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Increasing Google Page Rank and Weekly Roundup

October 13, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 37 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hey everyone! Hope you're having a great weekend. Not much planned for me. I plan on catching up around my house and running lots of errands. I also am going to Oktoberfest! WOOHOO!

Today I decided to add some blog tips and info to my usual weekly roundup post. I noticed that a lot of bloggers this week (mainly beauty and lifestyle bloggers) have been asking a lot of questions about Page Rank.

Now, I realize that I don't have the highest page rank, but these are things that I am now just starting to do since I want to make my blog a little more professional (instead of just winging everything).

There are a couple of websites to use to check your Page Rank. Check it! What is your page rank? Have you ever thought about page rank? Is my post the first time you've ever heard of it?

Page Rank is how Google can measure your website. There is a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. It gets increasingly harder for each increase in number.

An increase from 1 to 2 is not the same as an increase from 4 to 5.

This means that moving to a PR6 from a PR5 is MUCH harder than moving from a PR0 to a PR1.

It is calculated in many different ways, but mainly by looking at the number of links on your site, which include: backlinks, inbound links, outbound links, nofollow and dofollow links.

Google updates your page rank every couple of months. There is no set schedule known though.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

1. Make sure the quality of your writing is high. Writing in a niche and/or having great blog posts that people want to share is a great start!

2. Guest post on other blogs. This takes more time than other strategies, but I do believe that it is a good strategy to use. You can get good backlinks, and hopefully gain some readers.

3. Make sure your comments are NoFollow. Most commenting systems are NoFollow, but I would double check just in case. If your commenting system is a DoFollow, then you will probably get spammed a lot. By making your comments NoFollow, you can avoid being put on a spam list and also preserve your Page Rank.

4. Submit your site to blog carnivals and other directories. I'm sure you've noticed some of these posts on my blog (such as here) and some of you might have no idea about why I post these. Submitting your blog to directories and carnivals is a good way to get  . I just started doing these more often.

However, some say that submitting your posts and links to these directories do not work as well. What's your opinion or knowledge on this? I'd like to know!

5. QUALITY QUALITY QUALITY. A higher quality link from a high quality site is better than having a lot of lower quality links to your site.

Have you been trying to increase your Page Rank? Any tips?

 

Posts that I loved:

  1. Budget Friday Submission 4 @ I Heart Budgets
  2. Being a Boss, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly @ Eyes on the Dollar
  3. You are your most important financial asset @ Money After Grad
  4. DIY Juice Cleanse: How I lost 4 pounds in 4 days @ Newlyweds on a Budget
  5. Why I Stopped Pushing My Son to Go to College @ So Over This

 

 

What are your weekend plans?

37 Comments
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Blog

How I Make Money Blogging

July 18, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 2 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

How I Make Money Blogging

I am e-mailed nearly everyday on how I make money from blogging. I love your e-mails, but truthfully, I'm not positive that everything I do actually works. I have learned a lot from other bloggers.

I include an extra money update every month ($994 in June, $672 in May, $485 in March, and more in other months as well). A lot of my monthly income is from blogging income.

As most of you know, I also started blogging in August of 2011. My blog is almost 1 year old and while I have a way to go, I do think I have been doing ok.

I didn't actually start to monetize from my blog until around December of 2011. Much thanks to Crystal. She runs an advertising service which has helped me greatly! I don't make all of my blog income from her, but I have learned how to talk to advertisers and other things.

Crystal started Budgeting in the Fun Stuff in February 2010 and she then grew it into a site which has made more than $42,000 as of the end of June of 2012.

WHAT??!?!?

She is doing really great! She has also bought other websites and co-owns some as well, which increases her blog income even more.  She was able to leave her $35,000 a year job and now works from home.

She has now written an ebook so that all of us can learn her secrets and hopefully do something similar to what she has done.

What's included in her book?

  • Her Background with Blogging
  • Picking a Name, Host, and Blogging Platform
  • Main Parts of a Blog
  • Building Up Your Blog
  • Making Connections
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Plugins
  • Rankings
  • Types of Ads
  • Ad Rates
  • Handling Offers
  • Tracking your Ads
  • Other Ways to Make Money Blogging
  • Action Plan to Get You Started Right Now

The price for her ebook is $17 in July and will go up after that. Get yours hands on it while you can!

Click here to buy her ebook.

As a disclosure, I was not paid to write this post, and everything was written by me. I honestly do think Crystal is very smart in the blogging world and that she has tons of tips to share. I do get a portion of sales if you buy through my link though.

2 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Extra Income Tagged With: Extra Money

Extra Money Ideas

July 12, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Shorter post today. Super busy with all the car stuff, work and school. But of course I don't want to leave you hanging 🙂 and I also have a lot of stuff on my mind that I love getting your opinions on.

Yesterday, I made a post about maybe getting a part-time job. A lot of you said just relax, and a lot of you said I should try and find something and come up with extra money ideas.

There are a lot of things out there that I could do. I'm still not sure how much time I would want to dedicate to it though. Once I graduate and get promoted at my work, I'm sure there will be a lot more stress involved and I probably won't want something that takes up too much time.

However, I have no kids or anything, so I know I will have time.

Here's a list of things that I could do:

  1. Create another blog. I could start being more professional with this and start learning what all the blog terms like SEO and everything really mean, and then apply it to my blog.
  2. Tutor. I have a lot of people who are always asking me to tutor them, but I always say no. It wouldn't be a bad idea though.
  3. Work at the tanning salon with my friend. She doesn't make the greatest money, but it's not hard work.
  4. Bartend. A lot of my friends are bartenders and make decent money. Plus they get free drinks from other bartender friends that we know and free drinks at their bar.
  5. Volunteer. Yes I wouldn't make any money, but I could finally start volunteering at the animal shelter.
  6. Retail store. I could maybe ask for my job back at where I used to work, and I'm sure she would say yes. She still loves me.
  7. Do medical research tests. I would never do this. I hate shots, needles, blood being drawn. But my friend does work at a medical research facility and she's always telling me about the awesome pay they give. This is something I'd never do, but I thought I'd throw it out there for others.
  8. Find a temp job. Some of you mentioned this, what type of skilled temp jobs are out there that you guys were mentioning?
  9. Babysit/nanny. I did this when I was much younger, and haven't watched a little kid in forever. But I do remember that the pay was good when I was in middle school. I got paid $10 an hour which was pretty nice.
What would or do you currently do for extra money?

1 Comment
Filed Under: Blog, Budget, Debt, Extra Income, Life Tagged With: Budget, Career, Debt, Extra Money, Life

Blog happenings

March 4, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 8 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Hey everyone!  Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I have so much to do today. Homework, group projects, studying for midterms (which are next week), cleaning, and so much more! Save me.

Interesting Search Keywords:
  1. teenage girl pregnant in waiting room
  2. How do I not spend all my money
  3. How to work out
  4. Scared people running
  5. Nasty hair
My comment on these:
  1. Not sure where the pregnant keyword comes from.
  2. Just don't spent all your money!
  3. At least walk around and that should be something!
  4. Ha I don't even know what to say about this one.
  5. I'm really hoping I don't have nasty hair…
Some blog shout outs (and blog posts I love):
  1. Over at From Shopping to Saving, she's going to be a homeowner! Congrats!
  2. Upendilife had good news. Congrats on being accepted into a university!
  3. Over at Well Heeled Blog, she's trying to decide what she wants to do. I'm extremely jealous of her school and travel situation.
  4. I always feel like I can relate to everything Daisy says, especially about life do-overs.
  5. Tanner's been talking about vacations, and I love anything with vacations.
  6. The Happy Homeowner cut down her Harvard expenses by a TON

Have a great day!

8 Comments
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Life

My Extra Monthly Income

February 8, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 46 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Today is Wednesday, finally! Anyways, I thought I'd finally give you the details on my extra monthly income.

In my January Goals update, I said:

“Make an extra $500 this month.  PASS. I made over $600 from blog income and surveys!”

After I posted that, I was literally flooded with e-mails from you guys!

I've told you guys in this post, my February Goals, and in my goal update post that I would tell you more information about my monthly income. I'm not going to lie, I have been pushing this off because I'm not too entirely sure what to say and I thought this post would be extremely boring. But then I reminded myself that before I was making this extra income, I LOVED (and I still do love) reading about others and how they made their extra income. It's nice to find out about new opportunities that you may not have thought about. [Read more…]

46 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Extra Income, Life Tagged With: Extra Money, Income, Life, Travel

Why I keep my blog anonymous and other questions you have asked

January 13, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 55 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

It's Friday! I'm sure you all knew that. One of my youngest friends finally turned 21 the other day and we're going out for her birthday tonight. I'm excited. I've been waiting for tonight all week. What plans do you have for the weekend? I start classes on Tuesday, so this weekend will also be pretty depressing.

Yesterday in my blog post I was asked why I keep my blog so private. I've also had many other people ask this, so to the person who asked this yesterday, I'm not trying to single you out. It's a good question!

I try and blog anonymously as much as I can. If you look through past posts, you will find pictures though. And I always post pictures of things around my house, I'm just never in them. Also, if you look at other blogs, you will most likely find my pictures floating around.

There are many reasons why I blog anonymously:
  1. I talk a lot about money. I like to openly talk about everything with my finances, and if I wasn't private, I don't know if I would still do that. I would want to make some things more private with my finances so that I could obviously have some privacy between me and my family/friends
  2. I talk about my family. There are many things that I say in my blog about my family, that I really wish that my friends and family wouldn't read. I have a very difficult time talking about my dad in person, and I feel like in my blog I can talk about it very openly without worrying about what people think, because you all are very kind and always make me feel better.
  3. Since I blog kind of anonymously, I don't hold back with what I say. I feel like I can share anything and everything. I'm not saying that I'm fake when I'm around my friends and family. I'm saying that I can be completely open and share all of my thoughts and feelings. Nothing wrong with that right?

I don't want anyone thinking I'm a fake person though just because I don't post a lot of pictures. Just because I blog anonymously does not mean that I'm not completely honest with you guys. Sorry if I come across in a different way. I do want to start posting more pictures though, because I want you guys to be able to relate to me more! It's probably weird that I blog anonymously to some of you, I hope to change this soon. Thanks for the great question everyone!

Even though I do blog anonymously now, I DO actually want to change this soon. I'm hoping I can get over my problem and be more open.

I was also asked the other day why I have all of these vacations planned instead of paying off my debt.  I'm not really sure how to answer this. I don't see traveling as me wasting money. I actually see it as one of the best ways that I can spend my money. I also budget every month for a vacation fund, so I'm not going more into debt for it.

Also, all of my vacations are relatively cheap compared to most. I don't really pay for airfare (I'll say this again, because of my dad's survivor retirement benefits).  So it's not like I'm spending a lot of money anyways. I'm also young, so of course I would want to travel now. My vacations that I budgeted for this year account for less than 5% of our after-tax yearly income also.

My net worth is positive also, and I have no credit card debt. I don't think I'm frivolous with my money, but I do understand how it may seem like I am. I've also never been late with a payment. Also, I'm not trying to be rude or mean with what I'm saying. And I'm also not trying to have a pity party, but I like to relax every now and then because life can be stressful because of my family.

Update as of 9:30 am (I've added lots of clarifying updates to this post already because I've gotten some emails, thanks everyone for your input, keep them coming!):  Another excuse for why I want to travel more and why I recently started so much is because my dad was an avid traveler. He traveled everywhere (he was a pilot). And before he passed he told me that I need to live life more. My dad passed away when he was in his 50's, which is pretty young. He also worked hard his entire life and towards the end he was pretty miserable (because of family problems). So, since my dad passed away, I've been trying to live life, have fun and stop thinking about regrets. I don't want to die young and not have been completely happy.

I do understand that it is probably confusing that I say that I want to be out of debt so bad, but then I spend money having fun. I'm pretty frugal in my life, and I guess I just never really considered traveling a “bad” way to spend money. I don't know, I guess I'm wrong. I guess traveling is one of my weaknesses, but before I quit my old job (June of 2010), I hadn't had a single vacation day for 5 years (wasn't allowed at my job).

I know I'm just throwing excuses out there, but I just don't see traveling as a bad thing.

Am I wrong for spending money instead of strictly paying off debt?

Well I think that's all the questions that I can think of for now that some of your asked me. I really hope this helps you guys understand me more. I really promise that one day soon I will stop blogging anonymously. I will of course delete some of the things about my mom that I've said, but I will do it soon.

What else would you want to know about me?

Now I have a question for you. What would you like to see me post more about?

55 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Life Tagged With: Blog, Life

Purchased my own domain!

January 3, 2012 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 37 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

I just purchased my own domain, I am now at https://www.makingsenseofcents.com/

Blogger says they will forward everything, but I'm not sure how that works or how long it takes. Anyone know? Or anything I should know?

So, what I'm asking is that if you could please update your links for my website. I would love you forever.

Also, when I bought the domain, I noticed that my blog list disappeared, and that I had to re-add everyone. If I forgot to re-add you just now, please let me know! Please look.

Thank you!

P.S. another question.  Will I lose all of my followers via feedburner?

37 Comments
Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Uncategorized

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Hello and welcome!
My name is Michelle and I'm the author/owner of Making Sense of Cents. Learning how to save money and make more money changed my life. It allowed me to pay off $40,000 in student loans, start my own business, and I now travel full-time.
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