How can I make money with my website? That is the question that many webmasters ask themselves. What if your website sits on the first page of a particular keyword search in Google, better yet what if you are the number one spot. That is golden specially if that search is done thousands of times or millions of times in a month; it just means traffic, lots of traffic and you have monetized your site, it translates to sales. Let me give you a better example. I have a website called "learning to paint in one week" and a google search with "paint in one week" returns the results with your site on the first spot it just means your site will be the first one visited from whoever searched that particular keyword.

Working on your website to show up on the first page of Google is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). There are steps to take to get to that point. In the past it was fairly easy to get to the first page but because of abuse and bad practices Google constantly changes some criteria to get there but the major steps stay the same. The ultimate goal for many site owners is to make money, SEO is a great long term way to make money, but you have to do some specific things to make profits. Let's start with keywords.

Keywords will separate you from the crowd if you do your homework. For example if I am a person searching for a car then I type on google search "buy a car". The results show up and I would probably check out most of the sites on the first page. Now here's the trick. Most people will type broad keywords that will bring millions of results, like make money, buy car, best laptop. These keywords have the most competition and most likely big name companies are on the first page.The reason broad keywords have the most competition is that they also have the most searches.

The key is to use more targeted keywords which will have less competition and less searches but more targeted. For example if the keyword is "buy car" you can use "buy new car" "buy used" or even more targeted like "buy cheap used car". These type of searches will show less competition and are the best keywords to create a website around.

Here's what you do; use Google Keywords Tool. If you have a Niche or a site in mind type a keyword related to your site. There will be many variations, this tool will show you average search per month, average competition. What you are looking for is three or even four letter keywords once the results show up you decide which one you will be targeting. Type it in Google search and see what the competition is, the more the competition the more it will take to attin your goal so choose carefully. Once you have a keyword then you can create a website around that keyword. Create your URL using a variation of your keyword, use your keyword on your tittle. By using these techniques you will have better search results than many websites that do not know these tips.

Use your keywords in the content in the first paragraph and last paragraph for sure. Use them within your content about 20%. Use either keywords related to your site so Google knows what the site is about and you will get indexed quickly.

Do not use keywords too excessively within the content or it will look like spam. and Google will ban your site. Do not use them too little or Google will not find you, just use your judgement to find balance.

There is a lot more on keyword research you can find information on the web.

Backlinks in SEO is probably about 90% of what will get you into the first page or the number one spot in the Google search. Basically it reflects all the sites linking back to yours making you popular in Googles eyes. One thing though is that these backlinks need to be relevant to yours to help you boost your position in the search result. Google would prefer that all these backlinks be organic or just natural backlinks back to yours but it is a fact that some webmasters would like to speed this process by buying links from other sites or exchanging links with others. These practices are not authorized by Google so f you do one of these and Google finds out then your site can be penalized. There are other ways to get backlinks, one popular method is by submitting articles about your site with a link  on the resource box, commenting on other blogs relevant to yours with a link back to your site is another good way to boost your position. The more relevant backlinks you have the more you will climb on the search results, this could take  while so make sure you have patience and be consistent with your efforts.

These are some methods that are required to work on SEO. The ultimate goal is to get to that coveted number one spot, and ultimately make money, so get informed on everything that is required to prectice SEO and you will get there.