I'm an Internet marketer who uses blogs to make money online. Most of my readers are bloggers who are trying to be Internet marketers. There is a difference. If you think that there is an actual debate over whether content or links are the most important elements in making money online then you are a blogger. If you know that links are all that matters then you are an Internet marketer.
Quality content? What exactly is quality content? Really. Someone tell me. And while you are at it please tell me how a machine can tell if a post is written by the ghost of William Shakespeare or pounded out by a high school dropout. Quality is a subjective term and no two humans will ever agree on what constitutes quality writing never mind a machine doing it.
Content is necessary to Internet marketing in so much as it is appropriate to the niche that is being targeted. Content is little more than using the right keywords in the right places and surrounding them with relevant text. The Google algorithm does understand how to rank sites based on these factors. It doesn't rank sites on the basis of who writes better. Content only needs to be relevant, it does not have to be good.
If you believe that it has to be "quality" content then you are a blogger who is targeting a "social" niche and you want your traffic to return again and again. Why I have no idea. If you have readers then you aren't an Internet marketer. You are a social blogger.
Internet marketers target niches that make money for them. They don't target niches that attract bloggers. They don't use social media. They don't post comments on social sites. They don't chat on forums. They don't write for readers. They build sites that target specific terms and then they spend all their time gathering backlinks in order to rank number 1 on Google.
I'm going to show you why social bloggers don't have a chance against an Internet marketer.
Credit Cards
Vic from Blogger Unleashed has mentioned the keyword "Credit Card" in his posts when trying to explain why making money online has everything to do with links and nothing to do with quality content. Relevant content Yes but quality No.
The keyword "Credit Card" is one of the most contested terms online. The reason is simple. Rank well for the term and you will make money. I am going to show you how to do it.
A professional internet marketer looks for two things when targeting a niche. A keyword that gets a lot of search traffic and a keyword that can convert visitors into buyers. They don't spend 1 minute wondering if the niche will get readers or comments. A blogger looks for a niche that they think gets lots of traffic and then they build a site friendly to readers (meaning "other" bloggers). Later they wonder how they can turn their readers (you) into buyers. They are still trying to figure that one out. (Tell me why you don't buy stuff on the sites you read regularly and you have the answer - bloggers don't spend money.)
Let's look at why the credit card niche is so profitable. And why bloggers fail at dominating these kinds of niches - the niches that make money.
Monthly searches for the term "Credit Card". (Click images to enlarge)
Google's Adwords tool shows half a million searches for the term last month. This is an estimate. Keyword Elite shows 30k - also an estimate. I have said this numerous times before - don't believe the actual numbers. These tools are useful for showing you which terms are more popular but the actual search numbers shouldn't be taken as Gospel. These tools simply tell me that the term "credit card" gets more searches than any other related term (long tails). The Keyword Elite tool simply gives me an idea of Adsense CPC and how many advertisers are available. If the advertiser is paying $11 a click for a search listing then they are probably paying $4-$5 for content ads. This would equate to $2 clicks for you on your Adsense ads. This too is just an estimate and you could see much higher or lower CPC.
Step 2 - Who ranks on top of the serp's for the keyword "Credit Card"?
Here are the top 4 sites. Two of them have the term in their url and two don't. The 4th ranked site has the perfect url and doesn't rank number 1. This just tells me that the 3 sites above number 4 have way more anchored backlinks. It doesn't tell me who has "better" content.
Let's examine all four quickly. Guess what - not a blog among them for starters. They are all static web sites. Second they all have the same content - nothing unique or original. They don't have quality articles - they are simply lead generation sites listing dozens of affiliate links for various credit card offers. Third, they don't have Adsense on them. I'll tell you why that is important in a minute.
Oh btw - they are all "ugly" websites... do you know why? The same reason Google is an "ugly" website - these sites are built for functionality. They don't cater to readers. They want visitors to show up and click a link. They don't want readers hanging around reading and leaving comments or getting sidetracked with all sorts of "pretty" distractions that bloggers like to throw on their sites.
What do you see when you examine these sites? I'll tell you what I see...
I see exactly how Google works.
When someone types in "credit card" in the search engine Google has to decide what the intent of the visitor is for such a generic request. The visitor isn't asking anything. So does Google think the visitor is looking for information on the "history" of credit cards? Or which credit card is the "coolest" looking? Or which CC is the most used? No. Google has decided that the most relevant sites for such a generic term must be sites listing "available credit cards" or a "list of credit cards". They rightly assume that this is what the query is likely looking for. So why doesn't Visa, Amex and Mastercard dominate this serp listing? Because Google knows that anyone looking for such well known brands would simply type in the brand names. Since they didn't Google assumes that the visitor wants options.
If you ask for a history of CC's then you will get a "quality" blog article from about.com followed by a pbs.org blog article. Quality content? You bet. Will they make any money with their quality content. No. And neither quality article ranks for the term credit card.
The point is that all you bloggers need to understand that content has to be relevant to the keyword queried. In this case the most relevant content for the term credit card is a page full of credit card offers and not quality articles about credit cards. The most relevant platform for this info is a static website. You can create a blog and write as many high quality articles as you want about credit cards and I guarantee you will never see page 1 on the serp's for the term. Google is not looking for quality content. They are looking for "relevant" content. Period. A thin on content, heavy on affiliate products website is more relevant for the visitor, for this term, than your brilliant treatise on how evil credit card companies are.
You now know what type of site is needed and what type of content the site should have to rank well for this niche. This isn't my opinion. Google is telling you flat out by its own serp rankings.
So how does the top site get to be the top site. Do they have better content? No. All the top sites have the same content.
The top site has more quality keyword anchored backlinks than the the rest. Period.
All of you that think quality content matters (as opposed to relevant content) think about this. What makes Google rank 4 essentially similar sites differently?
I'll show you.
The top ranked site is creditcardguide.com and this is what it looks like.
Here is a list of some of the backlinks this website has pointing at it. This is compiled with SEO Elite.
I already knew the owner of this site knew their stuff but it only took 2 seconds to confirm it from the backlinks.
Check out the "Anchor text" column in the SEO Elite screenshot. The keyword "credit card" shows up often and is cloaked in various long tails. It's not just the two word term over and over. This site targets "all" the long tails and will rank well for a lot of them. This site gets a lot of search traffic on top of its main keyword.
Note: Most sites will have an abundance of crappy anchor text - the url or the name of the website is the most common anchor you will see. These links come from social networks and friends and other bloggers who don't know anything about keywords. When you see a list of backlinks that have more keywords in the anchor than crap terms you are looking at a site that controls the backlinks either because they own the linking sites (a farm) or they buy links. This site has almost no useless anchors - a sure sign that the owner controls the incoming links.
The red arrows are pointing to three links that tell the whole story. You'll also notice the site has several .edu links. These are all killer links. So did they come from stumblers and diggers? How about do-follow comments? Are they a result of article marketing? Bookmarking? Link exchanging with friends? Now don't get me wrong. Getting links is tough and all these methods do work and bloggers use them to find links for their blogs. But. The pros don't piss around with any of that. You are looking at a niche that makes real money and the people competing spend money to make it. This isn't casual blogging hoping to make a few thousand a month. This is a business.
Let me give you an idea about what kind of money is to be had. If I asked you who one of the biggest advertisers online is what would you say? The financial sector is a huge online advertiser. They spend billions a year doing what banks do - lending money in order to make even more billions in return. Is there anybody in the MMO or blogging niches spending that kind of advertising money? Can you think of any social niche that has that kind of money for advertising aside from the techie sector?
Let's say 500k people search for "credit card" each month and I'm going to be very conservative here. I noticed that the top site has an Alexa rank of 47k which means nothing except that this website does get a number of returning visitors who use the alexa toolbar. These visitors are most likely other marketers checking the rankings rather than real visitors (buyers) so I will lop off half the search numbers. This leaves 250K searches.
Affiliates earn between $25 and $120 for each customer who qualifies for a CC. Some cards pay up to $60 just for a completed application never mind acceptance of the app.
On any given day there could be 8000 people querying Google for the term "Credit Card" and 3/4 (6k) of these searchers will land on the top ranked site. Again being conservative, lets say only 1% click through and fill out a CC offer. That would be roughly 60 sign ups a day. 60 times an average commission of $50 is $3000 per day. $1500 per day if we only use the lowest commission rate of $25. This website realistically earns between $30,000 and $90,000 per month. It could be lower if the search numbers are way off or it could be a lot higher as well. Higher or lower - who spends more time working on their sites - you or the owner of this credit card guide? This owner doesn't post or answer comments. They change some links from time to time and spend the rest of the time lying on a beach buying links. Do you still want to work 7 days a week posting fresh content to keep your readers coming back?
Btw - I mentioned that there were no Adsense ads on the site. This tells you something considering 6000 visitors a day would likely click ads in the 6-8% range. (based on my own experience in similar niches). A 5% CTR would be 300 clicks at let's say - $2 per click. $600 a day - not bad. The fact that they aren't after Adsense just confirms that the commissions from leads is much higher than Adsense produces. (Never bleed visitors away from your main links with lesser links - focus on your money links)
That's a lot of money folks. Would I spend $10k a month buying links if the return was $60k? Yup. And so do real marketers. If you think you can compete in a niche like this without getting a ton of quality links then you are dreaming. If you think you can get those links using all the "social" means at your disposal you are dreaming. If you think writing "quality" content will get you ranked on page 1 for a niche like this - yes you are still dreaming. There is only one way in hell you can compete in this league. You buy links. And you buy better links than the competition. And you buy lots of them and you never stop buying them.
I didn't have to look very far to find the links I was looking for when examining this websites backlinks. The site has a PR6 link using the anchor "credit card". It comes from a non-relevant site but that single link kicks the crap out of a thousand do-follow links you might try to come up with. Here is the page the link is on. http://genamics.com/privacypolicy.htm and the red arrow points to it in the screenshot below.
The linking site itself is little more than a directory - a perfect farm blog used for passing high PR links for a price. The link in question is on a "Privacy Policy" page no less - a PR6 page. There is no reason for the link if you read the text. Can I prove this is a paid link. No. Do I know it is a paid link? I'm pretty sure. There are a few other links spread around the site that don't need to be there as well. Spend some time on Digital Point and you will find all sorts of anonymous sites selling links. This is the type of link you can purchase for a few hundred a month through one of the link brokers you will find on DP. It is a great link. The page it is on is not likely to ever get slapped by G and the competition can't really report it. The link is paid for but it will pass the test because it looks legit.
If you go back and look at a few of the other links I highlighted on the SEO Elite image you will notice the website also has a link from the Wall Street Journal. Very sweet indeed. Is it paid for? Who knows - the WSJ like many media giants is busy trying to make money online too. Do they use a link broker? Maybe. Everyone is looking for a monetization platform that works. The WSJ has a number of blogs that it operates and the link in question is on WSJ's blog "Independent Street". The link is on a fluff post and could be paid for or it could be the result of just ranking number 1 for the term. I have also received a few links over the years from the odd Media powerhouse - the last time was from the LA Times linking to my Asia'h blog. I got the link because I ranked on top of the serp's and the newsblog was looking for what it thought was a fan site. One thing I can tell you - links from the media giants are worth a lot of juice. This one is a PR5 link using the keywords in the anchor from an extremely trusted source. Beat that with your Digg friends.
The last link I want to point out is the http://web.mit.edu/foley/www/ link. This is a anchored keyword link on a PR4 .edu page from M.I.T. The blog is another crappy university .edu blog but the creator knows what he is doing. Can you tell if the link is paid for?
I probably made my point a few paragraphs ago. There is a huge gap between blogging for a few dollars and doing what the pros do. I'm not telling you all to run out and start buying links. I am telling you all to give the content vs links debate a rest. There is no contest - just in your very small pond out on the edge of the Internet universe. Professional marketers know what is needed to make money online.
Links...
And they know how to get them.
And it isn't using stumbleupon.
As for content - let Google show you what is relevant for your niche. Who do they rank on top and what type of content does the site have.
There is a huge gap between what the big players do to make money online and the social methods flogged by your local IM guru. Social traffic is for small players in a very small pond. Blogs can be used to make money online and fortunately for me most of the people using blogs are bloggers and not marketers. While they churn out quality content I churn out keyword relevant content and build links. They write for readers - I write for search engines. They don't make money. I do.
Nuff' said.
Cheers
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