Make Money Online by Overhauling Your Old Blogs

In this article I am going to show you how you can make more money online by overhauling your old and outdated blogs. I have so many blogs I really don’t even keep count. Many of them never really get updated. In my opinion, the myth about having to keep blogs is bogus. I guess it depends a lot on how that blog is formatted and how the content is presented. Anyway, with that said… here is a little tip for you that will possibly help you squeeze more money out of your older blogs. The reason why I am posting this is because these things I am about to suggest to you, I just did myself tonight. Here goes:

Review Your Google Indexing - Enter this into the Google search bar to view how many pages you have indexed:

site:yourname.com

If your blog has been sitting for awhile, you should have pretty much every page indexed. Count the number of posts, pages, categories and tags. Take that total number and compare it to the number of pages indexed in Google. They should be a close match.

Review Your Google Analytics Report - Specifically, your Traffic Sources / Keywords Report. The objective here is to see how people are finding your content in Google. Some of the things you need to look for are which keyword phrases, how often and why!

This report will give you a complete list of keywords that people typed into the Google search bar to find your site, pages, posts, etc. Back track and find your listing in the SERPs. If you have the Google Toolbar installed, you can simply highlight the keyword phrase you want to research, right click and then perform a Google search on that exact phrase. From there, proceed to find your listing in the SERP. Usually your listing will be right there in the top ten.

Having more awareness of the keywords that your site pulls up on is something I would suggest. Knowing this information also gives you the ability to expand further into various keywords that are working for you.

Upgrade To The Latest Version of WordPress - The reason I say this is because the site I was working on tonight never received any updates to it for over a year. Tags were a huge concern for me. The blog I was working on was a 60 article blog with around five categories and about ten pages. I had 72 pages indexed in Google. I was running WordPress 2.2.1 with no tags. I updated the blog and then started chipping away at my posts adding 3 to 5 tag phrases. Doing this will enable more pages to get indexed in Google.

Analyze Your Existing Keyword Targeting - The site I was working on tonight was totally lame! It had wonderful content on it, but very lame keyword targeting. The post titles were terrible and because of that, I was losing out on a lot of potential traffic. To correct this, I loaded each page into a keyword density checker and was then able to better optimize my post titles by changing them to include keywords that were used most frequently in the post. Additionally, as mentioned above, I added 3 to 5 tag phrases as well. These tags phrases were also based off my keyword density reports. Personally, I have my own desktop software that enables me to check for keyword density. You may want to do a simple Google search to find something you like. Also, if you change your post permalink (which isn’t necessary) be sure to monetize your 404 page. You’d be amazed how much money a monetized 404 page will make you. Additionally, it can take months for Google to drop a page from the index.

Analyze Your Current Income Stream - On this older blog, I was using Shopzilla, Kontera and AdSense. I logged into my Shopzilla account and saw that I was sending them plenty of traffic over the last year, but their ads were failing to convert for me. Needless to say, Shopzilla is no longer on this blog. Kontera was performing very poorly as well and I removed that too. Google AdSense is guaranteed money. Some people like to gamble with their traffic in hopes to score commission and higher pay outs. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s all about personal preference. I am not a risk taker and I settle for the crumbs. Every click into AdSense is money in my pocket.

Consider Working With New Programs - For me, Pepperjam works very well. After removing Shopzilla and Kontera from my blog I wanted to have something in their place as a plan B when visitors don’t click AdSense. Pepperjam fits the bill perfectly. Fortunately for me, the blog I have has an advertiser in Pepperjam that allows for deep linking. With deep linking, you’ll notice that many advertisers have a blog. You can find articles on their blog and share them with your readers simply by creating a special URL in Pepperjam that deep links to their blog post or page of interest. From there, you can simply take that special URL and add it into your blogroll. When a visitor clicks the link from your blogroll, there is a special tracker code in the URL and when the visitors meets the specific call to action, you will be credited. In many ways, this is so much better than taking the standard referral code and slapping it up on your blog. Taking extra time to find specific pages on an advertiser’s site or blog that you feel is worthy of sharing with your readers on your own blog can totally increase your sales conversions.

Analyze Your Advertisement Positions and Sizes - Back a year ago, I wasn’t very conscious of ad positions and sizes. Back then, I didn’t know what size ads were better performers and also I didn’t really grasp the concept behind having ads in hot spots on your site. My AdSense ads were in the right sidebar and most of my content was pure with out any monetization.

Rather than let your blog design or WordPress theme dictate where you put ads, you need to have the ad positions and sizes you want to use dictate what WordPress theme or blog design you use. For me, I updated my blog with my own custom theme. I prefer using the 300×250 size Google Ads and I have my own preference where I like to position them. The updated custom theme that I created and designed was make to perfect specification for where I wanted my Google AdSense ads to be displayed and also my Pepperjam advertiser ads.

Update Your Google XML Sitemap - This old blog as you know is a WordPress blog. After I updated to the current version of WordPress, I also updated my Google XML sitemaps plugin to its current version. The current version of this plugin allows for the tag pages to be recorded on your sitemap. Allowing your tag pages to index is very powerful for two reasons: One, you build more pages that will get indexed; Two, you create a pathway for Google and other search engines find your content more efficiently.

Overhauling an old blog can really help increase the amount of money you make online. Also, it can be more fun than building a new blog. For me, I build new blogs daily so having a change in my routine was wonderful. What did I miss? What else are you going to do when you overhaul your old blog? Leave me a comment and share your thoughts!

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