Make Money Online With SEO – The 3 Best Ways

There are many different ways to make money online with SEO. A lot of self professed “gurus” have made a tidy living from SEO alone. This is mostly because there are millions of webmasters around the world, but only a tiny percentage understand how to rank. Let’s cover the 3 best ways to make money online with SEO to leverage even the simplest understand.

Make Money Online With SEO – The 3 Best Ways

#1 – Find Websites With SEO Issues

It doesn’t get much easier than this when it comes to making money through SEO. In this first example, you just need to find websites with SEO issues.

You can identify one or two issues or do a full audit and present it to them and charge for the fix.

I should point out that I’m working on a very meaty article at the moment which will serve as the complete and ultimate checklist for performing SEO audits, and once that’s finished I’ll link to it here.

For now, let’s address a handful of typical SEO issues, all of which are typically quick and easy to fix. Virtually any site you look up will tick at least one of these boxes:

No On-Page SEO

First and most obviously is that the website has no on-page SEO. This means that they either aren’t targeting any keyword(s) at all or they’re not properly implementing them.

The latter means the keywords aren’t used in either the title, metadata, images, or even the copy/content itself.

And even if they are targeting keywords, they may be targeting the wrong keywords.

By wrong keywords I mean they’re either too competitive, too unpopular, or simply irrelevant to what the site is trying to do.

For a much better dive into selecting GOOD keywords, I did an entire article on how to know what keywords to use for SEO.

It takes about 10 seconds to find the keywords a website SHOULD be targeting. Take the top few keywords you find for their niche and type this into a Google search:

site:example.com/ intitle:keyword

Just replace “example.com” with the domain and “keyword” with whatever keyword you’re checking. This will immediately tell you if that keyword is in the title of any pages on the site.

If the Google search returns no results, you know that site likely isn’t targeting that keyword. Rinse and repeat for the remaining keywords.

While not a perfect science, this is the fastest way to roughly gauge if a site is search engine optimized.

Poor SERPs Clickthrough Rate

Clickthrough rate is one of the most important Google ranking factors. You can make your way onto page one of Google for your search term with techniques like backlinking, but if your clickthrough rate sucks then don’t expect to stay there long.

Google understandably views clickthrough rate in its SERPs (search engine results page) as a measure of its relevancy to the keyword which triggered it.

Oftentimes for less competitive keywords, Google will put new pages targeting them in high visibility ranking spots. It does this as a temporary measure to get an idea for how relevant that page is for the keyword.

Without clicks, that page will disappear from page one as Google determines that it’s not a good match for the keyword (even if that page is perfectly targeting it with on page SEO).

So it all comes down to CTR, or clickthrough rate.

I’m writing an article on how to improve CTR in Google search at the moment and I’ll link to it here when it’s finished, but the major point is to make sure that your page’s title and description are clickworthy.

Notable Ways to Improve Your CTR in Google Search

• Using clickbaity titles and descriptions. Basically teasing but guaranteeing the solution to the problem someone is having who searched for that term is a reliable approach. Just make sure that the page backs up the clickbait and delivers on that solution.
• Using historically popular title formats. Think of the titles that have made you want to click to see the rest of the content before. List titles like “5 Secrets To…” or “7 Ways To…”, or the tried and true “How To…” formats never go away because they work. And they work because they promise something to the reader, and a promise is a great way to get a clickthrough.
• Improving on the competition. Most importantly, your title and description have to be better than those of your competitors. You can use what they’re using as a rough starting guide, then decide what could be improved on it and add it to yours accordingly. If they’re offering 4 solutions to something in their title, offer 5 in yours. If your prices are better than your competitor, mention your lower prices.
• Think like your potential visitor. Intent is always the name of the game. If you can decipher the intent of the person using your search term, you know exactly what their expectations for and what they’re looking for. Once you can determine that, make your title and description as a response to that to guarantee their click.

Isn’t Mobile Friendly

More than half of all searches are done on a mobile device. For some niches, it’s as high as 75%. This number is only going to trend higher in favor of mobile in the coming years.

Therefore it’s paramount that a website should look good both on desktop and mobile devices.

Many websites, however, particularly older ones, still don’t account for this. As a result, the dimensions are too big for mobile devices and content isn’t displayed properly.

Mobile friendly sites use responsive design, meaning the design responds to the limitations of the device to determine the specifications of the site.

Alternatively they can also use adaptive design, which means the site has a number of specific layouts, one for each type of device. The site detects which type of device is accessing it and serves up the best possible layout for that device.

You can use a free service like https://screenfly.org/ to see what any website or page looks like in a variety of browsers and devices.

Has Speed Issues

Google is obsessed with pleasing its users, and its users are obsessed with good website experiences. Therefore, Google is obsessed with good website experiences.

Speed is a huge aspect of providing a good website experience to someone. If someone has to wait even for a few seconds for a page to load, they may abandon it before it happens.

Google explicitly told people that site loading speed is a one of the major ranking factors with the core web vitals May 2021 update.

I cover a lot of great tips for speeding up your website in that post, but the fact that Google came out and said this shows how much site load speed matters nowadays.

You can check a page’s load time and even get a speed score from Google themselves by plugging it into https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/.

Few webmasters consider load time on their sites as they’re more consumed with displaying a huge, resource hogging video or image. There’s always a better way to display something with speed in mind, so there are plenty of opportunities with this one.

Isn’t SSL Compliant

Another simple fix regards SSL (secure sockets layer). This is essentially just a way to further encrypt data on your website.

It’s essential for sites which collect information from their visitors, but it’s important for every webmaster as a sign of security on their site. SSL is the norm today and site’s which aren’t compliant look unsafe by comparison.

It’s free and generally easy to obtain and implement an SSL certificate on a website. Most hosting providers offer this free of charge these days. Once activated, the website can load from the more secure HTTPS and it will stop triggering red flags in many of today’s modern browsers.

And again, it’s part of a good user experience, so it helps the website rank better in Google.

Has Dead Links

Nothing derails a good browsing experience on a website like a dead link. If someone’s on your site and clicks a link to take them to another page on or off the site and that page doesn’t load, that’s a dead link.

It can happen if the link itself wasn’t entered correctly or if the linked to page is down or doesn’t exist anymore.

Either way, it’s a bad look, and it’s one of many things which your Google Search Console will tell you is wrong with your site.

It’s also the easiest thing to find and fix. You can use https://www.deadlinkchecker.com/ to enter a site and it will tell you if it finds any dead links.

Then you simply email the webmaster and tell them you found the dead links. Whether you fix them yourself or they do, it’s a good way to make a good impression on a potential client.

This is also not a bad way to get links back to your site. Just enter sites in your niche into the link checker, make note of the outbound dead links they have, then email them and offer a relevant page on your site to fill the void. Just like that you have a free link.

Website is Outdated

Outdated websites means security vulnerabilities. There are tons of websites for local businesses especially that have been around for over a decade without much to any updates. Typically they only consist of a handful of pages and are simple to convert to a constantly updating and secure CMS like WordPress.

A neat trick is to take one of the many free and attractive WordPress templates. And create an instance on your site in a subdirectory.

Then you simply copy and paste the content from a local business’s site into the template.

You can create a carousel and plug a few of the site’s images into it to add a little sizzle. And just like that you have a demo on your site to send to the webmaster.

You can offer to set up the site for them for about 10 minutes of your time.

#2 – Do Local SEO

Offering local SEO to local business owners is a great way to make money online with SEO.

Local SEO is essentially lite mode.

This is because there is next to no competition when it comes to ranking in local SEO. Local SEO involves a lot of location specific keywords, like “Phoenix oral surgeons” as an example.

Not only are less webmasters competing for these specific keywords, but most of the ones who are don’t know how to optimize for them.

Many times, simple on page SEO for local keywords is enough to dominate the local SERPS. If that doesn’t do it, just improving on the title and description for the SERPs will be enough to get Google to reorder and put that page on top after it gains the most clicks for its keyword.

NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number)

One more technique which most local businesses and webmasters don’t know is the strength of local directories.

A lot of local SEO comes down to getting a website’s NAP (name, address, and phone number) into as many directories as possible.

Creating a consistent footprint for a small business in local city and niche directories in addition to networks like Google Places, Yelp, etc. alone is enough to knock out most of the competition.

An effective trick is to copy and paste an existing local business’ NAP from their site into Google in quotes. This will give you a list of all of the sites where that exact NAP information is listed. You’ll get a number of directories and networks in the process.

Do this for the top 10 ranking businesses in an area and you’ll get a huge master list of places to add your NAP to.

Then simply plug your business’ NAP into each of these directories and you’ll have a much bigger pool than any of your competition.

Note that I mentioned NAP info should be consistent above. This is because Google takes the more instances of the same NAP as a sign of reliable information for the business.

In other words, if you abbreviated Avenue to Ave. on your website, do that in EVERY directory exactly the same way.

I’ll cover more about local SEO in an upcoming post, but suffice to say it’s rinse and repeat in different niches and locations simple to make money online with SEO on a local level.

#3 – Make Your Own Site

This is my favorite way to make money online with SEO. This is because you don’t have to chase down clients or answer to anyone but yourself.

Whether you’ve got a business or just a passion for something, you can make money online with SEO.

If you already have or want to begin a business where you offer a product or service, that’s pretty straightforward.

But again, you’re not limited to making money through providing a service like that.

If you’re really into DIY projects, write about that. If you’re really into bird watching, write about that. Any topic, any niche you can think of has an audience waiting to appreciate.

All you need to do is create a site and consistent quality content for it. Your passion and unique perspective for that topic should be felt. SEO can get them in the door, but it’s your voice which will keep them there.

Over time you can build up an audience and reliable flow of traffic to your site.

Then monetize the site through ads, affiliate links, etc. and your passion can become your livelihood. I wrote an entire resource on how to monetize your website, so check that out to see fruits from your labor.

The passion and topic are up to you, just follow my tips on this site and we’ll get you that audience.