In this article I am going to show you how you can make more money online by overhauling your old and outdated blogs.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!
P.S. I want to help more people. Help me do that by spreading the word about me and my blog. Write a post about me on your blog, tell a few friends, submit this post into a few social networks. Anything you can do is very much appreciated. Also, if you haven’t already done so, subscribe to my RSS feed so that you will never miss a future article I write.
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Date/Time: 10-28-2008 05:12:37 Comment #25223
Hello Garry Conn, I have one blog. I do about goods in Amazon.com. It is no traffic some day average 10-20 people/days. Do If you help me?.
Check out Alex’s last blog post..Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set For Xbox 360 Sale
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 07:00:19 Comment #25235
Which blog is it that you would like me to look at? Is it the one you linked up with your name and is also showing up in the CommentLuv?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 05:42:39 Comment #25224
Hey Garry — You probably already know this, but one of the Tag plugins has some cool features for “mass tag adding” where you can go back and add tags manually or automatically in exactly the case you described. It it for updating content that was created before tagging was cool. I am pretty sure that feature is in the Simple Tags plugin.
HTH,
Mark
Check out Mark Mason’s last blog post..The Power Of Backlinks
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 07:02:39 Comment #25236
No, I didn’t know that. Would such a plugin really work for me though? I am kinda detailed with my tags and handle them individually on a post by post level. Automation is great, as it saves time, but can this allow for as much detail as I put in doing it manually?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 08:20:35 Comment #25249
What you need is the plugin Manageable it s very cool because you’re able to:
ù
Try it you’ll love it !
I used it recently on my old posts.
Another plugin without which I can’t live is Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu because it adds dropdown menus to the admin section of your WP blog. On this way you can reach every section directly with just one click (it seems that WP is integrating this feature in version 2.7).
ciao
alex
P.S. I recently mailed you and David the recomandation for both plugins
Check out Big Blogger’s last blog post..Which is your Life Purpose ?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 12:10:30 Comment #25265
I would recommend Simple Tags as well. The mass editing feature is really nice:
Screenshot of Mass Editing Feature
As long as you know what each post is about you can edit the comments for quite a few posts. And you said you were just sticking the posts into a keyword density checker and then coming up with the keywords then. So it sounds like you weren’t even really looking into the post itself for keywords. I could be wrong though.
WordPress.org Simple Tags Plugin
Check out Jarret’s last blog post..The Difference Between Margin And Padding
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 06:21:20 Comment #25230
Garry,
this is really one of your most well written and clever article!
Stefano
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 07:06:35 Comment #25237
Stefano,
Thank you for the compliment and I am happy that you enjoyed reading the article. Be sure to subscribe to my RSS Feed so that you can continue to read my articles when they are published.
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 07:08:47 Comment #25238
Garry, you are on my feed reader from months
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 07:18:20 Comment #25239
Most excellent! Thanks for subscribing and reading my blog. I hope it has been helpful for you.
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 06:43:43 Comment #25232
Excellent advice Garry,
As you know I keep a file for every site, including registration dates, install dates, PR, pages indexed, ad types, and dates of any major changes.
But, even with a file, I have to be reminded to go back and walk through these sites as you suggested. Thanks for the Reminder, can you schedule another post about this, say in 6 months, lol.
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 06:59:06 Comment #25234
Another sleepless night for me… glad you liked the post David. As far as your files go… yeah, you have even shared access to a few of these files that you keep on Google Desktop. Quite impressive if you asked me. There are some things I am good at, some things that I am a full blown expert at (imagine that?) but there is one thing I am terrible at, and that is with being organized.
You are extremely organized and keep records of just about everything. I’d actually enjoy it if you were to spin off a few posts on your blog that provide some tips on creating these files. It would be neat if you were to create a BLANK file and allow people to download it. That would be awesome. For that matter, I would be willing to pay for a BLANK file like that. It’s good stuff man, totally.
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 07:58:51 Comment #25243
That’s a good idea !
I will split the difference with you, not exactly free, but, I will put it together for all our Niche Doctor Members!
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 08:01:29 Comment #25245
Awesome! So do I have to pay myself to download it?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 08:04:58 Comment #25247
No, I think you are a Member @ The Niche Doctor, lol
A member is anyone who has bought one of our Products and those members will have free access to it in the Members Only area.
Fair enough?
PS: I also have some more goodies I am getting ready to add for the Members!
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 08:33:10 Comment #25250
I would like to hear more on how you use the keyword density software for choosing the tags.
thanks in advance
ciao
alex
Check out Big Blogger’s last blog post..Which is your Life Purpose ?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 11:49:19 Comment #25262
Garry,
I thoroughly enjoy your blog every day and have learned a ton of stuff. Since you are on the subject of overhauling a blog, I have a question. Hindsight is 20/20 and I am losing interest because of this issue.
Say you have a blog that you started when you had no idea what you were doing 6 months ago. You feel that it has good content and over time you have tweaked it to a point where the search engine results are respectable, your Alexa ranking is comparatively good for the niche (if that matters), and you have several links in place at various places like Alltop. You get very little traffic (20 per day average) and make no money ($2.50 with adsense in 6 mo). You feel that one mistake you made was in choosing the URL domain name. Would you choose a new domain name and move the content at this point in the game? This is more of a personal interest type blog but some additional traffic would be nice.
Thanks.
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 12:27:40 Comment #25266
This is a great article, Garry! I never really gave much thought to those old blogs that were just collecting dust in the blogosphere. I thought they were dead. Who knew you could still make money from them. Awesome content here! Thanks for posting!
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 13:05:01 Comment #25273
I should…but unfortunately I don’t spend as much time researching my keywords in Analytics as I shuld!
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 13:22:33 Comment #25274
Deep linking to an advertiser’s blog? Garry, that’s genius! I never even considered that that could convert. That’s ideal for my two blogs-in-progress.
I am curious, though, on the monetizing a 404 page. You couldn’t use AdSense for that as it would just advertise 404 services… So, you recommend product links? Or filling the 404 page with content to control the advertising?
Check out WordVixen’s last blog post..You Wanna Make Some Money For Me?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 22:01:09 Comment #25299
Great Post. I have one blog on Wordpress 2.0x something (no tags). I’ve twice tried to upgrade using the Automatic Upgrade Plug-in, but each time, I lose my permanlink structure. As a result, I revert back to the old version (yes, I did the back-up before the upgrade :O) ).
Anyway, any ideas on how to successfully upgrade. That blog gets good amount of traffic and I sure would love to be able to add tags.
I wonder is there a Tag plug-in for older blogs?
This post and your earlier one on adding links in old posts are great. This blog doesn’t have enough posts yet. But working on it.
Check out Coach Chris’s last blog post..Bitten By Bankruptcy?
Date/Time: 10-28-2008 22:52:41 Comment #25304
Hey Chris,
Your situation isn’t very uncommon. In fact, already knowing in advanced that I would experience the same issues as you, I went ahead and did a complete new install. Doing this with trying to preserve your existing content can be very tricky. It is probably better if you hired someone to do it for you. If interested, depending on how many posts needed to be preserved, I could do the job for you for $50 dollars.
Look around, ask questions in WP forums and such, if all else fails, feel safe knowing that you CAN get this done if that is the route you’d like to take.
Date/Time: 10-29-2008 13:32:05 Comment #25361
Garry,
I’ll send you some details. Let me know what you think. E-mail will be from chris at jumbocdi dot com
Date/Time: 10-29-2008 00:15:14 Comment #25308
Great post, honey. It’s amazing the number of blogs out there that have fallen by the wayside because people either forget about them or other reasons come up and they can’t update them anymore. I’ve got a couple blogs that I should update, and this is all really good advice.
Now, please do me a favor, and get some sleep. Even a genius needs his rest. LOL
Check out Christine Senter’s last blog post..Maybe No NaNo
Date/Time: 10-29-2008 01:50:21 Comment #25319
Really this process supports our work to make money online. I am sure that many might be using this strategy and of course I’m not an exception.
Date/Time: 10-29-2008 09:56:33 Comment #25348
Holy cow this is awesome info! I don’t have old blogs but I can certainly follow this advice on the ones I have now and upcoming…start off right!
Btw, thank you also for the recommendation of Christine the other day. I will certainly be hooking up and I already sent her one other as well
Check out Dennis Edell’s last blog post..How, What, When, or Why Do You Recommend A Product or Service?
Date/Time: 11-6-2008 16:01:25 Comment #25992
It is no longer against google TOS to put adsense for search on a 404 page. I wrote up a post on how to integrate Adsense for search on a 404 page (for wordpress as well as static html websites) here:
http://tech.shantanugoel.com/2008/11/06/make-money-out-of-nothing-add-google-adsense-for-search-to-your-404-page.html
Check out Shantanu Goel’s last blog post..Make Money Out Of Nothing: Add Google Adsense For Search To Your 404 Page