Build it Right to Learn How to Make Money Online

Ok, listen, don't make the same mistake that I did not that long ago. I built a fairly successful site a couple of years ago that was moving up in the Google rankings - I can't say it was one of my more carefully thought out sites, but, had a fair amount of content nonetheless.

You see, about a year ago I started to get very excited about keyword optimization by focusing more on my blog titles, headers and highlighted information. Thinking that I was helping my other site, I went in and altered all of the headers, meta tags, main page title, etc. Guess what? Google dropped my site like a rock out of their top listings. Ouch - that's one tough way to learn how to make money online!

After sitting back and pondering this a bit I realized that I had shot myself in the foot by over optimizing (and, really over thinking) the problem at hand. Google got it as well - my site had changed too much - thus the search king had to re-index it. Lesson learned (or, as the oddly say in England 'lesson learnt').

Today's web marketing lesson is all about building it right the first time - why keyword optimization must be a priority when you plan and prototype. Yes, you can change core keyword phrases along the way but, you must do it very gradually. That's really beside the point here.

What I want to stress to you is the need to start with good keyword research first - targeting your core keyword phrase and then all relevant variations on it. Let's take a great example that, I think, will show you how to approach this problem with some powerful ammunition for your own work.

If you've done some research online for sites devoted to earning money online - you may have noticed a site appear about 1-2 years ago for the search term 'make money online'. Go ahead and type it into Google without the quotes.

The #1 site is Alan Liew's Blogger site (yes, a Blogger site!) - here's a screenshot:



Now, if you pay special attention to his site you'll see that the keyword phrase 'make money online' is the predominate term on his site - from the main page and throughout his post titles and links. What's not quite so apparent is that all inbound links to his site are also titled 'Make Money Online' from forum posts to articles.

What Alan did right was focus immediately on the keyword phrase he desired to dominate and did it in about two years! Kudos to him and his perseverance - his example is a complete success in a massively competitive market (157,000,000 results).

This shows that staying the course with your keyword phrase is one of the most important steps to building your site. Be sure to use one of the keyword tools out there to find a phrase you want to market to and stick to it! If you keep diligent - you will succeed.