Google AdSense and Tips for Increasing Page Views

I drew the image below to summarize the way to increase traffic and raise page views of my blog.

I just finished this long and sometimes boring process. Below is an explanation of what i did.

It all started a few months ago when Google sent me an email saying that i should include AdSense to my blog. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but i agreed to try it out.
AdSense works when Google automatically puts advertisements on my blog. Those adds only show up if the blog is found through Google's search engine. So if you just type in http://davewirth.blogspot.com you likely won't see any advertisements. But if you search for something on Google, then click on a link to my page, you might see an targeted add on the side. If people click on the adds, the referred website pays Google, then Google then pays me, minus their fees.

From my blog's stats page i see that i average around 1000 page views a month for all of my 250 pages.

As of the middle of February, i'm up to $1.55 from AdSense. I usually get something like 1¢ per day.

Google doesn't actually pay me the money until i reach the "payment threshold" of $100. At the rate i'm going, i won't be receiving a $100 check from Google until the year 2045.

So here are the ways in which i tried to increase my stats:

1. Check my Google Page Rank
The first thing i did was check out my Google Page Rank. Page Rank is the algorithm that Google uses to rate web sites. It's just one of many factors that Google uses when displaying search results. The top score a site can receive is 10.

My current score is 0. Not so good.

Google only updates it's Page Ranks four times per year so no matter what i do, i might not see a change for a few months.


2. Submit URL to search engines
I saw that there are websites like FreeWebSubmission, where you can submit your URL to several search directories with a single click. It seemed a little shady but i tried it anyways. Apparently it worked but the only two sites that i had heard of were Google and Bing. I don't think there are a lot of people using "Info Tiger" as their primary search directory.

Also i read that if Google thinks you are sending a spam URL to their site, they may block your web page from its search results. I'm hoping that doesn't happen.


3. Add Blogger Labels and META tags
I read that adding keywords or labels to each page will help search directory's know what each page is about. So i went back through all my posts and added Labels to every page, which give a short description.

Here's what some of the post's looked like before.

And here's what they looked like after adding the labels.
Then i read that Blogger Labels don't actually help at all. They are simply a way to organize all of your blog posts. The thing i really needed to add was called META Tags. Meta Tags are the actual keywords and descriptions that will help search directory's quickly match my page to keywords someone has searched for.
I read through lots of pages until i found a few basic lines of HTML code that had author, description and keywords meta tags. I then had to add that to the existing HTML code at the top of my title page. It wasn't too bad since i had already typed out the keywords in the Blogger Labels. I simply copied and pasted them into the lines of code. The tricky part was making different keywords and descriptions show up for each individual page.
For example my META Description for THIS page is:
meta content='The best tips i've found for increasing page views to your blog, blogger, backlinks' name='description'

Keywords are:
meta content='algorithm, blog, blogger labels, blogger, feed, Google AdSense, HTML, increase views, META Tag, page ranks, search directories, tips, traffic, tricks, backlinks, ' name='keywords'

Author: meta content='David R. Wirth' name='author'

and Robots, which somehow help Google to index the page:
meta content='index,follow' name='robots'/>
meta content='all,follow' name='robots'/>

This is a screenshot of what the actual HTML code looks like:
I also added 5 lines of HTML code so that only my Page name shows up not my Blog name. For example, now if someone is searching "how to build a bed" Google might show my post a week ago as Twin Beds followed by my META Description, which that person is more likely to click on rather than No title required . . . - Twin Beds, with no description.

4. Add Backlinks
I read that having other webpages on the internet that link to your page, will help increase your page rank. This is called adding backlinks.

I actually did three things to create the backlinks.

First was use a backlink generator website. Amazingly enough i went to Freebacklinksgenerator.com. This site reminded me a little of the shady URL submission page, but it too seemed to work. Although i think Google would consider these as "bad" backlinks. The algorithm that Google uses would probably give a low value to those links. There are lots of other sites that will also creat the backlinks, like backlinkgenerator.net.
So now there are 50 random, phony web pages out there that have a link to my site. The pages it creates end up looking like this.

The second trick i did was to create an account on Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. They are sites where people upload and vote on popular stories and pictures on the internet. I figured that i could submit a few posts, which link to a few of my more interesting blog pages.


Here's my homepage on Digg.

And on Reddit.

The third thing i did is by far the sneakiest. I watched a video where this woman said that she was able to really increase traffic to her site through Yahoo Answers.


What she did was create 2 Yahoo user names. With the first user name she would post a question related to one of her pages. Then with the second user name she would answer the question and include a link to her own page. She would then go back to her first name and vote herself as Best Answer.

Apparently Google's algorithm thinks highly of Yahoo Answers. So if a link to my blog is on there it should increase my page rank and also cause my pages to show up higher on Google's search results.


5. Create a Sitemap and FeedI signed up for Google Webmaster Tools. It is similar to the Stats tab in blogger but it provides additional information and also allows you to create a Sitemap. I actually created 4 sitemaps, which are direct feeds of my blog, nothing fancy.: http://feeds.feedburner.com/NoTitleRequired

I also updated my feed to allow for different formats and ways which it can be viewed. Hopefully this will give Google and other search directory's another way to link to the site. Plus it was real easy, just a few clicks and Webmaster Tools does it all for you.


6. Upload video and link to Youtube
I read that 50% of all traffic on the internet is from videos. And 12% of that traffic is from Youtube. Now i know that is mainly because videos requires lots of information but it still may help.

So i created my own Youtube Channel and started to upload some of my video's with links to my blog. I compressed the sizes to Youtube quality and then uploaded 109 of my video's. I'm still in the process of updating their titles and adding descriptions with links to my blog.

7. Monitor the Information
Finally i need a way to see if this all works. To monitor everything i am using the Stats Tab on the Blogger website. This gives me lots of numbers and charts like the image at the top.

Here is an example in the Stats tab of my Blogger page, these are my most popular blog posts of all time.
And here is what the people typed into the search box that leads them to my blog.



Also i'm using the Google Webmaster Tools that i created earlier. It goes into a little more in depth and has additional stats. It shows you things like words that were searched for that may link to your pages.
This is an example of one of the tables that Google Webmaster Tools gives you. It's interesting to see things like out of the 2,000 times people type in "cool easy pictures to draw" they actually click on the link to my site less than 10 times. I have a better chance at increasing that number, the higher up on the search results my page is.

It's actually been really interesting to read all ways to improve your blog. Lots of the stuff out there are gimmicks but i'm hoping that i weeded through that and found the usefully tips.

After all this work i'm not sure it will do anything to increase the amount of people that view my blog pages. But we'll see. My short term goal is to average 2,000 page views per month by January 2013. Then maybe i'll start making 2¢ per day.