There are so many ways to make money online that if you aren’t already doing so you will be surprised at all the prospects.  There is money to be made through blogging, writing, affiliate marketing, and copywriting to name a few ways.  One of the best ways to make money online is through SEO.  So, what is SEO, anyway?  SEO stands for search engine optimization.  With SEO you don’t have to buy traffic to make money with your online presence. 

When it comes to making money with SEO you must remember that the keyword is king.  If you choose the wrong keywords when promoting and marketing your website, you’re in trouble.  You won’t get any traffic and your sales will wither away.  Never select keywords that are unachievable or difficult.  Sticking to relevant and logical keywords not only makes sense but makes achieving a profit with SEO a reality. 

One way to increase the money you make with SEO is to look for weak competition.  If your competitors have weaker sites than yours, you are definitely going to succeed.  Get started by looking at what keywords weaker sites are ranking for in your industry.  Then, go after those keywords.  A good way to determine strength of a website is to look at the PageRank (PR) of the pages that actually rank for your desired keywords.  Websites that have a PR of 3 or less are relatively weak and will be easier to surpass. 

Value is also very important to making money with SEO.  Many people tend to make the mistake of choosing worthless keywords.  There really is no point in choosing a keyword that you cannot make money with.  If you spend all your resources trying to rank for a worthless keyword your business is likely to fail.  You can tell if a keyword is valuable by its cost per click (CPC) price.  Any of the major CPC clients will allow you to get an idea, but a good value is about $1 CPC. 

Another important aspect of selecting keywords to rank for is search volume.  All too often people choose keywords that aren’t searched enough.  These are usually referred to as tail-end keywords.  However, if you want to make a strong presence you will focus on both tail-end and main keywords.  At first, your focus should be on major keywords so that you are able to build a good, solid online presence.  Always take the time to analyze the potential traffic a given keyword can bring.  There are various tools for doing so online.  A good volume is about 3,000 per month. 

Building a list of good, solid keywords is crucial to making money with SEO.  Once you have chosen your keywords, you can start optimizing your site to rank for them.  A very important trick is to choose a relevant keyword and include that in your website’s domain.  One of the top tier keywords, or a close variation of it, should be part of the domain.  Search engines will react positively to this, and the higher you rank in the search engine results the more business (and money!) will come your way. 

The content on your website is also very important to increasing the potential for profit.  It should be well written with a logical flow.  Never throw keywords in randomly as it will cause your website to appear too spammy.  The content should be clear and concise, featuring your top tier and tail-end keywords in a logical manner. 

Incoming links to your website are an important aspect of making money with SEO.  You can achieve this by submitting your site to directories and exchanging links with other, relevant sites.  Your best bet is to make sure that any anchor text is a specialized keyword relevant to your site.  You can include links to your site on blogs, article directories, and via link exchanges.