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How I Got Into The Google Search Engine In 48 Hours...for FREE!

by Neil Shearing

OK, so there I was on Friday evening, after a long week spent looking after my sick kids. I was tired and grouchy. I figured I'd done nothing most of the week, so I was going to take 30 minutes to test this "blogging thing".

Amazing, less than 48 hours after starting my blog, it was indexed by Google!

Now, I've done Internet marketing for several years, and I've seen most marketing "tricks" (and even invented some), but my jaw hit the floor on Sunday morning when I search for my "unique phrase" and found it in the free Google search engine. Wow.

What if...

* You sell something online (create a blog on the product topic, link to your product site and expect quick indexing and more traffic via your blog).

* You want to make money directly from your blog (create one and add Google Adsense advertising! Create several and earn more!).

* You want more quality links to your site (create a few blogs and link them to your main site. (Google will index the blog quickly and count it as a link into your main site. Plus, you control the link text... important in search engine optimization).

* Many more possibilities...I'm sure!

* So, you want to know exactly how it was done, for free, in 48 hours? Read on...

First Step: Start A Blog

On Friday, 17th November 2004, I went to Blogger.com...

The first step was to click on "create your Blog now" and follow the simple instructions.

You need to choose a Username and a Password. You can pick anything you like...these are just your "sign in" details.

Important...where it asked for "Display Name", I chose to post my comments to my blog using the name "credit card fraud guy" because I guessed that having my key phrase (credit card fraud) as the name I posted under couldn't hurt when the search engines came to look. :-) I suggest you select a "Display Name" similar to your key phrase too.

Also, that four-word key phrase ("credit card fraud guy") would be the one I searched for to see if Google had indexed my blog. You'll need something unique on your page to search for...it's difficult to know if you've been indexed if your search phrase is "dating". I searched Google for "credit card fraud guy" and saw I was indexed within 48 hours!

I also paid careful consideration to the title of my blog...

The blog title is shown in the "title" tag of your HTML and also in large font at the beginning of your page. Pay careful attention to what you title your blog! It should contain as many keywords and key phrases as you can fit into several words, but still be interesting to a human reader.

Consider your keywords and key phrase, and select them for your URL. Hence, I chose "credit-card-fraud" as the name of my blog...and it's reflected in the URL for my blog...http://credit-card-fraud.blogspot.com.

It's kinda like the dashes in domain names people use to highlight keywords...it can't hurt your search engine ranking to have your keywords in the domain name, or sub-domain in the case of the blog.

2nd Step: Blog Setting

Choose a template:

When your blog is created, click on "Settings" then "Basic" and add a description. Again, try to get your keywords and keyphrases mentioned in the description, but also make it entertaining and of interest to a human reader. Make sure "Add your Blog to our listings?" is set to "yes".

Also under "Settings", click on "Publishing" and make sure "ping Weblogs.com" is set to yes. Weblogs.com will then know when you update your blog. I'm not sure if this is vital to Google indexing, but it can't hurt to let other services know you exist.

Click on "posting" and add a few posts to your blog...naturally, they should be on-topic and interesting.

I added four posts on my first day, and none on the second. On the third day I noticed I was indexed in Google, so I started writing this guide and also added Google Adsense ads to my blog.

This is how my blog looked when Google indexed it only 48 hours after I created it.

Third Step: Submitting Your Blog

I submitted to two blog directories, just for fun really, but they could, perhaps have accounted for the quick indexing by Google.

BlogWise

Blogarama

The more links you can pick up to your blog, the better. It will be seen as a "resource" by the search engines and given higher positioning through mechanisms like PageRank.

Fourth Step: Link To Your Other Sites

I linked from the new blog to one of my older sites, 3rdpartyprocessors.com, just to find out if the Google Spider would follow the link. It was interesting to search for "3rdpartyprocessors" on the day that I saw the blog was indexed...the 3rdpartyprocessors.com front page was indexed on exactly the same day!

This is a great way to ensure any changes you make to existing sites are reflected in the Google search engine quickly...link to them from a new blog. You could also get new sites indexed quickly this way...link to them from a new blog!

Re-indexed on 20th Nov 04...

See the timestamp for the cached Google version of 3rdPartyProcessors.com...

Miscellaneous

On the same day I created my blog, I created a link from www.3rdpartyprocessors.com to my blog from the index page...

I also made a new page at 3rdpartyprocessors.com: http://www.3rdpartyprocessors.com/Credit-Card-Fraud.shtml

This page has not been indexed by Google because it is "isolated". I haven't linked to it from any other pages, so the Spider couldn't find it.

What's interesting is that the opposite happened...the Google Spider came FROM the new blog TO the 3rdpartyprocessors.com site, and it was indexed at the same time as the blog!

Revenue Ideas

In order to make money from your blog, you could...

1) Place some direct affiliate links to targetted products/services within your blog.

2) Add Google Adsense Ads to your blog. At the moment, Blogger.com (which is owned by Google) actively encourages you to do this. I added Adsense ads the day my blog was indexed by Google, but no "real" ads have been displayed yet...perhaps it takes time for Google to work out what your site is about and display contextual ads.

3) Have an opt-in list signup form within your Blog, then send targetted offers to the list.

Dropping From Google...

It seems that my blog was dropped by Google the day after indexing. Presumably this was either because I didn't create any new posts, or it had a low number of posts in the last few days?

It's possible that Google spiders the pages built by weblogs.com (http://www.weblogs.com, 3900 posts in the last hour), Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com/changes.g, 8500 posts in the last 3 hours!) and others for "recent posts" and if you drop off that list, you are (eventually) dropped by Google.

I guess this is a "quick in, quick out" situation. However, if you used your blog to get another site re-indexed, or indexed for the first time, it will already have happened.

Final Word...

This blogging stuff was new to me...but it quickly became obvious that blogging should be a new tool in every webmaster's armory. If you want to get into Google quickly, blogging is the way to do it!

Did you know that there's another brand new system out there called "RSS" which promises to be even bigger than Blogging? If you find out about RSS now, while it's still unknown to most people, you could be in at the beginning of the next big thing to hit the Internet!

Apparently Microsoft has pledged support for RSS in its next version of Windows...so when that happens, RSS will explode (and using RSS you can get into Yahoo's new directory right now for free!).

Fortunately for me, a friend of mine has already taken a close look at how RSS can help you get more traffic and money and he explains everything in "geek-free" words! Check out his report...Click here for RSS Made Easy.

Neil Shearing is no stranger to anyone familiar with Internet Marketing. His Private Success Site contains huge amounts of top-quality marketing info and experts standing by to help people sell their products and services. It's been a big hit and some people have referred to it as the best Internet Marketing site online!

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