07.12.2012
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It was all unreal.
A website that I had been building with good content for a year lost its rankings for its keywords. Just a week before that, I installed this expensive software suite that included a Wordpress plugin that "generated content” based on different sources like YouTube, Flickr, ArticlesBase, Amazon and eBay.
The software generated around 100 posts in two days and my biggest fears turned to reality - it got Google slapped.
It was as stupid move, but hanging around the support forum of the software suite showed that I was not alone. Countless others suffered the same fate.
The game of gaming Google is over.
Knowing that I had to go back to the drawing board, I threw away all the tricks and the questionable software that were being peddled here and about and decided to do SEO and organic traffic generation the right way - thus this guide.
The Google Piranha is a product of my years of experience and research in search engine traffic generation.
The aim of this guide is to Google-proof your site by optimizing your site based on best practices, getting traffic from Google and other sources, converting traffic, and building traffic loyalty and retention.
I started building websites in 2005 as a hobby until I discovered the Google Adsense program which allowed me to generate extra income and at the same time fund my other ventures like buying domain names and building more sites.
I was receiving monthly checks of $800 to $1,000 from Google which surprised my friends because they never thought you can make money on the web. When they asked what I was selling online, I said "nothing.” I tried to explain the Google Adsense program but they couldn’t appreciate the fact that I make "cents” per click. What they don’t know is that if you get thousands of clicks per month, you could get as much as thousands bucks.
Now to generate that amount of Adsense earnings you have to generate huge and insane amounts of traffic. More on that later.
I focused on getting free traffic. In that year, I started BuyWeird.com to make money from the eBay’s affiliate program. During that year, weird auctions were hot on eBay because Golden Palace Casino was paying crazy amounts to people who auctioned their bodies to be tattooed with the casino’s name and logo.
I started receiving $400 checks from Commission Junction because eBay was then paying around $30 for each new eBay member you refer. I was getting traffic from keywords related to weird ebay items, Golden palace casino, and I was also getting traffic from eBay auction because sellers would mention my website in their auction listings..
"As featured on BuyWeird.com”... "Woohoo! We’re now on Buyweird.com”
Of course I was not the only one back then. There was BizarreBids.com and we were all trying to get our names on eBay listings by simply featuring the listings on our websites.
Our websites became viral and BuyWeird got some good links from curation sites and even a news website.
These ventures really paved the way and funded for most of my future work online like building more websites where I tested different free traffic methods. I was in different niches, from celebrities to weightloss to gadgets.
I didn’t know a lot when I started, so I devoured all of the info I could find online about SEO and traffic. It took countless hours sifting through the trash, figuring out what was a good resource. The road is often laden with traps - scammers selling quick solutions that often get buyers getting banned by Google or using outdated SEO techniques. I often wished I had a guide to help me find the info I needed. That is why I began to create the Google Power Punch, although at the time it was just a handy tool for myself. Remember, I was getting most traffic from Google.
This guide will show you the techniques I use to get Google traffic and be on the good side of Google. Yes, I learned how to be on the good side because I’ve seen for myself how you could suffer if you engage in practices that Google hates, like cloaking, keyword stuffing, spamming and blackhat tactics.
This guide will also help save you a TON of time by pointing you towards the best SEO resources available out there by answering some common SEO questions.