I know my last post ( ging-is-dead/" target="_blank">Blogging is Dead ) probably pissed off / depressed a few people.  That’s probably the last thing you wanted to hear if you just started a Blog recently, hoping to make some money with it eventually.

If that’s you, you’ll probably really like this article.  I’m going to explain some of the basics of High Impact Blogging which is what I believe is necessary to be able to survive in today’s highly competitive online market.

Instead of going into High Impact Monetization strategies, I’ll focus firstly just on traffic as that is the first step to making money online.  If you can get your site to the point where it’s getting good quality traffic, finding a way to monetize that traffic later is relatively easy.

I’ll use Google as an example below, but everything I say can just as easily be applied to Yahoo or MSN Search (Bing).

Traditional Blogging Model Fantasy

The traditional Blogging model fantasy goes something like this:

(1) “I heard of a Blogger making $xx,xxx/month writing about crap, and his spelling isn’t that great.  I could write way better stuff than him.  I’m going to start a Blog on board games.  I always liked board games, so I could write all about those.”

(2) Yay!  I’ve written my first Blog post on my favorite board game – “The Game of Life”.  I wonder when I’ll start getting some traffic to the site.

(3) It’s been three weeks.  I’ve written 15 posts on my favorite board games, and I’m still not getting any traffic.  I wonder why.

(4) I left a few comments on some other Blogs, linking back to mine.  Once I get a couple people to my site, my traffic will definitely pick up.

(5) It’s been three months.  Still no traffic.  I’ve written 40 posts now.  Google hates me and won’t send me any traffic.  The only comments on my Blog are from my family members and co-workers.  I made $0.16 from AdSense.  I hate Blogging.  I quit.

Reality Check

In a few hours I can pump out a Blog with a highly optimized target of specific board games.  The Blog will automatically generate content for me and post 3 Blog posts per day, every day for the next four months, grabbing the top board games from Amazon, eBay, or any other source I want.

It will imbed affiliate links into each post as well so if anyone does hit a page, and they click on “Monopoly” and end up at Amazon, I get an Amazon commission if they end up buying it.  My Blog will have way more content than yours in four months, and I will spend zero time on it after launching it.

In a future article I’ll show you guys a software package that can do this super fast, and it can be setup in minutes.

Real Blog vs Fake Blog

The problem with most Bloggers today is that they don’t realize that Google is flooded with Blogs that have tonnes of “content factory content” and there really is no good way for Google or the other search engines to differentiate your “Real Blog” from one of these “Fake Blogs” if all you do is start a Blog and start writing content, hoping for the best.

High Impact Blogging is about using our common sense to predict what factors Google is and will be looking at today and in the future to separate “High Value Content” from “Crap Content”.

I sat down with a journal, and a pen and drew out a little diagram for myself.  I thought to myself – “If I was Google, what would I do in order to differentiate real bloggers from fake bloggers.  Content isn’t enough anymore, as that can be spoofed.  What is the profile of a real blog?”

Here’s roughly the starting point I came up with:

ging" src="http://www.inspiredmoneymaker.com/wp-content/pics/MakeMoneyOnlinewithHighImpactBlogging_1428/highimpactblogger.jpg" border="0" alt="High Impact Blogging" width="550" height="500" />

RSS Subscribers

The first thing I though of was that real Blogs typically have RSS subscribers, and fake Blogs don’t.  Why?  Well, because any human being reading these fake Blogs will realize that they are crap and will never bother signing up for the RSS feed.  So, taking the number of RSS subscribers a Blog has into account is a good way for Google to “qualify” a Blog.

The other beauty of using RSS as a ranking system for determining value of content is that it offloads the labor onto the general population.  Why hire your own staff to try to “rank” things in terms of value, when you can get people out there to vote themselves.  How do they vote?  By signing up to the RSS feed.

Now, this isn’t rocket science.  I’m not saying I just woke up yesterday and realized that a Blog with a higher RSS feed count is generally considered a “more popular” Blog than one with a low number.  What I am saying is that a lot of people think that human beings are the only ones looking at that number.

If I was Google, I would totally use your RSS subscriber count as one of the “quality indicators” in determining the value of your Blog and it’s content.  If 1,000 people are subscribed to your feed, you’re probably more trustworthy and valuable as far as the content you produce than someone with an RSS feed count of 3.

Now, how in the world would Google know what your subscriber count is anyways?  Oh wait, they would probably buy out some company that counts people’s RSS feed numbers.  You know, a company like Feedburner.  Oh wait, they already did.

But can’t RSS subscribers be spoofed?  Perhaps, but if I was Google I would then create my own RSS Reader and then I could track who’s subscribed to the RSS feed by seeing their Google Account.  Oh wait, Google already DID create an RSS Reader.

Still think all Google is looking at is your content to try to figure out if your site is “valuable”?  Think again. They’re totally watching anything and everything to do with your RSS feed to determine how “valuable” your site is.

Translation: If your RSS feed subscriber count sucks, and you’re waiting for Google to “index” you content so that they can send you all that wonderful traffic, you’re going to grow old before any of that happens.  Don’t expect ANY traffic from Google if your RSS feed count sucks.  Find a way to get people to your site outside of natural search engine rankings.

Do whatever you can to get your initial audience to your Blog.  Then have something valuable to offer them when they get there in exchange for signing up to your RSS feed.  Get your count to at least 250-500 RSS subscribers before you expect ANY free traffic from Google.

Will you get free traffic before then?  Perhaps, but I’m just saying don’t count on it.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Similar to RSS feed subscribers, social bookmarking sites are a way for people to “vote” that your content is good.  Study these sites to see what kind of stuff is popular on them.  Then, find a way to write at least a few posts that could be really popular on those sites to try to get them added in.

You’re not trying to necessarily get traffic to your site from these sites, but more just a high profile.  If Google sees that 299 people Dugg one of your articles, there’s a higher chance that you may be the “real deal” and not just a fake blog.

Comments on the Site

Fake Blogs usually have very few comments.  Especially the ones that pump out content on a daily basis.  When Google sees Blog posts with 4 comments or 10+ comments after each Blog post and those comments link to other Blogs who Google already considers “legit”, I bet they rate that way higher than a Blog with a bunch of content but zero comments after each post.

Find a way to get people to comment on your site.  This may be difficult at first.  Bribe them with a contest, prizes or other ways to generate comments.  Another great way to get started is to find another Blogger who’s at a similar place with his Blog and exchange comments after each Blog post.  It’s always hardest to get the first comment after a post.  Once someone comments, others jump in pretty quickly.

Incoming Links

This is a no brainer.  Good quality links coming into your site tell Google you’re higher quality than a fake Blog that nobody wants to link to.  Posting in forums and leaving comments on Blogs that allow linking back to your site are a good way to build these.

Even for Blogs that use a rel=’nofollow’ tag for comments, just because that may not pass Page Rank it doesn’t mean the link isn’t worth anything.

YouTube Videos

Another thing I would watch for if I was Google is the videos you create on YouTube and their popularity.  If I was Google and I saw that a Blogger had a YouTube channel with a whole bunch of videos and those videos had a lot of views and ranks on them, to me that would indicate social proof that your site produces good quality content.

Twitter

How many people “Re-Tweet” your posts.  Another possible way to measure social proof of quality?  Can it be spoofed?  Maybe, but it’s just another step in making it more difficult to spoof a real site.

For a real Blogger, just by producing quality content people will naturally ReTweet posts.  For a fake Blogger it’s yet another thing to have to worry about faking from many different accounts.

Link Out

Fake Bloggers usually only link out to affiliate links, AdSense etc.  Real Bloggers link out to much higher quality sites without embedded affiliate links.  If I was Google I’d watch for this too.

Page Rank

Of course Page Rank is a factor as well.  Most fake Blogs die before they are ever awarded any high Page Rank.  I don’t know if all the things I mentioned are already counted in Page Rank, or if Page Rank is a separate indicator from any of the above.

The thing with Page Rank is that I think it’s the last thing you really need to worry about because outside of making sure you stay within Google guidelines for your Blog, you have no control over your Page Rank.  I think your time will be better spent focusing on all the other things I mentioned above and let Google worry about your Page Rank.

Summary

This is just a taster of some of the things I’ve thought about when trying to think about how Google might determine what a “High Impact Blog” is compared to a fake Blog.  I could be totally off base here.  Perhaps Google doesn’t look at any of the stuff I mentioned above, but I think they do.

When I look at the Blogs out there that are making an impact in the Blogosphere, they all have these factors going for them.

The big mistake new Bloggers make is thinking that they will do all those things AFTER the free traffic from Google comes.  It doesn’t work that way.  First you get a bunch of RSS subscribers, create videos, get some comments, get bookmarked, etc. and THEN you get the free traffic from the search engines.