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Blogs: The Hidden Ace Up Your Sleeve
If it wasn't for my blog, I wouldn't make any online sales at
all.
It's true that I have a "regular" website, my so-called "main
website," which I first set up to sell my goods, in this case,
men's and women's health products. It's my workhorse, the source
of most of my revenue. Most of my sales resulted from generic
listings in the search engines, particually Google.
That is, until Google sandboxed me.
Some of you may have heard of the legendary Google sandbox,
sometimes called, "The Goggle Sandbox Effect." What happens is
that newly listed sites rank well for about two to three weeks,
then suddenly drop off the radar screen. These new sites are
placed in a type of probational sandbox, away from the "real"
sites.
Why does this happen, you ask? There are almost as many
theories as there are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts.
Many believe that this probation period is not related to the
sites themselves, but to their links. It is believed that back
link (pure link popularity) credit is placed in a reserve for a
period of time (2-4 months) before it is applied to ranking and
has an effect. The theory behind this is to combat PR (Page Rank)
purchasers from dominating PR from the beginning. It is meant to
deter spam websites.
Others believe this alleged filter that is placed on new
websites is an illusion. These skeptics argue that the phenomenon
merely echoes already existing Google algorithm calculations.
Whatever the reason, I got sandboxed, the rug pulled out from
underneath me; shiskobobbed. The high-ranking and sales that I
was receiving from my site suddenly plummented.
I was devastated. What's a poor boy to do now?
Desperate, I wrote to a number of online SEO forums, seeking
advice from the SEO gurus. Some thought it was amusing and
laughed in my face. Others offered advice such as forgetting
about Google for awhile and optimizing my site for the other
search engines (not a bad idea). Others thought that I should
continue adding content, since content is king as far as the
search engines are concerned. Still others thought I should try
to gain as many quality links as I should, and this would help
pull me out of the sandbox (it felt more like quicksand to
me.)
I committed to doing all these things, but in the meaintime,
what about my website and the products that I was trying to sell,
the money I was hoping to make?
I kept hearing about blogs, those personal websites that are
published on the Web. As you probably know, blogs contain
philosophical reflections, talk about social issues, and opinions
about everything under the sun. They are usually presented in
journal style with a new entry each day, or almost every day.
Some people have found out that blogs can also be used to sell
products. In fact, an entire industry has evolved around
commerical blogging and ways to market them. Some of these
commerical blogs appear in the same journal style as the most
popular blogs, while others do not look any different from a
regular commerical website.
At any rate, I decided to check them out. The fact that a
number of blog publishers allow you to build and post your
comments for free, certainly didn't hurt either.
I studied many of the blogs that are out there on the
Internet, particually the ones relating to my niche. The more I
read, the more I liked. I was surprised to learn that some of the
top websites in my niche were actually blogs. They ranked high on
Google and all of the other search engines. And no doupt, they
were making sales.
Soon, I had a pretty good idea about how I was going to build
my blog. I didn't want to copy the others, I just needed to get
an idea of how some enterprising webmasters were creating
them.
Within minutes, I had created my blog, published it on the
Web, and began posting and tweaking it. I inserted some HTML code
to monitor my stats, and continued to work on making it a better
blog. I also continued to work on my other websites, so that
whenever I do climb out of Google's sandbox, my site will get a
good rating.
Not long afterwards, I made my first blog sale!
Elated, I built other blogs. The more lines you have in the
water, the better chance you'll catch a fish, right? Each was
slightly different than the preceeding one, but I still hawked
the same products. All have links back to my "main" website, and
all have brought me sales.
I might have been down, but thanks to my new-found knowledge
about blogs, I wasn't out.
So, while I'm waiting to climb out of Google's sandbox, I have
an ace in the hole and another up my sleeve that is continuing to
make sales for me - my blog. Unknowingly, I had stumbled upon one
of the best ways to get my products out there before the buying
public.
What I had thought was the worse thing to happen turned out to
be the best thing. Had Google not sandboxed me, I probably never
would have discovered the awesome marketing power of blogs!
Van Whitsett is the author of numerous articles, both online
and in the print media. He has tried (and failed) with a number
of Internet businesses. His latest endevour is a Wealth Building Program that is
sweeping the Internet like wildfire.
MORE RESOURCES updated Sun. April / 28 / 2024
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