I Am Back!

WOW! It’s hard to believe it’s been over 7 months since my last post – my last public post, actually. I have written quite a few private posts mainly on what I have learned in the world of SEO since Google’s Panda update but decided to keep them private for a couple of reasons.

First, I have seen at least 2 marketers got their web sites de-indexed shortly after they published their tips & tricks. They were not even anything close to gray-hat but I guess the big G just don’t like people teaching this stuff.

Second, there were lots of misinformation and confusion after the Panda update. Many marketers were trying to capitalize the chaos by selling “how to Panda-proof your sites” courses. Some of them were good. Most were just garbage. I documented my experiments and findings along the way but felt there was no reason to put it out there unless I know for sure it would work.

Unfortunately, as SEO has always been, nothing is really for certain; not even if you have the best quality content, best designed web sites, and best quality backlinks. Nothing can prevent you from the “Slaps.” Just check out Google’s webmaster forum and you will see how many people with “high quality” sites are caught in each “update” the big G rolls out.

Panda 2.0 Got One of My Sites

Here is an example of one of my Halloween sites.

This site does have good quality content and lots of pages. It is definitely not a “thin” affiliate sites. It was not affected by the February Panda update and have maintained a steady flow of traffic since last Halloween.

But it was hit by the Panda 2 update on October 13th. It went from over 800 visitors on October 13th to 150 visitors on October 14th and the earnings got cut in half overnight.

I wish Google had waited one more week to roll out the update so I could finish the Halloween season but on the other hand, I am VERY thankful that it did not occur before October – at least I got a good 2 weeks out of it.

Be G-Proof

So what should you do to make yourself “Google proof?”

I believe the ONLY way to be G-proof is not to rely on Google as a traffic source.

What?! No “post Panda” content, backlinking, or social media exposure strategies? Yes. That’s my answer. Plain and simple.

I have been working on diversifying my income and traffic sources for the past few months and will continue to do so. Here is one example.

Kindle Publishing

Since early July I have been publishing ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. It all started in June when I bought a WSO about making money with Kindle. This WSO is about spamming Kindle with PLR and public domain work. It shows you how to get 100,000 PLR junks from eBay for $10. Then just upload them to Kindle. Sell them at $0.99 to $2.99 a piece. Each book just needs one or two sales per month and you will be making thousands of dollars a month. Simple. Right?

Well, after some research I found Amazon was already onto this. Can you imagine what would happen when thousands of affiliates start to dump the same PLRs on Amazon? Of course Amazon would not let the quality of their Kindle store goes down like that. It’s too important for them. Amazon is even willing to sell Kindle at a loss in order to make backend profit on the content. What happened next was that they banned PLRs and many publishers lost their accounts.

The person who sold the WSO apparently made quite a few bucks using this spammy strategy but saw the handwriting on the wall. So he just put the whole method on WSO so he could squeeze a few more dollars out of it.

Needless to say I got a refund but I saw the potential with Kindle publishing. If you think about it, it’s quite amazing. All you have to do is put the ebook on there. Amazon does all the work. There is nothing else you need to do. Amazon drives all the traffic, handles the sales, and cuts you a royalty check at the end of the month.

Compare this to building a web site. You don’t need to constantly adding content. No need to endlessly spend money building backlinks. No G slaps. No sandbox. No de-index.

The only thing you need to do is to write a good quality book.

Now, I am not a writer so I outsource the writing on Elance. My job is to research a good interesting topic and find the ghost writer. I may also edit the ebook I got from my writer if necessary.

Since July I have been working on this as a side project. To date the income from it has grown to about $1,000 a month with just a few books. I have heard one person making over $20K a month with Kindle (no, he is not publishing 100,000 books…) so I am just barely scratching the surface and still have a lot to learn. I will continue to grow this income stream and will probably write another post on how to publish on Kindle – the correct way.

For now, here is the link to Kindle Direct Publishing if you are interested in opening an account.

It’s That Time of The Year Again

Christmas shopping season has just begun again. If you have read my previous posts you know how much I love this time of the year. It will be another exciting 3 weeks and I can’t wait to get up each morning to check my Amazon stats. I hope this year will be as good as last year but I won’t be posting my exact earnings because it’s now against Amazon’s TOS.

That’s it for today. I got a few more topics to discuss and since I will be taking my Christmas break shortly, I will have more time to write. So be sure to check back soon!

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