With all the information online about everything and anything, it’s so easy to get lost in learning and researching things. How many times have you looked up and realized you have wasted over two hours on social media sites like YouTube and Facebook without accomplishing much of anything?
Not to mention, I find Twitter like internet crack!
So it’s not much of a surprise when people find out about making money online, they flood Google with relevant queries. They read about it for hours and hours, weeks upon weeks and before you know it, months have gone by without them generating even $10.00.
They subscribe to several blog feeds and consume the information day after day until they realize they’ve become like those little hamsters in cages, running in circles on their little ferris wheels.
The Harm in Consuming Mass Information
One of the main problems with consuming this much information regarding making money online and the next new thing in internet marketing is that you feel like you have learned a lot.
And while it’s great to learn information on a daily schedule, it’s also the reason you are not making any money online.
More than half the time, I’m worried about not knowing the latest news on search engines that even I miss the whole point: all I ever needed were the basics!
It’s the best we know; repeat it and do it well and most likely, that alone will help you achieve results that you have been dreaming of for months.
When you need to bake a cake, do you research it on the internet for weeks or look up the recipe and just go for it?
Yet, when it comes to setting up your internet businesses and blogs, people get sucked into this cycle of reading regurgitated information day in and day out.
This Is How You Waste Time
With my second and third niche sites, I left them to age on their own. Since I didn’t know much about the backlinking process and search engine optimization in general, it was easy to not do anything (at the time, that made sense somehow). Eventually, they started ranking but that was a good year later.
On the other hand, motivated by my niche site duel, I ranked my .us domain within three months. However, my .biz domain would turn out to be a lot harder to rank.
Here’s the competition for my .biz domain:
By all means, this looks like a tough keyphrase to crack. There are .com domains with 5000+ links to 298,000+ backlinks for some of these competing sites.
Based on the number of backlinks, I wouldn’t suggest a complete beginner take this keyphrase/niche on. But thank God I did.
See that PR 0 site in row 4? That’s my .biz domain as of today. For over three months, it wouldn’t rank in top 500 properly (danced in and out), then a couple of months ago, it ranked in top 30.
Getting it to #4 for its main keyphrase in Google has been work of sweat, blood, tears and loads of belief that my backlinking and content strategy will work some day soon.
It has taken eight months of patience to get this domain to rank this well. Challenging and rewarding?
Hell yeah!
And I’ve only began.
This is all fine and dandy but you’re wondering why this even matters. I want you to know that…
All You Need Are the Basics!
Nothing fancy, no secrets. People waste weeks and months (dare I say years) looking for that magic bullet. Things picked up 10x more when I started taking action. But saying “take action” is like saying “exercise and lose weight”.
You should know that it will take a series of actions, full of hours, weeks after weeks, months after months consistently to make a nice amount of difference.
I didn’t build 10 backlinks one week and stop like I did with my first set of sites. The backlinks were created in random numbers week after week, especially in the last four months.
Sorry to say but writing one guest post every few months, writing two articles a month, or executing something half-baked won’t cut it anymore.
If you know search engine optimization “basics”, then that’s all you need to know to do well with the search engines for now.
- Create quality information related to the keyphrase and what people are expecting from your site.
- Build backlinks with proper anchor text. If you are targeting the keyphrase “acne treatments”, then create backlinks with the anchor text “acne treatments.” Keep in mind that variation of anchor text is necessary from time to time.
- Your backlinking strategy should be a mix of various types of backlinks (social bookmarks, web 2.0 links, guest posts on other blogs, etc.).
- Create at least 5-7 posts the first week of the site launching. The better and more unique the content, the more the readers will stick around (sorry, no shortcuts will work here). Publish more content as you go.
- Use your keyphrase in header tags (when it makes sense).
- Use your keyphrase throughout your content (don’t over-do this).
- Use keyphrases for your tags.
These are general factors you should use for on-page and off-page optimization. I created more posts, added another page and created backlinks week after week to achieve that #4 position in Google.
The pay-off is in doing the basics, doing them right and doing them over and over that will give you results. Sure, there is more complicated stuff to learn. But if you aren’t aiming for a super competitive niche, then sticking with these basics should get you there.
I know because I’m seeing the results first hand.
This Information Age is Dangerous
There is so much information to consume that by the time you do so, your mind is exhausted from processing all that information when in fact, you haven’t put any of it into action.
You’re reading this post right now.
Tell me, below, what actions will you take today to make some progress with your blogs or niche sites? How many hours do you read versus how many actions do you take on a daily basis on your internet business to make it into a money generating business?
About Moon Hussain
Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers to succeed in search and social media marketing. Kristi Hines is a 
Hi Moon,
True.. very true. I have been blogging for about 8 years. What started out as an academic requirement back then turned out to be something I loved! Anyway over the years, I created many technical blogs and also experimented a bit with niche blog as well.
Recently, I started a blog about blogging, and guess what.. for a blog that’s about 1 month, the main keyword is #1 in google. It out ranks copyblogger.com as well as problogger.net which are #2, #3 on the first page of good.
The things is, I didn’t do anything spectacular nor was I obsessed about SEO/statistics. Like you mentioned, concentrated on the basics. Quality content and on page SEO.
I would recommend adding keywords to your meta tags and meta description too.
regards
Shamelle
Shamelle@Better Blogging Ways recently posted Blog Commenting Made Easy! How To Comment On LOTs Of Blogs FAST (Video)
Hi Shamelle,
Those are excellent results. However, beware of the Google Honeymoon period, where new blogs get great results & then tank. Hopefully that’s not the case for you.
Keep concentrating on quality content and good SEO which will give you great results in the long run.
Moon recently posted How to Do Keyword Analysis to Determine Why Your Niche Site Visitors Aren’t Converting
Wow, I mean something that you started way back then and right now it turns out to be your career must be a great achievement. I can sense the joy and satisfaction you have by just thinking over 8 years ago and now.
Ricardus @WordPress Hosting recently posted Domain Name Promotion Only at $10.99/year
Great post! “Things picked up 10x more when I started taking action.” That’s advice every newbie should read!
Nick Stewart recently posted Do Meta Tags Matter For SEO? Yes, But Not In The Way You Think
How timely.
I am that newbie, and that’s the advice I’ve been needing today. Just spent 3 hours “learning,” when, really I was just wasting time. Now to actually get to work.
Nice post. You are being quite honest here. I guess people do take action but they are not so active on the building back-links part of it. Whether back-links need to be actively built or whether they should come automatically is an interesting topic to be explored. For now, I cannot take sides.
Raj recently posted The Definitive Guide to Developing Your Social Media Strategy – Part 3: How to Find Your Target Audience
Thanks for this post. This is exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve spent months just reading blogs and trying to learn how to possibly monetize my blog, and all I do is read – no action. It’s time to cut down on the reading and get to posting.
Your advice is spot on. Thank you!!
Hey Moon,
Great post here! I love the insights you’ve shared here. What you’ve mentioned here is very very real and there are people as we speak wasting their time because of skipping the basics. Everything starts from the basics then once we master the basics, we practice the advance. Just like martial arts, we start with a white belt. Keep on going, we get to black belt which is the best around. We can’t do it the other way around. We have to take things one step at a time.
Thanks for sharing this! Keep it up!
Pj Zafra recently posted Are You Attracting The Right Things Into Your Life? (The Story Of A Pizza)
Hiya Moon! How have you been? I havent seen you around in a long while. I guess I see why, you have been doing the right thing and getting out there and getting it done!
Congrats on your results!
BTW, I absolutely love the phrase, “But saying “take action” is like saying ‘exercise and lose weight’.” LOL that is so true. Everyone knows they need to do more of it, but most just ….don’t
Steve@Earn Money Online recently posted Make Passive Income Online: 6 Strategies for Making Money on the Internet
Hi Steve!
I’m good. Yes, taking lots of action in the offline world and it’s definitely paying off. An update is due for EIP, just not sure exactly when.
Both take hard work, persistence & longevity
Moon recently posted How to Do Keyword Analysis to Determine Why Your Niche Site Visitors Aren’t Converting
Hey Moon,
“When you need to bake a cake, do you research it on the internet for weeks or look up the recipe and just go for it?”
I love that quote, not just because it’s clever, but because it’s so damn true.
Having all the knowledge in the world means nothing if you don’t use it for something.
Tom
Tom Ewer recently posted Freelance Writing: 9 Tips for Getting Started
Hi Tom,
Thanks
I know I do this often as well: information overload. Whatever happened to just going for it?
Moon recently posted How to Do Keyword Analysis to Determine Why Your Niche Site Visitors Aren’t Converting
Moon, great post. I really mean it.
‘
I am another example of how basics will work if you work it. When I started my blog 2-3 years ago, I was clueless about everything. Didn’t even know what SEO stood for and I didn’t even know my niche was one of the most competitive ones.
However, I started doing what I had red and learned from different blogs and forums. Basically, the basic, write posts, interlink them properly, use keywords in title, body and url, build backlinks in as many ways I could.
In less then a year, I went from not knowing what SEO was, to ranking #1 for the biggest keywords (make money online- ways to make money online) in my niche (I rank a bit lower these days).
I always say, reading and learning about making money online, won’t make you a dime, it’s what you do with that information that matters and can make you money. Take action and start implementing. There is no magic bullet or easy push button. It takes work and dedication.
satrap@ Fast Money recently posted 60 Ways to Make Money Without a Job
That’s awesome, satrap! SEO takes a bit of time and when we don’t see results right away, we think ‘it’s not working’ & give up.
Also, I think with information overload, our brains tend to get muddled and think we’ve done some work (reading) when we actually haven’t applied anything to our own work.
Moon recently posted How to Do Keyword Analysis to Determine Why Your Niche Site Visitors Aren’t Converting
Hi Moonh!
Thank you for the informative article. I agree with you, there are many who go through a plethora of information for achieving online success. Link Building was something that I heard from my friend. I have heard that too many comments on one day lands you up in spam. how many comments do you recommend?
steve@my stress problem recently posted Some Stress Relief Games Reduce Anxiety
Hi,
Nice Post we should know very well basic tips of that work which we are going to do because it’s good for us other wise it can be prove costly to us. Beside that time is very big thing it teachs each and every things to us according to the situation and from our mistakes.
sam @ goa carnival recently posted Goa Carnival 2012
Taking action is the most important thing and where most people struggle. There are so much information available for free, people are suffering from information overload. Reading too much and spending less time on actually doing something.
Nishadha recently posted What is Affiliate Marketing and How Does it Work
Hi Moon,
This is a really nice summary of the various tips I’ve read regarding search engine ranking. My experience (and our advice to our clients) is to do these things consistently. Helping the client figure out what niche they belong in is the first (and usually most difficult) step.
Thanks for your effort,
Michael
Michael@List Building System recently posted How Blog Backlinks Drive Traffic to Your Site
Moon,
I find this post very motivational. You’re absolutely right about massive amounts of information bogging us down and too much time being wasted. Reading your description of what it takes to actually make progress is get things done is a good reminder of what I really should be doing with my time.
Thanks for sharing your insight.
Melanie
These are some AWESOME tips to help a site get started that i’m going to start using on my new website i just designed. Thanks, Moon!!!
Chris @ Owner Financed Homes in Austin TX recently posted How To Find Owner Financed Homes in Austin, Texas
That’s correct Moon!
I understand how frustrating it could be when it comes to information overload (I was once a newbie to this whole online world). Hours after hours of reading with dozens of tabs on my web browsers. Reading every single thing imaginable and agree to everything! That was insane when I take a look back.
But it’s like an inevitable path for newbies to become better. It will finally come to a point when they know it’s time to stop reading and take actions. Only then, they will see real rewards.
Thanks for sharing, your post is very helpful
A well written post and just sooo true – it’s too easy to stay constantly in ‘learning’ mode, thinking that the next thing you learn will be that magic bullet, rather than realizing that actually picking half a dozen well-chosen strategies, them implementing them – consistently – is what will create more momentum and results. Sure, you can keep on learning, but not at the expense of implementing!
My tip – spend your first couple of hours each day on the implementing / profit generating activities in your business, before checking all the blog feeds and newsletters in the hope of learning more!
cheers
Tanya
Tanya@AttractMoreClients recently posted Change your Learning for Better Business Results
Why is it that with everything the basics are the answer and only after reaching a significant level of success does branching away from the basics make sense… Chasing the new flashy thing is rarely the correct strategy. Great post… I need to work on my anchor text.
Thanks,
Ryan H.
Ryan Hanley @ Content Marketing recently posted Why the First 9,999 Hours are the Most Important
Moon,
That is how I originally found you, thru the niche site duel. I am so happy to see that your niche is doing well! It also makes me regret not going for it at the time. But I was really green and didn’t quite understand the concept of a niche site. I do now. Not sure if I will be starting any soon but your advice here can work for a regular blog like mine.
I get into that trap. Do I know what I am doing? Why am I not taking action? My problem is I need to stop taking in so much information and do what I know already really well.
This was a very inspirational post for me. Thank you for helping me take action!
~Allie
Allie | Ramblings of a WAHM recently posted Better Comments Equal Better Visits: How I Comment for Blog Success
You couldn’t have said it better Kristi: hours wasted and no gain. I fell pray to this reading and reading and reading. Then I just quit for the past month (life altering event) and it was refreshing. I am making a schedule of when I read vs when I do. Same with emails, and Social media. I like Tim Ferriss’s approach in checking only a couple times per day rather than ALL. DAY. LONG.
I think it is a fine balance bewteen learning and doing (taking action).
I am fortunate to have a friend who has been doing this SEO a lot longer than I have and he did a review of my site and made 1/2 a dozen recommendations which I am implementing in addition to focusing writing quality content for my audience.
Best,
Rajka
Rajka@Expatdoctormom recently posted A Constant Reminder
This is very true. Sometimes we get lost and can’t find the right direction because of information overload. And about the social networking addiction, that is indeed a waste of time. 2 hours a day of checking our account is too much but most people are guilty of giving so much time using facebook or twitter instead of working for their blogs.
Noel Addison@Web Development Ventura recently posted 5 Things to Look for in a Web Dev Company