

And every one of those products needs copy writing. Whether it’s a new doctor offering the miracle cure, or a pharmaceutical solution to years of yo-yo dieting, they all need someone to write their copy.

You don’t necessarily have to have a degree in nutrition to grab a slice of the $6 Billion fat-free pie. You just have to be able to take available research and turn it into compelling sales copy.

If you do happen to have some medical bona fides, you are an excellent candidate to ghostwrite celebrity diet books. What? You thought they wrote their own? Most of ‘em can’t read, let alone write a million-seller.

Fact is, like everything else, health and nutrition is an industry. Keep it in mind, along with other industries that don’t always spring to mind:

• Cleaning services
• Undertaking/cemetery
• Taxi companies

If you have personal experience in the weight loss area – perhaps you lost a great deal of weight yourself – you could even start your own weight loss website. There’s plenty of ad revenue to be shared in the diet arena. Set up a website, get some articles up there, put up Google and AdBrite ads, use SEO tactics, and you’ll have a nice steady stream of money trickling in. Yes, trickling. Don’t believe the hype that you can make hundreds of dollars a day via PPC ads. But a trickle is good.

Add to that some free reports that lead to pay reports, and you have a nice little home business going. Help others beat the bulge (hey, it’s bikini season), and make a nice tidy profit. It’s a win-win.

If you need help setting up a diet website, check this out.

No, I don’t think so. Not unless you’re willing to work your ass off.

The other day I wrote about how to make money fast with SEO content writing. However, as I pointed out, you won’t make a lot of money doing it. A couple of dollars here and there will not a millionaire make!

There are e-books you can generate a tidy income from, but there’s a catch: You have to write an e-book! This isn’t something that can be done overnight. Sure, your first draft can be completed in a week or so, but then there’s tedious revisions to be done. Not an overnight money-maker.

There’s web publishing, as I am doing. But this isn’t going to make you rich, and it certainly isn’t fast. I currently run 5 websites. They all need regular attention in order for advertisers to keep paying me. One blog has been up and running for 5 years. That certainly isn’t a get rich quick endeavor!

Heck, with the economy the way it is, even day traders (who have an in-depth knowledge of the stock market from years of study) can’t get rich quick.

Freelancing isn’t a parallel universe: It is real life. And as with everything in real life, you have to work hard to succeed. All those things I mentioned above? Why not use them in conjunction with each other to make money? Of course, it won’t happen overnight…

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an easy way to make fast money. If you can string a few sentences together, you can make money with SEO content.

What it is:

Many websites have ad content on them. Things like Google Ads pull information from the site’s content in order to place the most relevant advertising. Websites that have a high keyword density in a certain niche can get better ads, with higher click-through payouts.

Some website owners know what their keywords should be, but don’t have the skills to write them coherently into web content. So they outsource the work to freelancers.

The good side:

There’s plenty of work to be had out there. It’s pretty easy for a competent or even semi-competent writer. Check out Craigslist writing gigs and every day you’ll find dozens of SEO writing jobs. You’ll write five or ten SEO articles, bank a hundred bucks, and move on to something else. In this economy, take easy money where you can get it!

The bad side:

The pay is shit. You’re looking at a max of about eight cents a word and most of the time it’s more like one or two. Sometimes you wind up sacrificing style for keyword density, leading to awkward phrasing. Clients seem to think you can manage a keyword density of 15% in a 300 word article without sounding like a dolt, and unfortunately that’s usually not possible. It’s writing prostitution.

The bottom line:

It’s fast, easy money in a pinch. It isn’t Shakespeare.

Check out some of the books above to survive 2009 and our wacky economy. Make some fast money with SEO, help clients get to the top with Google, and in the end they may end up rewarding you with bigger, better jobs.

This isn’t really for me, so I thought I’d share with y’all. I don’t normally do this, but the name of the company caught my eye: Swami SEO. Heh. How can you go wrong with a swami, right? Anyway, here’s the job. They are looking to hire 5 bloggers, working remotely.

SwamiSEO is part of London based A K Singh Limited. We specialize in providing Guaranteed Google Top 10 Ranking and SEO consultancy.

No. of Positions Available – 5

Job Type – Freelance jobs

Job Location & Timings – Flexible timing, remote job.

Applicant profile

Applicant must have experience in followings

* Writing on various topics
* Familiarity with Wordpress, Blogspot and Livejournal Blogging platforms
* Some familiarity with SEO
* Some knowledge of HTML is also required

Good luck!

Wow. My post the other day about SEO marketing (Search Engine Optimization) got a lot of hits, thereby proving exactly what the article was about.

People searched Google for information on SEO marketing, and found my post about it. That’s called “organic” traffic, in that the hits were coming from people who wanted to know about SEO marketing enough to go searching for it. Those are the people that the AdWords advertisers are targeting with the ads you see to the right of the screen.

Bloggers and website owners have an opportunity to be a money-making middle man by providing space for these ads as a small income stream in addition to whatever other purpose their website provides.

There are site admins out there who do nothing except pitch for these ads, and that’s a shame, because their content tends to be useless rubbish. But if you provide decent quality content for your readers in addition to pimping the AdSense stuff, then you can make a few bucks from it.

How does this relate to freelancing? Well, somebody needs to actually write the content! Not every site admin has the time or the talent to research and publish keyword-laden articles to their site. So they provide the keywords to freelancers like me, and I turn out readable, SEO-friendly content for their site. It’s a win-win situation.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is how a lot of web writers make money. If you look to the right of this article, you’ll see ads from Google. The magical wizards in the Google oracle take the text from my blog posts and decide – based on that text – what my readers might want to know more about or even purchase.

It’s a system that is beneficial to the reader who finds a new resource or product, the blogger (hi, that’s me!) who gets paid to have the ads (based on how often the ads get clicked), and beneficial to the advertiser who gains a new follower or buyer.

Oh, and naturally Google takes a cut, too! Because they find this system of advertising very lucrative, they have made it easier for everyone to get in on. The Google SEO Starter Guide will help the aspiring web writer and online worker get started with keywords and other SEO marketing tips.

Hat tip: Saad, who has a mini version of the guide available.