Well, that did not take very long! Barely four days after I changed the rules for the Make Money Online reviews, I am on page 1 of Google.com for the term “make money online.”
If anything can demonstrate the power of anchoring you text links, this is it. Four days ago, this blog was ranked 158th place for make money online. Now it’s at the number 3 spot. Judging by the number of sponsored links, make money online is a highly prized key phase.
How does this translate in terms of traffic? The overture keyword tool says there were over 44,000 searches last month for make money online. Overture only reports on Yahoo! properties so you can expect Google to have at least twice that volume. If just 10% of searchers click my link, it could mean 8,000 or more Google visitors to this blog every month. And this is just for one search term!
Getting everyone to link to my blog with my anchor text was just part of the puzzle. I had to make some changes to the blog to speed my charge to page 1 of Google. The first thing I did was change the title of the blog home page from John Chow dot Com - The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul to Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com.
The second thing I had to do was to make sure some posts on the front page had the targeted keywords in them. Ideally, they should be in the blog post title because more weight is placed on that. Now you understand the evilness behind some of my post titles. In addition, the targeted keywords should be repeated a few times in the article.
Tips To Choosing Anchor Text
Sure, you may think “super cool dude” is a great anchor for your blog but if no one searches for it, then it’s worthless. The best way to find out what anchor texts to go after is by using a keyword tool like Overture or WordTracker.
Overture is free but doesn’t give you much information other than how many times that keyword was searched for over the previous month. WordTracker cost money but offers a ton more information. You enter some keywords, and WordTracker tells you how often people search for them and how many competing sites use those keywords. They also offer a free trial and 30-day money back guarantee if it doesn’t work out for you.
The other way to choose an anchor text is to look at what words searchers are using to get to your site now and try to rank for variations of it. For example, I could go after make money blogging or just make money. You just have to be creative. And being a little evil helps too. 
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(15 votes, average: 4.73 out of 5)
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Hmmm… What do I want to be found by?
I gave it some thought and I am thinking “Pokemon”!!!
Might as well make it more cute and go with Pikachu
pokemon? Hummmm….are you sure?
by the way, john overture is overdated, is in slow death and there is better alternatives, like keyword avalanche or even the IBP keyword Tool.
I agree, Overture is far too slow. It times out pretty often too.
More good advice, thanks!
Why not Pokemon? I’m already on top for “get paid to surf websites”
http://www.google.com/search?q=get paid to surf websites&hl=en&start=20&sa=N
That should make your site look cuter. I wonder what the kids would say if they didn’t find what they wanted to.
They’d say “Pika… Pika… Pikachu!”
Steve, pick something that you’re already ranking for, it’ll be a lot easier
“Hmmm… What do I want to be found by?”
Buy Viagra Online perhaps?
Looks like there’s already a lot of comment spammers out there after that market
Did anyone else test this search w/ Google? I didn’t even get John returned on the first page.
Nevermind, I see. I decided to try Google.ca instead of Google.com. On Google.ca he actually came up as #2, so he’s rising.
It’s still spreading across the Google data centers. Not all centers have me on page 1 yet. One some centers I’m at #1 for Google.ca but the highest for Google.com is #3.
That’s it! This post alone deserves a second review. Thanks for sharing.
Congrats, you are number 4 after problogger.net in google.com.au
Being Evil is good how bout we make an Evil Clan?
If you want to join an evil clan check my blog for details
I’ve joined the evil clan!
At this rate, John’ll hit number one in no time.
For $250 dollars!!
He’s still playing around #3-5
John this speaks massive volumes to the influence you can swing online. Congrats. This is the most impressive bit of work you’ve done on this blog from my perspective.
Be sure to let us know what the actual traffic numbers look like.
Right you are sir. I’m now getting you on the .com site just as you described.
When, oh when, will Google be able to deliver me JohnChow.com faster?
You’re currently # 3 at google.sg and
# 4 at google.com
dunno why it showed # 29 earlier
still great work!!
Jeff - http://wallpapers.jeffreymunro.com
I saw it on google.com
Very cool
What could this evil mind think of next?
Michael
Selling JCDC and TTZ for $2 billions.
TTZ might be worth some value, but you’ve got to wonder who else but another John Chow would be interested in JCDC.
I’d buy it and add it to my Asian Name Domain Network!
Kumiko
All three or four letter domain names .com are off the street now! well, almost all of them.
To my knowledge, none of John’s sites are three or four letter domains. He has johnchow.com and thetechzone.com
Come on, $2 billion don’t be ridiculous. YouTube only went for 1.6. You have to set a fair and sensible price, something like $1 billion.
“What could this evil mind think of next?”
You wouldn’t wanna know…
Cool - congrats. I guess some of the Google datacenters haven’t updated to the same stats as the one you’re using - I’m seeing you at #31.
But I’m not sure you’re using the term “anchor text” correctly… “the anchor keywords should be repeated a few times in the article” — I think something like “targeted key phrase” would be more appropriate.
Anchor text is the text you use when you’re linking to website (or something else) - it’s the text enclosed by the “a href” tag.
You are correct and I’ve updated the article to reflect that.
Good catch Hannes. It’s a technicality, but one that had to be mentioned.
Is there an easy way to find your rank in a Google search? I was included in this review post for “Scion tC” and gave up looking after 300 results. I’m not surprised since my site is new but was curious how far back I was.
The only way is to sell your soul to the evil
BTW, what is Scion tC? Too many sites listed there with Scion tC. How can you differentiate yourself from others and make every one love to link to your site like we all here?
Scion tC is a sports coupe by Toyota. I think it’s only available in the United States.
On a side note, I wrote a review on The Number 23 (Jim Carrey movie) and I come up as the number three or four result for “paranoia 23″. In fact, it’s the second biggest keyword phrase that has directed traffic my way this month.
There’s no easy way, but if you’re pulling referrals in then you can use the referral string to see where your visitors were when they found you.
Otherwise set your Google preferences to 100 results and use the find command to try and find your domain.
This tool is worth looking at:
http://www.seochat.com/?option=com_seotools&tool=30
John,
What is your most fav. book on SEO that you recommend for us guys?
Congratulations on making the first page with that BTW.
The SEObook: http://www.johnchow.com/go/seobook.php
I did a review on it here: http://www.johnchow.com/seo-book-review/
Thanks buddy.
Evil at work. There be an affiliate link there
thanks for the reply, i’ll def. look into this book.
Well done, John. You are a true genius at internet marketing. What’s next on your agenda?
wow, only four days, you make it so easy don’t you John?
So how many links did you end up with? From Google a rough estimate is from 235 sites over 1000 pages with 52,700 links?
52,700 links with “make money online”? That can’t be right… can it?
Congrats John.
Okay John, your next challenge is to rank for in the top 5 for “I’m rich, bitch!”
haha, well he did decline a million dollar + deal for his other site
What a feat…
Sounds evil, sinister and brilliant. i’m sure everyone is thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Answer: cause you’re not as evil!
No, Answer “because I dont have the readership”
If I offered a $250 dollar Wii, I would get a handf