Difference Between HTML Sitemap and XML Sitemap

HTML Sitemap V/S XML Sitemap

An HTML sitemap allows site visitors to easily navigate a website. It is a bulleted outline text version of the site navigation. The anchor text displayed in the outline is linked to the page it references. Site visitors can go to the Sitemap to locate a topic they are unable to find by searching the site or navigating through the site menus.

This Sitemap can also be created in XML format and submitted to search engines so they can crawl the website in a more effective manner. Using the Sitemap, search engines become aware of every page on the site, including any URLs that are not discovered through the normal crawling process used by the engine. Sitemaps are helpful if a site has dynamic content, is new and does not have many links to it, or contains a lot of archived content that is not well-linked.

Which is better: an HTML site map or XML Sitemap? 

How to Define Canonical in your Page

It sounds like an easy question, doesn’t it? While we hear a lot about duplicate content since the Panda update(s), I’m amazed at how many people are still confused by a much more fundamental question – which URL for any given page is the canonical URL? While the idea of a canonical URL is simple enough, finding it for a large, data-driven site isn’t always so easy. This post will guide you through the process with some common cases that I see every week.

Let’s Play Count the Pages

Before we dive in, let’s cover the biggest misunderstanding that people have about “pages” on their websites. When we think of a page, we often think of a physical file containing code (whether it’s static HTML or script, like a PHP file). To a crawler, a page is any unique URL that it finds. One file could theoretically generate thousands of unique URLs, and every one of those is potentially a “page” in Google’s eyes.
It’s easy to smile and nod and all agree that we understand, but let’s put it to the test. In each of the following scenarios, how many pages does Google see?

(A) “Static” Site

• www.example.com/
• www.example.com/store
• www.example.com/about
• www.example.com/contact

(B) PHP-based Site

• www.example.com/index.php
• www.example.com/store.php
• www.example.com/about.php
• www.example.com/contact.php

(C) Single-template Site

• www.example.com/index.php?page=home
• www.example.com/index.php?page=store
• www.example.com/index.php?page=about
• www.example.com/index.php?page=contact

The answer is (A) 4, (B) 4, and (C) 4. In Google’s eyes, it doesn’t matter whether the pages have extensions (“.php”), the home-page is at the root (“/”) or at index.php, or even if every page is being driven off of one physical template. There are four unique URLs, and that means there are four pages. If Google can crawl them all, they’ll all be indexed (usually).
Let’s dive right into a few examples. Please note: these are just examples. I’m not recommending any of the URL structures in this post as ideal – I’m just trying to help you determine the correct canonical URL for any given situation.

Case 1: Tracking URLs

I’ll start with an easy one. Many sites still use URL parameters to track visitor sessions or links from affiliates. No matter what the parameter is called or which purpose it’s used for, it creates a duplicate for every individual visitor or affiliate. Here are a few examples:

1. www.example.com/store.php?session=1234
2. www.example.com/store.php?affiliate=5678
3. www.example.com/store.php?product=1234&affiliate=5678

In the first two examples, the session and affiliate ID create a copy, in essence, of the main store page. In both of these cases, the proper canonical URL is simply:

• www.example.com/store.php

The last example is a bit trickier. There, we also have a “product=” parameter that drives the product being displayed. This parameter is essential – it determines the actual content of the page. So, only the “affiliate=” parameter should be stripped out, and the canonical URL is:

• www.example.com/store.php?product=1234

This is just one of many cases where the canonical URL is NOT the root template or the URL with no parameters. Canonical URLs aren’t always short or pretty – many canonical URLs will have parameters. Again, I’m not arguing that this structure is ideal. I’m just saying that the canonical URL in this case would have to include the “product=” parameter.

Case 2: “Dynamic” URLs

Unfortunately, the word “dynamic” gets thrown around a little too freely – for the purposes of this blog post, I mean any URLs that pass variables to generate unique content. Those variables could look like traditional URL parameters or be embedded as “folders”.
A good example of the kind of URLs I’m talking about are blog post URLs. Take these four:

1. www.example.com/blog/1234
2. www.example.com/blog.php?id=1234
3. www.example.com/blog.php?id=1234&comments=on
4. www.example.com/blog/20120626

Again, it doesn’t matter whether the URLS have parameters or hide those parameters as virtual folders. All of these URLs use a unique value (either an ID or date) to generate a specific blog post. So what’s the canonical URL here? Obviously, if you canonicalize to “/blog”, you’re going to reduce your entire blog to one page. It’s a bit of a trick question, because the canonical URL could actually be something like this:

• www.example.com/blog/this-is-a-blog-post

This is why we have such a hard time detecting the proper canonical URLs with automated tools – it really takes a deep knowledge of a site’s architecture and the builder’s intent. Don’t make assumptions based on the URL structure. You have to understand your architecture and crawl paths. If you just start stripping off URL parameters, you could cause an SEO disaster.

Case 3: The Home-page

It might seem strange to put the home page third, but the truth is that the first two cases were probably easier. Part of the problem is that home pages naturally spin out a lot of variations:

1. www.example.com
2. www.example.com/
3. www.example.com/default.html
4. www.example.com/index.php
5. www.example.com/index.php?page=about

Add in complications like secure pages (https:), and you can end up multiplying all of these variants. While this is technically true of any page, the problem tends to be more common for the home page, since it’s usually the most linked-to page (both internally and from external sites) by a large margin.
In most cases, the technically correct home-page URL is:

• http://www.example.com/

…but there are exceptions (such as if you secure your entire site). I don’t see the trailing slash (“/”) causing a ton of problems on home pages these days, since most browsers and crawlers add it automatically, but I think it’s still a best practice to use it.
Another common exception is if your site automatically redirects to another version of the home-page – ASP is notorious about this, and often lands visitors and bots at “index.aspx” or a similar page. While that situation isn’t ideal, you don’t want to cross signals. If the redirect is necessary, then the target of that redirect (i.e. the “index.aspx” URL) should be your canonical URL.
Finally, be very careful about situation #5 – in that case, as I discussed in the first section of this post, the “index.php” code template is actually driving other pages with unique content. Canonicalizing that to the root or to “index.php” could collapse your site to one page in the Google index. That particular scenario is rare these days, but some CMS systems still use it.

Case 4: Product Pages

In some ways, product pages are a lot like the blog-post pages in Case #2, except moreso. You can naturally end up with a lot of variations on an e-commerce site, including:

1. www.example.com/store.php?id=1234
2. www.example.com/store/1234
3. www.example.com/store/this-is-a-product
4. www.example.com/store.php?id=1234&currency=us
5. www.example.com/store/1234/red
6. www.example.com/store/1234/large

If you have a URL like #3, then that’s going to be your canonical URL for the product in most cases (especially #1-#3). If you don’t, then work up the list. In other words, if you have #3, use it; if not, use #2; if not #2, use #1. You have to work with the structure you have.
URLs #4-#6 are a bit trickier. Something like the currency selector in #4 can be very complicated and depends on how those selections are implemented (user selection vs. IP-based geo-location, for example). For Google’s purposes, you would typically want them to use the dominant price for the site’s audience and canonical to the main product URL (#1-#3, depending on the site architecture). Indexing every price variant, unless you have multiple domains, is just going to make your content look thinner.
With #5 and #6, the URL indicates a product variant, let’s say a T-shirt that comes in different colors and sizes. This situation depends a lot on the structure and scope of the content. Technically, your T-shirt in red/large is unique, and yet that page could look “thin” in Google’s eyes. If you have a variant or two for a handful of products, it’s no big deal. If every product has 50 possible combinations, then I think you need to seriously consider canonicalization.

Case 5: Search Pages

Now, the ugliest case of them all – internal search pages. This is a double-edged sword, since Google isn’t a fan of search-within-search (their results landing on your results) in general and these pages tend to spin out of control. Here are some examples:

1. www.example.com/search.php?topic=1234
2. www.example.com/search/this-is-a-topic
3. www.example.com/topic
4. www.example.com/search.php?topic=1234&page=2
5. www.example.com/search.php?topic=1234&page=2&sort=desc
6. www.example.com/search.php?topic=1234&page=2&filter=price

The list, unfortunately, could go on and on. While it’s natural to think that the canonical version should be #1-#3 (depending on your URL structure, just like in Case #4), the trouble is pagination. Pages 2 and beyond of your topic search may appear thin, in some cases, but they return unique results and aren’t technically duplicates. Google’s solutions have changed over time, and their advice can be frustrating, but they currently say to use the rel=prev/next tags. Put simply, these tags tell Google that the pages are part of a series.
In cases like #5-#6, Google recommends you use rel=prev/next for the pagination but then a canonical tag for the “&page=2” version (to collapse the sorts and filters). Implementing this properly is very complicated and well beyond the scope of this post, but the main point is that you should not canonicalize all of your search pages to page 1. Adam Audette has an excellent post on pagination that demonstrates just how tricky this topic is.

Know Your Crawl Paths

Finally, an important reminder – the most important canonical signal is usually your internal links. If you use the canonical tag to point to one version of a URL, but then every internal link uses a different version, you’re sending a mixed signal and using the tag as a band-aid. The canonical URL should actually be canonical in practice – use it consistently. If you’re an outside SEO coming into a new site, make sure you understand the crawl paths first, before you go and add a bunch of tags. Don’t create a mess on top of a mess.

Google Panda Algorithm Update 3.8 on 25 June 2012

Google Panda Update 3.8

Google has announced an update with the new Panda algorithm was pushed to a recent day. According to the message from Google in Twitter update "will be noticeable affects only ~ 1% of queries worldwide."
So over the weekend negotiations an update, but search giant announced the rollout was officially introduced on 25 June. And there are no updates or changes to the algorithm as it is just a basic data refresh.

The last update was pushed out Panda on 8 June and earlier 26 april. Short, Google does Panda Penguin algorithms and updates approximately every month. But the recent update of Panda took about 2 weeks ago. No doubt, Google'd a few new ideas and wanted to push a new refresh.

Anyway, the "fairness warriors" against plagiarism happy to hear news. The new Panda update is another issue for webmasters force them to create unique and quality content. But webmasters are afraid that the new algorithm will have negative impact on their websites. Perhaps some would respect Google as the search giant more used things like Panda to his own pages. What do you think of it?

How to Beat Google Penguin Update

Google’s Penguin update was meant to punish those people who do lazy SEO work in an attempt to climb the SERP by tricking the big G. There are a few things that come into play here…

What is Perfect keyword density of a page? - Matt Cutts

Google Panda VS Penguin Update

5 Tips for Create SEO Friendly URL

Every SEO eventually gets fixated on a tactic. Maybe you read 100 blog posts about how to build the “perfectly” optimized URL, and you keep tweaking and tweaking until you get it just right. Fast-forward 2 months – you’re sitting on 17 layers of 301-redirects, you haven’t done any link-building, you haven’t written any content, you’re eating taco shells with mayonnaise for lunch, and your cat is dead.

Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme. I do see a lot of questions about the "ideal" URL structure in Q&A, though. Most of them boil down to going from pretty good URLs to slightly more pretty good URLs.

All Change Is Risky

I know it’s not what the motivational speakers want you to hear, but in the real world, change carries risk. Even a perfectly executed site-wide URL change – with pristine 301-redirects – is going to take time for Google to process. During that time, your rankings may bounce. You may get some errors. If your new URL scheme isn’t universally better than the old one, some pages may permanently lose ranking. There’s no good way to A/B test a site-wide SEO change.

More often, it’s just a case of diminishing returns. Going from pretty good to pretty gooder probably isn’t worth the time and effort, let alone the risk. So, when should you change your URLs? I’m going to dive into 5 specific scenarios to help you answer that question…

(1) Dynamic URLs

A dynamic URL creates content from code and data and carries parameters, like this:

It’s a common SEO misconception that Google can’t read these URLs or gets cut off after 2 or 3 parameters. In 2011, that’s just not true – although there are reasonable limits on URL length. The real problems with dynamic URLs are usually more complex:

• They don’t contain relevant keywords.
• They’re more prone to creating duplicate content.
• They tend to be less user-friendly (lower click-through).
• They tend to be longer.

So, when are your URLs too dynamic? The example above definitely needs help. It’s long, it has no relevant keywords, the color and size parameters are likely creating tons of near-duplicates, and the session ID is creating virtually unlimited true duplicates. If you don’t want to be mauled by Panda, it’s time for a change.

In other cases, though, it’s not so simple. What if you have a blog post URL like this?

It’s technically a “dynamic” URL, so should you change it to something like:

I doubt you’d see much SEO benefit, or that the rewards would outweigh the risks. In a perfect world, the second URL is better, and if I was starting a blog from scratch I’d choose that one, no question. On an established site with 1000s of pages, though, I’d probably sit tight.

(2) Unstructured URLs

Another common worry people have is that their URLs don’t match their site structure. For example, they have a URL like this one:

...and they think they should add folders to represent their site architecture, like:

There’s a false belief in play here – people often think that URL structure signals site structure. Just because your URL is 3 levels deep doesn’t mean the crawlers will treat the page as being 3 levels deep. If the first URL is 6 steps from the home-page and the second URL is 1 step away, the second URL is going to get a lot more internal link-juice (all else being equal).

You could argue that the second URL carries more meaning for visitors, but, unfortunately, it’s also longer, and the most unique keywords are pushed to the end. In most cases, I’d lean toward the first version.

Of course, the reverse also applies. Just because a URL structure is “flat” and every page is one level deep, that doesn’t mean that you’ve created a flat site architecture. Google still has to crawl your pages through the paths you’ve built. The flatter URL may have some minor advantages, but it’s not going to change the way that link-juice flows through your site.

Structural URLs can also create duplicate content problems. Let’s say that you allow visitors to reach the same page via 3 different paths:

Now, you’ve created 2 pieces of duplicate content – Google is going to see 3 pages that look exactly the same. This is more of a crawl issue than a URL issue, and there are ways to control how these URLs get indexed, but an overly structured URL can exacerbate these problems.

(3) Long URLs

How long of a URL is too long? Technically, a URL should be able to be as long as it needs to be. Some browsers and servers may have limits, but those limits are well beyond anything we’d consider sane by SEO or usability standards. For example, IE8 can support a URL of up to 2,083 characters.

Practically speaking, though, long URLs can run into trouble. Very long URLs:

• Dilute the ranking power of any given URL keyword
• May hurt usability and click-through rates
• May get cut off when people copy-and-paste
• May get cut off by social media applications
• Are a lot harder to remember

How long is too long is a bit more art than science. One of the key issues, in my mind, is redundancy. Good URLs are like good copy – if there’s something that adds no meaning, you should probably lose it. For example, here’s a URL with a lot of redundancy:

If you have a “/store” subfolder, do you also need a “/products” layer? If we know you’re in the store/products layer, does your category have to be tagged as “featured-products” (why not just “featured”)? Is the “featured” layer necessary at all? Does each product have to also be tagged with “product-“? Are the waffles so tasty you need to say it twice?

In reality, I’ve seen much longer and even more redundant URLs, but that example represents some of the most common problems. Again, you have to consider the trade-offs. Fixing a URL like that one will probably have SEO benefits. Stripping “/blog” out of all your blog post URLs might be a nice-to-have, but it isn’t going to make much practical difference.

(4) Keyword Stuffing

Scenarios (3)-(5) have a bit of overlap. Keyword-stuffed URLs also tend to be long and may cannibalize other pages. Typically, though a keyword-stuffed URL has either a lot of repetition or tries to tackle every variant of the target phrase. For example:

It’s pretty rare to see a penalty based solely on keyword-stuffed URLs, but usually, if your URLs are spammy, it’s a telltale sign that your title tags, <h1>’s, copy, etc. are spammy. Even if Google doesn’t slap you around a little, it’s just a matter of focus. If you target the same phrase 14 different ways, you may get more coverage, but each phrase will also get less attention. Prioritize and focus – not just with URLs, but all keyword targeting. If you throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, you usually just end up with a dirty wall.

(5) Keyword Cannibalization

This is probably the toughest problem to spot, as it happens over an entire site – you can’t spot it in a single URL (and, practically speaking, it’s not just a URL problem). Keyword cannibalization results when you try to target the same keywords with too many URLs.

There’s no one right answer to this problem, as any site with a strong focus is naturally going to have pages and URLs with overlapping keywords. That’s perfectly reasonable. Where you get into trouble is splitting off pages into a lot of sub-pages just to sweep up every long-tail variant. Once you carry that too far, without the unique content to support it, you’re going to start to dilute your index and make your site look “thin”.

The URLs here are almost always just a symptom of a broader disease. Ultimately, if you’ve gotten too ambitious with your scope, you’re going to need to consolidate those pages, not just change a few URLs. This is even more important post-Panda. It used to be that thin content would only impact that content – at worst, it might get ignored. Now, thin content can jeopardize the rankings of your entire site.

Proceed With Caution

If you do decide a sitewide URL change is worth the risk, plan and execute it carefully. How to implement a sitewide URL change is beyond the scope of this post, but keep in mind a couple of high-level points:

1. Use proper 301-redirects.
2. Redirect URL-to-URL, for every page you want to keep.
3. Update all on-page links.
4. Don’t chain redirects, if you can avoid it.
5. Add a new XML sitemap.
6. Leave the old sitemap up temporarily.

Point (3) bears repeating. More than once, I’ve seen someone make a sitewide technical SEO change, implement perfect 301 redirects, but then not update all of their navigation. Your crawl paths are still the most important signal to the spiders – make sure you’re 100% internally consistent with the new URLs.

That last point (6) is a bit counterintuitive, but I know a number of SEOs who insist on it. The problem is simple – if crawlers stop seeing the old URLs, they might not crawl them to process the 301-redirects. Eventually, they’ll discover the new URLs, but it might take longer. By leaving the old sitemap up temporarily, you encourage crawlers to process the redirects. If those 301-redirects are working, this won’t create duplicate content. Usually, you can remove the old sitemap after a few weeks.

Even done properly and for the right reasons, measure carefully and expect some rankings bounce over the first couple of weeks. Sometimes, Google just needs time to evaluate the new structure

On Page SEO Elements Value

On Page SEO Elements

High value:
Title
Root domain
Body text (without keyword stuffing)

Moderate value:
meta description (for users to read)
URL path
URL filename
Alt attribute
Image filename

Low value:
Outbound anchor text
H1, H2, H3
URL parameters
Text in bold

No value:
Meta keywords (the only people looking at this are your competitors!)
HTML comment
CSS styles

Awesome Tip and Tricks for On Page SEO

On Page SEO Tips and Tricks

On Page SEO or search engine optimization is making sure that your website is as search engine friendly as possible. If your website is not optimized then you have less chance of getting good results in the search engines, here is a quick guide towards good on page SEO:

• Make sure that all of your web pages can be indexed by search engines - make sure that they all have at least one link from somewhere on your site.

• Make sure that you have unique content on every single page.

• Make sure that your meta-tags are arranged correctly - your page title tags and description tags should describe the content of your different web pages. The page title tags should be less than 68 characters and the description tags more detailed but less than 148 characters.

• Make sure you label the different headers on your web pages using H tags.

• Make sure that your web page URLs are SEO friendly, use mod re-write for Linux and Apahche hosting or use IIS redirect for Windows. Ideally make it so that the URLs describe your content i.e. use domain.com/blue-widgets.php as opposed to having something like domain.com/product.php?cat=146. Use hyphens or underscores to separate words in the URLs.

• Make sure that the links within your site are complete i.e. if you are linking to the blue widgets page link to domain.com/blue-widgets.php as opposed to just blue-widgets.php.

• Make sure that you use descriptive URLs for your images i.e. use blue-widget.jpg as apposed a bunch of numbers and or letters .jpg.

• Make sure that you label all of your images with descriptive alt attributes.

• Make sure that you make good use of anchor text links within your content - if you have a page about blue widgets, use the phrase blue widgets in the text that links to it.

• Make sure that there is only one version of your site - 301 redirect all non www. URLs to the www. ones or vice versa.

• Make sure that there is only one version of your homepage - 301 redirect the index or default page back to domain.com.

• Use the rel="nofollow" tag in the links to websites that you do not trust, you think maybe using spamming techniques or you do not want to help in the search engines.

• Make sure that your code is valid, in some instances bad code can lead to search engines not being able to properly read a page. Use the W3C validator to check your markup.

If you follow these guidelines you are on your way towards good on page SEO and to good rankings in the search engines.

Google Panda Update Version 3.7 On June 8th

Special visitors Greetings!!!! Wish all you must be experiencing your work to complete level therefore instead of taking much of your time let us begin our conversation for these days. It seems Look for engines has made the decision to remain in focus with new disputes. Where its Penguin upgrade since its beginning on Apr 24, 2012 has been experiencing experts by most of the website owners, these days again Look for engines has declared that it has presented a new upgrade in erstwhile system Look for engines Panda during last few days.

Confirming about this new upgrade in Panda resources of Look for engines advised that this new renew was combined out on May 8, 2012 and it has impacted to less than 1% of serp's in Combined Declares of The united states and 1% serp's throughout the world. The last upgrade from Look for engines, Panda 3.6 was presented 6 several weeks back on Apr 27, 2012. According to genuine resources of Look for engines, it is preparing to present up-dates to both its weaponry i.e., Panda and Penguin at frequent durations between one to two several weeks. The new upgrade is known as as Panda Update Edition 3.7. Before this other up-dates presented in Panda are 3.6, 3.5,3.4 and 3.3.

After this upgrade let us now delay for release of new upgrade in youthful brother of Panda i.e, Penguin which is predicted to soon be presented from Look for engines as revealed by Look for engines.

For last Panda Update News Click Here

Best Website Optimization Tips 2012

1. Content (Useful, informative, free, and easy to understand)

If you offer well written, original, easy to understand information, spiced up with good imagery, the chances of getting quality links, social media exposure and high spots in SERPs are bigger. The whole point of the Internet is finding useful, relevant, free information. Everything is about information. If you’re able to convey it in a manner that stands out from the crowd you’re automatically step ahead from the others in the pool.

2. Basic SEO

I vouch for the fact that you don’t have to be a SEO expert to rank your site high on Google search. Just several things to remember here:

* include meta title tags,
* optimal and natural usage of keywords,
* provide good link bait article titles,
* simple navigation through out the site,
* proper usage of H1, H2 and H3 tags,
* include sitemap,
* use Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to gain insight on what works and what’s not,
* use robots.txt file,
* proper permalink structure,
* avoid duplicate content (CMS issue),
* use canonical tags.
* read the Google SEO Starter Guide (PDF).

3. Design

You want more eyeballs on your website, and you want them to stick with it more often. Except offering quality content you’ll need some good graphics for your site. Number one tip: If you’re serious about your site don’t use free, generic template. I would go even further. Don’t use paid template that is available online for others to buy. Pay someone to design a unique website for you. It doesn’t need to be jaw dropping and very expensive. A simple, pretty enough, and unique look would be good for starters.

4. Competitors

Whatever you do, you have to be more innovative, original, have a better design, better content than your competitors. Simply try to beat the competition. Use them to learn what works for them, and what doesn’t. Don’t be antagonistic towards them. Instead try to befriend them and let them become your mentors. They rule your niche at this moment. Learn what they did in order to achieve what they are now. That doesn’t mean just to read their blogs daily, but to investigate what they are doing. Where is their presence, who is linking to them, what CMS are they using, their SEO etc.

5. Promotion

Promote your site whenever you have a chance to do it, but do not exaggerate (don’t be a spammer). Also several things to remember here:

* use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any other social platform popular at the moment,
* comment on other blogs related to your niche,
* be active on forums,
* guest post frequently on well established blogs,
* pay for ads if you really have to (Adwords).

This will certainly lead to significant exposure of your site. If you have the previous 4 points in place it’s just a matter of time when the ball starts rolling.

6. Speed

Make your site load fast as much as possible. This is important from two aspects: user experience and a SEO factor. Several things to remember:

* Use good server
* Optimize your code,
* Optimize the images,
* Use sprites,
* Use tools such as Google Speed, YSlow, Web Page Test, Pingdom,
* Gzip and minify your pages and static components where possible,
* Make your pages cacheable (both server and browser side),
* Use CDN for static content,
* If you’re using scripts, prefer asynchronous loading or place them at the bottom,
* Avoid redirects,
* Read in details what Google and Yahoo have to say about it.

7. E-mail addresses and RSS subscribers

Usually young webmasters and bloggers are overwhelmed with information and it might happen to forget to implement thing or two or they may think that some of the tips are irrelevant and not worth. So remember, capture e-mail addresses and get people to subscribe to your feed early. Two-three years from now (if you’re good) you might have 50k email list and 50k RSS Subcribers. And that is a big valuable asset. Trust me.

8. Monetization

This is the cherry on top of the cake. It’s time to gather the fruits of your labor. I’ll suggest don’t do it early. Wait some time until your blog gets traction. The possibilities are virtually endless and experimentation is the key. There are basically three main methods to get money out of your blog/site:

* Placing ads (CPC, CPM, CPA, CPV). Basically you need click, page view, action or video view in order to get paid.
* Promoting affiliate products.
* Selling you own products (ebooks, membership websites, services – design, coding, coaching, etc).