How My 6 Year Old Son Started An Internet Business By Mistake!
It’s strange but true and this shows how SIMPLE an internet business can be.
My 6 year old boy’s crazy about Ben 10 (well he has moved on now to something called “Bakugan” but that’s another story for another day) and so I created a very simple wordpress blog for him and his brother being the good dad that I am 
You can see their blog at http://www.ClaydenAndCoen.com
Anyway, he started posting just titles and pictures of his favourite Ben 10 toys on the blog as and when he likes to.
Now here’s the kicker, the blog had absolutely:
- NO content whatsoever
- NO widgets
- NO keyword research
- NO promotion
- NO backlinks
- NO articles
- Nothing!
It had nothing except for titles and pictures.
We don’t even go to the blog except once in a few months.
Guess what, I recently went to have a look and was flabbergasted that the blog was getting over 3,000+ unique visitors per month!
See proof:
There were also 32 pages indexed by Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aclaydenandcoen.com
Here’s the SECRET which I think got the traffic…
Listen up…
It’s a real secret
Look at this screenshot and you’ll see:
#1 out of 944,000 competitors in Google images for a keyword with over 90,000 searches per month…
It even outranks giant websites and businesses like Flickr and Alibaba!
Now here’s the important thing from this case study:
Rethink how you can rank on the search engines with images.
Remember, we did absolutely NOTHING except post photos which were found for FREE on the internet.
However, I believe that the postings of relevant pictures and keyword titles may play a part.
But I’m STILL flabbergasted that it can be so easy to get traffic and a business going online.
What do you think about this?
Also, the comments from visitors are hilarious, I mean read this:
http://www.claydenandcoen.com/?p=18#comments
People were ASKING to buy stuff from my 6 year old!
Now, what if we build a little business off this?
Here are some ideas of what we can do:
- Build a list of responsive kids and parents
- Make money with affiliate programs like eBay, Amazon and Adsense
- Create an info product around Ben 10
- Set up an eBay store and auction off his toys (there are TOO many of them!)
- Set up a Yahoo! Store and get stocks using the wholesale/dropship model
- Flip the blog for a nice profit by selling it
- Actually do something to promote the blog!
This shows just how SIMPLE setting up an internet business can be…
You’ve just got to stick to the basics and grow from there.
I mean, if a 6 year old can do it, anyone can do it!
You can literally do this for ANY niche and make almost guaranteed income.
Here’s an easy to do step-by-step plan just for you:
Step 1: Find a market on Amazon.com or Clickbank.com
Step 2: Research some long-tail keywords
Step 3: Find relevant images or photos on Google images
Step 4: Find relevant affiliate products (Ebay, Amazon, Clickbank, Adsense)
Step 5: Start a blog (just a simple one, no fluff needed, Blogger or Wordpress will be fine)
Step 6: Post your photos with keyword-rich titles and tags and add your affiliate links
Step 7: Promote the blog with articles, forums, social bookmarking to create relevant backlinks
Step 8: Post new photos every week
That’s it! You should be getting targeted traffic automatically and making real money online for FREE.
You could definitely refine and systemize the above plan. Or outsource to some college kids and
build an entire money-making niche empire without spending a cent.
I suggest you go try this and POST YOUR RESULTS HERE.
Man, I should have charged for this information :p
Your comments and ideas to brainstorm further are appreciated…
Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
Ewen
PS. Share this page with your friends…
Edmund Loh
November 28, 2008 | 6:25 AMCool man, that’s totally impressive! I don’t think I was even able to speak a full sentence even at that age. Got loads of help from his daddy?
Even so, this just goes to show that being ready to learn is almost all of what it takes to succeed online.
Well done, Ewen and his boy!
Marian
November 28, 2008 | 7:09 AMUnbelievable!
Nice little blog… simple & so beautiful
Keep it up!
Marian
Ian del Carmen
November 28, 2008 | 7:14 AMIy always excites me to see younger kids doing business online!
Like my son’s http://WhatMyPapaToldMe.com which was also successful… 
Ian del Carmen
http://IanDelCarmen.com
Valeriu
November 28, 2008 | 7:17 AMThat’s really nice, considering the fact that I can’t remember a single thing I do when I had 6 yrs old.
It seems that your son Ewen could make more money than 85% of the people who’s struggling to do this online…
And that’s a GREAT start for a young Netpreneur!
Valeriu
Donald - SMART Infopreneur
November 28, 2008 | 7:41 AMHi Ewen
What happened to http://www.claydenandcoen.com happened to me for one of my niche projects too!
When I was reviewing my traffic stats every month, I realised that quite a significant amount of traffic came over to my site because of Google images. Apparently my images with the keywords for my project (are getting indexed by Google images) are sending traffic to me although it was not a deliberate attempt initially to do that.
Your case study just confirmed my suspicion! Thanks!
Regards
Donald
Autopilot Blueprint
November 28, 2008 | 7:41 AMI feel like i’m outsmarted by your son.
So, did you sell the toys to them ???
Well, you can open new business, toy business.
CEO of this new business is your own son.
Asher
November 28, 2008 | 7:44 AMHi Ewen,
Wow, that is very impressive. Most people are just struggling
to get visitors and your son gets it just like that…
Chinese saying: A tiger father has no canine sons!
The blog is simple and looks really good, with a very nicely
done header graphic.
Cool stuff!
Asher
Kevin Koop
November 28, 2008 | 8:04 AMHey Ewen,
That’s a really great story and certainly gives food for thought when it comes to using images as a strategy to get Google traffic.
Thanks for the tip,
Kevin
PS – It was really great meeting you a while back at Stu McLaren’s event in California!
Vic
November 28, 2008 | 8:06 AMIt goes to show that there are still lots of opportunities in the Internet. Cool stuff.
Some sort of membership system could be an interesting proposition where it allows kid to log in and play some online Ben 10 game collaboratively or with the pre-program character…!! plus product-info etc etc…to spice up the membership experience…
anyhow…good job dad+son team!! keep it up. cheers
JY Chia
November 28, 2008 | 8:07 AMHi Ewen
How are you? Hope you still remember who I am =)
Thank you for sharing this, it’s awesome!
And I was looking at the comments, the
buyers must have thought that a real
marketer is behind all these =)
Way to go son & dad team!
Cheers!
jobit
November 28, 2008 | 8:09 AMWow! A light bulb just went on above my head. Glad you share that with us. I am a bit new and this is very inspiring. Thanks a lot.
“There is no such thing as accident…” Kungfu panda. Your boys(lots of help from Dad right now) may meant to be internet marketers too just like Dad. Tiger Woods started training early at around 5-6yo?
SSaw
November 28, 2008 | 8:12 AMCongratulation to these both SUPER SON and Daddy…..
Be blessed
SSaw
http://product-review.isyai.com
Erik James
November 28, 2008 | 8:15 AMWow! Very impressive, Ewen! It sure looks like you have a couple of young superstars in the making! And, it just goes to show the true power of using relevant keywords, and the importance of using alt image tags, in your HTML code. Well done!
Antony
November 28, 2008 | 8:29 AMThe little fellow sure puts me to shame!
He has a big future online.
Cheers
Mark Flavin
November 28, 2008 | 8:29 AMA great example of how to use the alternative Google search tools to get traffic. Another good way is to use Google News & press releases. ( http://www.markflavin.com/recommends/GoogleNewsStrategy )
Great Job Guys.
Mark
youlin
November 28, 2008 | 8:39 AMCongrat!!Clayden and Coen!! And the father also
Cool idea jz by using picture blog.
Desmond
http://www.youlinchng.com
Free Brother
November 28, 2008 | 8:48 AMWow, thats awesome! would you adopt me as your son?
, so every day i can learn the internet marketing from the master 
Sandis Viksna
November 28, 2008 | 8:49 AMHi, Ewen
Thank you for this post. It once more proves the variety of traffic sources from the same old Google and how easy it is with targeted content, even if it is image.
What I found interesting that you have quite good page view ratio vs visits despite the fact it is blog. So well done
Who knows – maybe the next millionaire will be a 6 year old!
Winston
November 28, 2008 | 9:03 AMHaha, this is really some expert advice..on how to get 1000s of visitors without writing sentence on the blog….ISEO (Imagine Search Engine Optimization)…I hope my site at http://www.getmyskin.com gets lots of traffic
Chong Xin Yun Seth
November 28, 2008 | 9:13 AMThat is insanely cool. I wonder what happens when they grow up. Yeah super sons and daddy indeed, haha
cashmere
November 28, 2008 | 9:17 AMWoW! My son is fond of Ben10too.
Rika Susan's Granite Countertop News
November 28, 2008 | 9:45 AMWhat a stunning example, Ewen! Thanks. It just goes to show that we don’t need to get into all sorts of fancy footwork to get that winning listing. Just go for the good old basics and there it is. Makes one think, doesn’t it?
Singapore 3D Designer
November 28, 2008 | 9:57 AMExcellent! Even your kids are impressive!
Arthur
November 28, 2008 | 10:22 AMwhat a great idea!
would love to hear how this goes further – making money at age 6 is just fantastic
Arthur.
http://www.themedlinkbuilder.com/
kiro
November 28, 2008 | 10:27 AMOMG. unbelievable. I should also just upload my unwanted famous toys on line and wait for miracle.
CJ
November 28, 2008 | 10:43 AMOMG!
They say there’s 2 types of people that, depending on their mindset, will either be jealous and dejected or motivated and inspired when they hear about things like this. Does it mean I have a split personality if I feel BOTH inspired AND jealous? LOL!!!
Seriously, it’s a wonderful story and thanks for sharing the image SEO tip!
~cj
http://qualityarticles.com
http://articlewritingnews.com
frankie ngah
November 28, 2008 | 11:03 AMHello Ewen,
You got real smart kids.After reading,I feel like I am only one years old.Just learning to learning to call DaDa and MaMa!
Anyway,thanks for the story and you are a great guru.
Frankie
Melanie Robinson
November 28, 2008 | 11:16 AMThank you for this post. It really made me smile.
You have a great father & sons team!
Cheers
Dave
November 28, 2008 | 12:32 PMCongrats. I would like to get that much traffic without trying.
and I’m trying.
You have great sons. Looks like chips off the old block.
Husanto
November 28, 2008 | 12:39 PMWow…its wonderfull. The website very simple and very nice pic for a kids. You have a smart kids.. very good..
ArahMan7
November 28, 2008 | 1:07 PMHola Mr. Ewen.
Wow, that’s awesome.
Guess I got a lot to learn still.
I know you’re very busy and all, but do you think any one of your fabulous sons will have the time to be my ’sifu’? The way I see it, I gotta start making small step before I can stand among the giants. (Keep on dreaming, ArahMan7 – I heard that Mr. Ewen)
Greetings and lots of love from Malaysia.
Peter
November 28, 2008 | 1:16 PMThis is truly amazing.I was reluctant to read my email from Ewen by just decided to check it out. This is great. I wish I can get so many views in one month to my website. However it has given me some great ideas.
Ewen Chia
November 28, 2008 | 2:20 PMThanks so much for the kind words and comments! Yes the blog’s beautiful, clean and simple. Perhaps that helps too.
I can’t design any graphics for nuts. In fact the entire template and blog was set up by my friend Sean Lowery from http://www.WPCreations.com
All I did was to help Clayden post the pictures. He can find them on his own in Google now and even know how to start posting on his own! Kids these days are a lot faster than we “old” folks
Please understand I showed this NOT to say how good we are, but to share priceless strategies that really work with everyone…
So that you guys can make more money!
Ewen
Jun Yuan Lim
November 28, 2008 | 2:32 PMFirst and foremost – I must say that I really LOVE the whole page your 2 lovely boys have done up! The really cute pictures of your son really caught my eye! =D
And I really think your son should put up Amazon links to these Ben 10 toys and maybe at the age of 6 start making a healthy 4-figure income online! That’ll be really, really cool!
Thanks so much for all the information you’ve posted in this post… I’ve learned a lot from it…
Have a great weekend!
Cheers
Jun Yuan
Bobby
November 28, 2008 | 2:46 PMThat was really amazing! Thanks for sharing this info for free. I’m just starting out and this motivates me to keep on with my blog
Thanks again Ewen
George Yeo
November 28, 2008 | 2:47 PMWow, that was really informative. I didn’t know images can be so powerful. Seems like google is very visual as well!
Randy Hogan
November 28, 2008 | 3:02 PMHello Ewen,
This is amazing that your son is picking this up so easily. My Granddaughter is 4 and gets on my wife’s computer and goes to PBS Kids, navigates through the site and plays all the games.
It’s amazing how young kids take to this like ducks to water. LOL!
Thank you Ewen for being so generous as to pass on this incredible information about getting free traffic too.
I am grateful to you for giving this tip for free! Bless you…
Randy Hogan
Thomas UKM
November 28, 2008 | 3:33 PMHi Ewen,
This is really another side of the internet marketing. That goes to show that internet marketing can be a simple model::) Good tips!
- Thomas
Frank
November 28, 2008 | 3:36 PMHi Ewen
Thanks for sharing your boys’ cool blog with 3,000+ traffic@month!
Indeed it’s “priceless strategies that really work with everyone…”
Inspiring!
Bravo!
http://innerpower2wealth.blogspot.com
Ilie Stafie
November 28, 2008 | 3:39 PMMy affiliate marketing business is perfect, bat wath is solutions for target trafic for make 111.000 $ / mo. ?
Pete Moring
November 28, 2008 | 4:20 PMThis is great. Makes you wonder what goes on in the amazing ether.
Just one thing. how do you actually DO Step 6: Post your photos with keyword-rich titles and tags and add your affiliate links.
I’m Ok with posting photo’s, but don’t get how to ‘tag’ them with keywords. A nudge in the right direction would help
Ewen Chia
November 28, 2008 | 4:25 PMHey Pete,
If you’re using wordpress they do have an option for you to add tags to images when you’re inserting them.
Ewen
Nando
November 28, 2008 | 5:11 PMHi Ewen,
Thanks for sharing such an awesome post. My main motivation for persevering with internet marketing is, so that I can give my son (3yrs.old) a business that he can run, when the time comes.
Thanks also for sharing a more human side of an incredibly competitive business.
Cheers,
Nando
Guru of Instant Tips
November 28, 2008 | 6:37 PMWow….that’s beautiful design Ewen
Rich
November 28, 2008 | 6:44 PMThanks Ewen,
I’m always trying to overthink everything when the whole time the answer to a lot of my problems was starring at me in the face.
Great post and thanks for sharing.
Julius Orias
November 28, 2008 | 7:51 PMHi Ewen,
Thanks for sharing the success of kids blog here, it really encourage us especially me who’s just started blogging and made a little money every month. I wish you all the best with your family a Happy Thanksgiving.
God Bless To Your Success,
Julius
http://www.juliusorias.ws/tissa.htm
Rahmat Wahyudi
November 28, 2008 | 8:20 PMWow… awesome, truly great son, success to you and your family
Leopoldo
November 28, 2008 | 10:48 PMThat’s a great idea, Ewen.
Sure to try it.
I’m glad I’m a subscriber to your newsletter.
I definitely believe what you teach.
I have some problems with a card right now but I’ll surely try out your methods for making it online
once I solve my issues.
It’s a great idea though.
Thanks.
Geoff Dodd
November 29, 2008 | 3:29 AMEwen, Clayden and Coen surely are gonna be cute Superaffiliates before mid 2009. That’s my prediction. On a zero ad budget, too. Thanks for the hot tip. Google seems to add videos and images into the first page SERP sometimes for an ordinary search as well!
Geoff, Australia
Dylan Jones
November 29, 2008 | 3:35 AMThat’s awesome Ewen!
I have never heard of “Ben 10″ – must be a singapore thing, but never the less,
very cool!
- Dylan
Chris
November 29, 2008 | 6:11 AMHi Ewen,
Thanks for sharing this valuable strategies. So inspiring.. Great kids..
Chris
jan
November 29, 2008 | 2:09 PMImpressive…..and cute kids…..but….
Having an image site myself, and having many images ranking well in google images, the one thing that drives me NUTS is people hotlinking my images.
Quite often, I will have an image that ranks well for a popular search term….and then a nice “black hat marketer” will see this and hotlink my image to show in his site. (usually one that is full of other scraped material from the web containing ads of his choice)
Sometimes this means we lose considerable traffic from google as google has a habit of sometimes showing the hotlinking site as the site which has the image and NOT the site where the image is actually hosted. (bandwidth stealing aside, this is very annoying)
Now I notice that nearly all the images on that blog are hotlinked from either ebay or image hosting sites….which isn’t too bad….but you are hotlinking from other people’s sites too eg http://www.ben10toys.net/images/bandai/figures/packaging/aliencollectionbox_heatblast.jpg
Yes, you can get a lot of traffic from having pictures rank well in google images….but doing it the “right way” and not the “black hat way” is fairer …spare a thought for the webmasters who have their images hosted properly on their sites and have seo’d their site well to get traffic from such images….very discouraging when your traffic is taken away after a lot of hard work.
You might have found these images for “free” as you say, but spare a thought for sites like the one listed above where you are taking away their bandwidth by showing their images in your site. Upload images you find “for free” either to free image sites like photobucket and link to them from there or host them on your own server. (I bet that site above has had it’s bandwidth usage rise after this post with everyone going to the kids blog for a look…..but then, it might be your site Ewen…..and that would make it ok)
jan
November 29, 2008 | 8:17 PMoh….but will say, even though I was having a bit of a rant up there ^^^ having an image in that first row of google images for any high search terms will get you a stack of traffic, so yes, your secret is a very clever way of gaining traffic. Do let us know when your boys make their first million won’t you
Pat Kelly
November 29, 2008 | 9:06 PMHi Ewen,
Thanks for sharing this info. I’ve known about Blogs (as a marketing tool) for some time but the use of pics. in this way – amazing. I’m putting a blog up before Xmas. As I’m a total beginner, a blog seems a great idea!
Cheers,
Pat
Entrepreneur Ideas
November 29, 2008 | 11:48 PMThat is an amazing story, you must be proud of your young online entrepreneurs.
Jimmy
November 29, 2008 | 11:54 PMwow, that’s incredible, what a great way for kids to make money online.
Matt
November 30, 2008 | 1:49 AMThis is really cool!
But thought I’d give you heads up that some of your images may be missing. I get little red x in box things.
But I am very definitely going to take this info and add it to my bag of knowledge for online magick…
I’m working on my own niche site and have a blog too, will be writing articles and reviews for my items – but now I’ve been inspired to add a bit of graphic imagery to give it a boost.
I think the hardest part is staying focused on just one part, especially when a project has so many parts to put together. Buddy system would seem to be a good idea to keep things on track. This blog was so simple, with a few tweeks it could be a very profitable site.
Too bad if it’s on wordpress.com – they don’t like you adding things like ebay or amazon or google to the blogs.
Awesome info and results! Thanks for the 411 about it.
Karen the LairMistress
November 30, 2008 | 4:42 AMCool post! Maybe I should have started a blog at age six about tree-climbing techniques (LOL). Of course, that was nearly 40 years ago, when blogs didn’t exist per se.
I do have a blog now, of course. And maybe it can do more to promote my art and photo stores, as well as original music…
*soaks up inspiration from Ewen and family…*
–Karen Olsen
http://virgofolkie.livejournal.com
Bendz
November 30, 2008 | 7:26 AMHi,
Simply great idea. It makes SEO’s work too easy !!!
A simple but worth able business model.
Good tips. Thanks for sharing with us.
pet insurance
RYErnest
November 30, 2008 | 5:29 PMNice post u have here
Added to my RSS reader
Cathleen
November 30, 2008 | 6:01 PMI think it must be in the blood. He got the luck of your Internet Marketing super affiliate gene.
A 6 year old making it look easy. That’s great.
Eric Ho
December 1, 2008 | 2:50 AMwow.. nice site..
but i am quite confused about the “free images”. are we allow to use other people images and use them on our site or rather hotlink them? is it legal? i am worried on the copyright infringement issue?
anyway, that’s a idea to use images for seo purpose..
WILL CHANDLER
December 1, 2008 | 5:09 AMTHAT IS GREAT YOUR SON CAN WORK ALLMOSE LIKE THERE FATHER.
I THANK
YOU.
FaridSulaiman.com
December 1, 2008 | 1:53 PMIt really great Ewen, I also still in a learning process and hope to share to my kids one day.
Cahyo
December 2, 2008 | 5:24 PMamazing story . . .
nice blog
Ken S.
December 4, 2008 | 5:33 AMEric Ho
December 1, 2008 | 2:50 AM
wow.. nice site..
but i am quite confused about the “free images”. are we allow to use other people images and use them on our site or rather hotlink them? is it legal? i am worried on the copyright infringement issue?
Ewen,
Could you please answer this question as I am also wondering about how to do this? From Jan’s post above, it sounds like it is not completely on the up and up. Is that true or is this something that is OK to do and please explain exactly how to hotlink photos.
Thanks.
Ewen Chia
December 4, 2008 | 6:46 AMHi Ken, Eric,
See this warrior post I created:
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/31655-how-my-6-year-old-son-started-internet-business-mistake.html
Jan
December 4, 2008 | 12:11 PMEasy answer folks….imagine you have a website…ok
You have the images you use hosted on your own server.
Because you have done a good job with SEO some of these images rank well in google images and are sending you good traffic. (yay you!)
But…one day, someone searching for “free images” sees your pictures in google and says “hmmm, I want that for my site”
Instead of saving the picture and uploading it to their site or an image hosting site, they just go to the direct image URL in the frame up top in google images (which is where you have it hosted on your site) copy the URL and then put the picture into their site by “hotlinking” your image.
Now, google is a bit quirky with how it decides which site it should show as “hosting” an image sometimes (it’s actually something they need to fix)
So one day, you see all the traffic you have created from your image disappear….but to where? To the site that is hotlinking your image.
It doesn’t always happen, and it isn’t always permanent (sometimes a blog might hotlink an image and they might “steal” your traffic for a couple of weeks, then it reverts back to you)
But…..there are a great number of “black hat marketers” who use this tactic with junk sites or blogs they create. They just find popular images that rank well, usually in the first couple of rows in google images and “hope” they can steal a little traffic for a while…..and quite often they do.
This post explains in a pictorial fashion what I am saying:
http://www.xarj.net/2007/image-hotlinking-google-image-search/
Now…would you like this if this happened to you? No. (bandwidth leaching aside, if you are using your site to make money, and your traffic comes from some of your images, you are going to get mighty annoyed if someone steals your traffic…right?)
Now, if Ewen made this post and I saw that all the traffic came from images from his own server, I’d be going “woohoo…way to go….amazing”…..but the images aren’t on his server, and they were probably ranked highly in google images before he hotlinked them…therefore…the traffic.
You need to control the images you have on your site too…just for common sense reasons …if you hotlink someone else’s image, and they see you doing that, and don’t like it…they can do an image “swap”….usually to something that isn’t very nice….(and not something you would want on your kids blog for example)
Everyone uses free images from google…but if you hotlink….well, it’s lazy, and you aren’t really thinking about the website you are hotlinking from and the affect it can have on them. And sometimes it can have a massive affect on their traffic.
You can get fantastic traffic from google images….and 90% of the time you won’t have any copyright issues…..just don’t hotlink. It will take you longer to get traffic (the google image bot doesn’t frequent websites as much as the main google bot) but it’s safer, fairer and you keep control…..
This warrior member here seems to be the only one that “gets it”…….if she knew you were hotlinking as well, I think she might have more to say
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/31655-how-my-6-year-old-son-started-internet-business-mistake.html#post287761
Ewen, you always give people excellent info….and I admire your business model and have a lot of respect for you, I also know that you are a nice guy….but I just had to say something about this…ok…even if it’s just to protect your kids site from any “nasty” images showing up.
Linda
December 5, 2008 | 8:48 AMHi Ewen,
By Mistake? No way. It’s providence. God knows you would be about the only one who would see $ $igns, NOT just for yourself, but to eagerly share your discovery with your affiliates. Seems your ‘golden’ touch for business comes naturally for your two little treasures. Now to find some creative ways to apply it… It’s difficult when you’re not very good at diversifying.
God’s very best to you and your family, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New year through!
Linda
Jan
December 5, 2008 | 11:39 AMAnd seems the site you hotlinked from to get that number one image and “traffic” is back as the referring site in google images. http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=ben%2010%20toys&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
As I said in previous post…you might snag some traffic for a little while with this hotlinking technique, but this doesn’t work long term. (you might get the traffic back from time to time…but hey, they could just delete the image too…and you’ll get another “red x” showing in the blog…like some of the ones you have already)
To make this work.
-Find images that are in the public domain and not copyrighted.
-Any images you find, host at your site or upload to a free image host and link into your site from there.
-Make sure you have good titles (close to the image) as Ewen said, and also surround the image with relevant content to that image. (adding alternative text tags and even the image size specs to an image is something that google likes also)
-be patient for the google image bot to find your pics (might be a while though..but worth the wait)
-if done correctly, you get good image search traffic, and if people don’t “hotlink” your images, you can get “long term” traffic.
2mk
December 6, 2008 | 6:30 AMThis is called natural SEO.
Frankie Teo
December 6, 2008 | 5:49 PMIt’s always great to have a very successful father as an Internet Marketer. It’s all the back-up you can get & a dream come true.
Congrats to your sons, Ewen, for having such a good traffic results & ranking.
Cheers..
Best Regards,
Frankie Teo
http://www.frankieteo.com
StoneCS
December 7, 2008 | 11:30 AMI read this last night and enjoyed the
comments so much I had to go to the Warrior
forum and read some more. …here’s what I posted.
“I just read this over on your blog when I was picking up that report, perfect timing by the way, that’s just what I’m focusing on right now. I read a little of this story, and got caught up in it. I was really getting some good ideas by the end, same as you listed, Ewen. The traffic is there, might as well monetize it.
So I thought I’d leave a comment, until I got to reading some others comments. They started out great, until I saw a full article on ethics, by “Jan”. I mean making a point is one thing, running it into the ground is much more than was needed. It’s not like there was any intent here.
I have even more respect for Ewen now, for not having to defend anything or argue with this guy over wrong or right. I didn’t even think of this angle until Jan brought it up, over and over. I just thought it was good story with a little ingenuity on the kids part.
I mean how many copyright infringements do you think you could find between myspace and youtube alone? Go try and post 10 times on each of those. That should keep busy for awhile, Jan.
I do see you point. If someone was doing this in excess and strictly for the purpose of stealing some juice, and had a post similar to this. I’m sure there would be a lot more protesters. If this were Howie Schwartz’s kids, I’d think, maybe they had done it for the SEO.
”
B)>
Mohan Das Kondath
December 8, 2008 | 11:49 AMHi, It was something incredible. I think your son will enter into the Guinness Book of world records.
Great work indeed.
Jan
December 9, 2008 | 2:13 PM@ StoneCS
No….there was not “intent” here on Ewen’s part probably. As Ewen said “All I did was to help Clayden post the pictures”
I was explaining “how” he probably got the traffic….and also explaining “why” it’s not a wise method to use. (eg look at the missing pictures on the blog at the moment….& understand the fact that Clayden doesn’t have any control over the images he has there either)
Copyright infringement wasn’t the “point” of my post. Understanding “why” the blog got the traffic was….and an attempt to dissuade people from hotlinking….unless they want blogs and websites full of dead images….and to try and create an understanding of how hotlinking can affect other people’s websites.
He doesn’t have to defend anything….he asked for “comments and ideas to brainstorm further” so I brainstormed with what I have learned from my years using google images for traffic….and in relation to long term SEO it would be interesting to see his views on this …..other than redirecting to the warrior post
Having an image that has meaning IN THE CONTEXT of where it is displayed (heading) and other on page titles with similar “relevancy” is obviously a part of how the image ended up #1, and why the blog ended up as the site displayed in google for this image instead of the site where it is hosted.
But, if the image was already in the #1 position..how much does that play a part? If you hosted all these images on your own server from today, do you think you would lose the traffic? If the blog had been created with all images hosted on your server originally, do you think you still would have ranked #1 in google images?
I’ve noticed that other relevant “ben 10″ searches also produce top listings in google images for Clayden’s blog….all the hotlinks overriding the website where the image is hosted:
eg the search for “heatblast” a character from the cartoon in google images at #8:
http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=heatblast+&btnG=Search+Images
the search for “widmutt cartoon” a character from the cartoon in google images at #1:
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=wildmutt+cartoon&btnG=Search+Images
the search for “widvine cartoon” a character from the cartoon in google images at #2:
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=wildvine+cartoon&btnG=Search+Images
the search for “ghostfreak” a character from the cartoon in google images at #7:
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=ghostfreak&btnG=Search+Images
I think now, after having a look around…. it’s a “combination” of both titles, total on page relevance with keywords relating to ben 10, AND hotlinking already highly ranked images that produced the top ten image results and traffic. The way the hotlinked images where put into a highly relevant context made the blog “replace” the sites that were ranking well and hosting these images…..what do you think Ewen?
Ewen Chia
December 10, 2008 | 2:50 AMHey Jan,
First I want to thank you for your valuable input and posts, much appreciated
Now I never did professed to be an SEO geek but what you pointed out makes a lot of sense.
It’ll be interesting to see if this method produces the same result without hotlinking (which was not intentional by the way, we’ll just lazy!)
As I mentioned before, the importance of this case study was:
- The principle behind using images as an alternative traffic source
- To brainstorm various models of making money online
- How to start small and go big
- To show and encourage people who thinks an internet business needs to be complicated!
Ewen
www.1Million1Year.NET
December 10, 2008 | 7:17 AMHi, Ewen!
Many thanks for the great advices you offered!
best regards,
Luca
http://www.1million1year.net/
Jan
December 10, 2008 | 1:35 PMCool….thanks for that Ewen
I think the case study is important as it showed some valuable info (like how people were asking if they could “buy” the toys off your lad…..shows how an image that shows in a search for a product that’s hot can bring targeted traffic)
I know I “went on” a little about the hotlinking, but it’s just from seeing what it does first hand to my own traffic (sometimes losing 1000’s of visitors a day just from one hotlinked image)
I just wanted people to know that it’s something that can affect others adversely and can also backfire on their own sites also. (even if a way to get fast traffic for a while)
And Ewen, not many marketing “gurus” would have kept my posts….I respect you for doing that. Kudos to you Ewen….;)
To anyone thinking about getting any of Ewen’s products….go for it…as you will get solid info and tactics that work (as long as you TAKE ACTION)
johnny
December 29, 2008 | 10:53 PMs1wV1i Thanks for good post
Randy Hogan
January 18, 2009 | 2:34 PMHi Ewen,
Thanks again for these ideas you provided. Is there a way of contacting the people that post here with their permission?
I was actually wondering if Jan has a website or would be willing to share knowledge of how to set up a blog for images correctly. I would love to be able to contact Jan with some questions I have about this.
Could you connect us Ewen?
Thank you,
Randy
Tony Chan
January 18, 2009 | 10:09 PMThank you for the valuable tips. I will try!!
tony tonycblogs.blogspot.com
Cristian
January 30, 2009 | 2:45 AMNice little kids you have there Ewen. You really can be proud of them!
Now the post, grate job and you proved once again how easy it is to drive traffic to your website. God job there.
Martin Puusep
February 3, 2009 | 8:30 PMHey, thanks Ewen. This is really interesting angle on the keywords and sets up lots of new opportunities to try out.
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February 5, 2009 | 10:01 AMHello to all
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February 12, 2009 | 1:27 PMHi Ewen
Thanks for this – brilliant! I’m going to read through it a couple of times to make sure I understand it properly. I’m getting excited now!
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February 12, 2009 | 1:57 PMI think your blog need a new wordpress template. Downalod it from http://templates.wordpressguru.in, The site has nice and unique wordpress templates.
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February 12, 2009 | 5:27 PMEwen,
No joke, just yesterday I checked Google Analytics and saw my blog up to about 50 visits per day and I don’t do any advertising. When I checked referring sites, #1 by FAR was….Google Images.
Nothing to it. I got the images from Google Images in the first place. I just put them on my blog with a description ad viola, traffic. Now one more piece you added is to include my affiliate links in the description. I’ll certainly do that.
My blog is http://www.colonhealthcleanse.net/
Nice info on your blog. Keep it coming!
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February 13, 2009 | 2:20 PMNice post! GA is also my biggest earning. However, it?s not a much.
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February 20, 2009 | 11:24 AMHello Guru, what entice you to post an article. This article was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Thursday.
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February 20, 2009 | 11:27 AMI don?t usually reply to posts but I will in this case. I?ve been experiencing this very same problem with a new WordPress installation of mine. I?ve spent weeks calibrating and getting it ready when all of a sudden? I cannot delete any content. It?s a workaround that, although isn?t perfect, does the trick so thanks! I really hope this problem gets solved properly asap.
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February 20, 2009 | 6:16 PMThanks a lot for your free info, Ewen. I will add more images into all my blogs and websites from now onwards to get more targeted traffic. Cheers!
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Thanks for sharing that with us!
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Thank’s for such free material!
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…
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Please go on like that and don’t stop posting. I hope this comment motivates you to do so, smile
regards, kali
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It was an interesting blog. What did I learn from your 6-year old? Simplicity sometimes is the best way to build a business. Moreover kids don’t really bother what others think. They just do what they love! And that is what Internet Marketing is about. Doing what you love!
Cheers
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