Top 12 ‘Make Money Online’ Sites According to Google
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While doing some of my market research for the $100 a day blogging project, I compiled the following list of sites that deal with the topic of making money online by taking my targeted phrases and tossing them into Google and then sifting through the results.
I weeded out the spam and the sites that were not really on topic (for example there were lots of sites that were resources for offline businesses wanting to go online, which I removed, as opposed to information about starting or developing a web-based business, which I included.) I also removed sites that sucked
of which there was a surprising number, considering that I only looked at the top 10 results for each of these coveted keyword phrases.
In most cases I used the site’s (or the page’s) title tag as the anchor text. This way you can see if they are actually targeting the phrase that they rank for.
Phrase: information products
Searches per day: 12
- Information Products - An overview of e-book and info product creation.
Phrase: Internet business
Searches per day: 952
- How to Make Money on the Internet - an overview at About.com’s online business site.
- Internet Business Blog - James D. Brausch’s site which is the blog for his Internet business products (I own and use many of them).
Phrase: make money online
Searches per day: 1511
- Make Money Online - John Chow’s blog
- Make Money Online - A highly monetized blogspot site
- Make Money Online - ProBlogger.net by Darren Rowse
- Make Big Money Online - A blog about making money online
- Make Money Online - A very informative site with no obvious monetization - should we trust them?
- Make Money Online - A well done Squidoo Lens optimized for “make money online” (an important SEO lesson there.)
Phrase: making money online
Searches per day: 298
- Make Money Online - A nice blog about work at home opportunities
Phrase: ways to make money online
Searches per day: 223
- New Ways to Make Money Online - Web Worker Daily
Phrase: Internet marketing
Searches per day: 2931
- Serious Internet Marketing Services - More a marketing service for established businesses, some nice tools and good info.
Other Notables
- Earn Money Online - Earner’s Blog, a daily read of mine.
- Internet Business Blog - Yaro’s excellent blog about making money online with a Internet marketing bent.
- Niche Marketing - Andy Beard’s very high quality site about online business topics.
- Underachiever Life - Ed Dale’s blog, he rambles off topic,but he’s got $5m in the bank so he’s allowed to be distracted.
- Tropical SEO - primarily SEO, but lots of good online business information too.
- Copywriting Tips - must read for online entrepreneurs…the essential skill of selling with words.
Summary & Omissions
I’ve never spent this much time scouring the Google SERPs on a single topic before and I have to say that the results returned were much lower quality than I would have predicted (I can only guess what the Yahoo and MSN results would have looked like, but I assume worse.)
Either the phrases that I’ve searched on are somehow ambiguous to Google or there really aren’t many high quality resources for these terms.
I suspect there are a lot of other blogs and sites providing valuable information (without just pushing frantically on their own agenda.) If you know of any please leave a link in the comments, as I was really hoping to compile a relatively thorough list of sites with solid “make money online” and “online business” information.
Another part of the cause of the poor results is that a lot of people who do put out good information (Rich Schefren comes to mind, but there is also John Reese, Jay Abraham and others) brand their own names rather than targeting a keyword.
The other angle on this market that doesn’t show up in the list but is a part of the puzzle are the various high profile online business products: StomperNet, Click Flipping, Day Job Killer come to mind but there are many others, which try and target the same audience with a pay for info model.
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Comments ( 11 )
[...] 16th, 2007 Webjunk , House Prices , Opportunity , Passive Income , Money , Entrepreneurship Gaming Google For Results(artofmoney) I’ve never spent this much time scouring the Google SERPs on a single topic before and I have to [...]
Links - 16/05/07 « Krugergold Finance added these pithy words on May 16 07 at 8:13 amRich Minx added these pithy words on May 16 07 at 10:33 amWhich keywords are you aiming to appear highest under, Jon? I guess “money blog” would suit me but so far I rank number #1 for “Rich Minx” (despite all the competition).
Jon added these pithy words on May 16 07 at 11:24 amCongrats on the high rankings…time to start your SEO blog!
I haven’t made my a decision about which keyword to make my final target. It will likely be one of the ones in this post, but I am still researching the products and services that I want to promote. Once I have them nailed down, then I’ll figure out which high level keyword phrase is the best match.
When I started my research I felt very bold to even consider a phrase like “make money online” but (look out!!!) I’m getting bolder…thinking about “make money” and even, god forbid, “money” (I have a personal finance blog that I could migrate quite a bit of content from.)
As it gets broader it becomes a bigger project, but they all support each other, so for example if someone can rank for “make money online” and “make money on ebay” and “make money at home” they will probably own “make money” by default.
Maki added these pithy words on May 16 07 at 1:24 pmJon,
Do you mean to say that only monetized sites are trustworthy sources of ‘make money online’ information?
Because thats what I’m getting from your comment on my blog …
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Jon added these pithy words on May 16 07 at 2:32 pmHi Maki, it was just a joke. I really like your site…how have you resisted trying to make money from it? (I’m hoping it’s because you’re already wealthy enough
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Maki added these pithy words on May 16 07 at 5:39 pmJon,
Monetization for Dosh Dosh is really not a priority at all because I do have a bunch of other money-makers online.
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In any case, I am actually in the midst of a very slow and gradual monetization process.
If you’re interested, you can click through on my name to see my post for that ^-^
Andy Beard added these pithy words on May 17 07 at 9:12 amOne big point, the people making massive money online don’t need Google search traffic for their primary money sites.
They just turn the traffic tap on with their JV partners with email marketing, and some I am sure have 100K+ affiliates (I know 2 years ago IMC had 70k)
I know Mike Filsaime for instance doesn’t even rank first for his own name, but I can bet he is making more money than 99% of internet marketers.
His 1st listing is 4th, and I have one at 7th without even really trying.
On my blog I actually worry about keyword research less than on my niche sites, and mainly go for subjects that are topical.
Who knows, one of these days I will write some fresh content specific to creating a niche site.
Tyler added these pithy words on May 17 07 at 10:56 amGood point Andy.
But ranking high in the search engines wouldn’t hurt them either…would it?
Jon added these pithy words on May 17 07 at 11:00 amYa Andy, I purposely haven’t touched on the “list building” gang. Different model entirely, but I agree, it can be very lucrative. Requires a certain personality that I know I don’t have. Some of the things that guys like Mike Filsaime and his like will push out onto their lists make me cringe; I could never do it, but yes they make serious money.
Andy Beard added these pithy words on May 17 07 at 10:57 pmI think long term it doesn’t make much difference to them. At the end of the day in most cases it is one of their affiliates who ranks higher than them, and if that is the situation they still make money.
Sure it wouldn’t hurt, but many marketers like their affiliates making money, even to the extent of using noindex on their sales pages so they don’t rank at all, though this is partially because they are also heavily using a/b testing.
There are benefits in having happy affiliates.
supermom_in_ny added these pithy words on Sep 26 07 at 4:03 pmThanks for the link love. I’m supermom_in_ny creator of the Squidoo lens Make Money Online on Squidoo. I’m actually an avid blogger, owner of 15 blogs, 7 Squidoo lenses ….and mommy to 7 kids and 9 pets. They keep me very busy. Ya think?
I read about your $100.00 a day project. Very interesting. Although I’m listed on Google’s first page for the keywords:
getting out of debt blog
make money online
hits4pay
blockbuster customer serivce nightmares
bank bonus
and countless others…I still don’t earn what you earn monthly from Google Adsense. That shows it’s all about the high paying keywords.
Great blog and thanks again!