I’ve wondered this same thing.

Does the size of my website affect it Google rank? If I have 10000 pages vs 100 pages, will I rank higher?

Here’s a clip by Google Webmaster Central to give us an answer.

And of course, I would have to add that if you have 10000 pages and your blog has a regular readership then of course your chances of ranking higher are greater. Simply having a ton of content really means nothing in Google’s eyes. And thank God it is that way. Just imagine find a bunch of websites that are made simply to echo keywords. It would render search engines such as Google literally useless.

Ever want to keep up to do with what’s happening on websites or blogs about a certain subject?

I have and while running Google search has and continues to be a big part of what I do in my do to day functions I found that using Google Alerts is a great way to keep an eye on what’s being said or reported about something.

You don’t even need a Google account for this service.

Let’s look at how to set it up:

1. Go over to http://google.com/alerts
2. Enter the words you want to be used in “Search Terms”
3. In “Type” you can choose blogs, videos..etc. Comprehensive being a combination.
4. In “How often” you can the frequency. If once per day is enough, once a week or “as it happens”. The last option meaning you’ll likely receive many emails.
5. Enter your email.

And then you’ll receive updates right in your email. And in these emails you have 3 options at the bottom of each message.

1. Remove this alert
2. Create another alert
3. Manage your alerts

As I have a google account, I suspect number 3 may not be there if you do not. But I’m not %100 sure on that one.

And there you have it. A powerful tool to use if you need to keep informed on certain topics or are conducting market research on a certain subject.

Another aspect of creating websites that generate revenu is advertising and where to put those ads.

One one of my other blogs that I’ve had for several years I thought I’d have fun a couple of years back and just threw some adds up on there wondering if it would ever pay anyting out. Having heard (and read) so many “I got rich on the internet… it’s really easy… you can’t miss” type stories I figured I’d throw some on.

But as some may have guessed those ads never performed well. There are a few reasons for this.
1. I have written quite a bit of content on that blog but I would write about any subject under the sun.
2. I had never thought about ad placement what so ever.
3. I had never tried to participate

I believe there is a balance and this is my own personal opinion.

I personally enjoy reading blogs where the author’s text is easy to read. I don’t mind at all if he or she has ads on the website. It’s part of the business.

But when there are ads everywhere, for me as a reader, it turns me off. That’s not to say that if there is one or 2 advertisements in an articles content that it bothers me. Because it doesn’t. We’ve all seen the countless adsense ads embedded in text, in fact you’ll find some here.

I’ve seen websites where there are multiple ads in the articles text, in the sidebars, the top, the bottom… all over. Sometimes there are so many text ad links all around the article that it confuses the eye. Maybe that is part of the psychology in these website’s design, to somehow trick or confuse a visitor to click a link.

I find this a bad approach from a personal stand point.

On my personal blog I was approached by someone who wanted to pay me X amount to put some text in the bottom of some articles that would link to their sites. At first I thought about it and I really didn’t want any of these links to point towards anything I would object to. In the end I had pretty much decided to do it but then I thought about it some more. The idea of putting some “dummy” text in the bottom of something that I had written just to bump up a website’s ranking didn’t appeal to me. The main reason for this is that it would somehow cheapen what I had attempted to write.

I believe in trying to present quality. I think it’s important. At least, if I visit your website I think quality is important.

Helpful tools for ad placement?

Well, you can have a look at this  page:
Where should I place Google ads on my pages?

I’m not going to give any specific examples of what I personally dislike, but I will give an example of a website that has many advertisements and is still easy to navigate. Has a nice flow too.

It’s John Chow’s website. There are tons of great articles on his site and it has a nice balance between the content he presents along with the ads that are displayed.

I thought I’d write a quick article on Search Engine Optimization which is commonly refered to as SEO. 

Search Engine Optimization is a means of improving the volume of traffic or quality of traffic to your website and/or blog. Quality of traffic simply means that if you’re blog is about contruction then you wouldn’t want someone who’s looking for cars to end up on your site as there is a strong chance they have no interest in construction. You want people who have interest in construction to find your website.

So SEO can be thought of like fine tuning your website or blog to make it easier to find with the search engines.

Click here to read more on SEO.

You can also find Google’s guide to Search Engine Optimization here.

I’ve been reading that guide and while I’ve worked in technology for several years and am familiar with some of the concepts in the guide I did learn some things.

Part of the challenge to starting this blog and starting other blogs/websites is having them indexed by the search engines and then being easily found. There are so many websites out there that every little trick to optimize your website will help.